While doing various demos with clients I can’t help but notice one scary trend. Client usually checks the demo page from his or hers computer, prepares a list of issues and then we meet to go over them. A lot of clients complain right off the start that their web site doesn’t look exactly like it should or behaves strangely. The reason, of course is not the fact that the web sites we designed aren’t compatible with their browsers, but their browsers being dramatically out of date.

There were so many times when this had happened, it actually became one of the internal internet memes. The phrase “but this is a brand new computer, we only bought it year and a half ago” isn’t that funny anymore. People are becoming increasingly overprotective of their computers, calling them their “friends” and “babies” – “my baby is sick, can you fix it”, “my dear friend have been acting strange lately, maybe he’d caught a virus or something”.

Worse yet, when you point to those issues you face further complaints that you are trying to avoid your responsibilities and you should make web site work with any browser on Earth. While in general it is true, the task is all but impossible – try stuffing that intro flash movie down the throat of Lynx and you will get the idea . Or, more realistic scenario – the famous Internet Explorer 6.0, that some people still think is good enough browser. In fact, according to statistics on my most traffic-heavy clients’ web sites the IE 6 is 4th most popular browser, after IE 7, IE 8 and Firefox (all versions).

Unfortunately, quite a few things are simply impossible to achieve in this world. One of them is the browser compatibility. However, there’s a pretty good chance that if you make something look critical and urgent and very important overall – people would listen, look and take action.

So from now on if you venture to this web site using one of the older browsers (Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox are supported at the moment) you will see a bright yellow bar on the top of the page saying that your browser is old and needs to be updated with a link to a page where you can choose what to do as well as a link to page where I explain why it is important to keep the browser up to date. If you are using the latest and greatest but just anxious to to see what the page looks like – feel free to look here: http://www.istudioweb.com/browser-information/.

UPS Troubles

Just when I was about to write how our local UPS office picked up the ball after main office dropped it – they blew it above the sky. Hour later I got a call from our local UPS office and nice lady promised that driver would contact me about an hour before dropping off my package AND drop-off will happen after five. Well, I said, thank you, this really saves me a lot of trouble.

I got home something before six o’clock and find a third UPS InfoNotice flying on the floor. Which means that driver didn’t call me, at least I haven’t seen any missed calls on my phone. Tough luck, I said, and drove my 30 minutes to UPS pickup location. Today was a lights-on day, since the garbage truck garage across from UPS yard was lit to its fullest. Nice teamwork! Got inside at around 9:30pm – and the line was worse than those at the airport on Thanksgiving. In just under 30 minutes I got to the clerk who grabbed my InfoNotice and went after my package. In about two minutes he emerged back only to tell me that… they lost my package. “It’s somewhere in the building, we just can’t find it”. Nice. The guy seemed upset that I came over for the missing package and I kind of agreed that I was better off picking up the package that wasn’t missing. But this is life and my package that UPS was trying to deliver three times got lost. Guess it got upset too.

Now to the brighter part. Few hours after I’ve published the previous post I got a comment from UPS’s PR lady. I held off the comment until I came back from pickup to at least say that the problem got resolved. Well it’s not and it’s not actually my problem. Here’s why.

UPS is best if you order something to the location where you are present during business hours. These guys probably great for serving businesses and all, but regular folks who work day jobs and hope they can get their stuff after hours get sidestepped. I’d rather take my wife to a movie or take her out on a Friday night than spend hour and half picking up stuff that was supposed to be delivered three days ago. So, here my words to Debbie, who wrote “you’ve really had a hassle with this shipment“. Debbie, I hadn’t had a hassle. It’s the way UPS works for all who can’t schedule a delivery to their work address. That’s the kind of service (or rather lack of it) that all those people in line at 10PM on Friday night are getting. It would be just honest to state right there on your brown web site: “We’re doing business from 9 to 5. If you want to pick up your stuff any other time – come and get it yourself, you loosers”.

Rant mode off. Debbie, this is still for you, though. The economy is tough, and if tomorrow someone’s gonna start a shitstorm on Twitter about how not to use UPS but use FedEx or USPS instead – you gonna have a problem. I don’t depend on UPS in my ways of doing business, but I have plenty of clients who do and they aren’t all that satisfied either. Here’s the moment of opportunity and innovation for UPS. Google the term “cell phone”. I’ve heard they’re good in establishing a two-way communication between two people, in your case – the driver and dispatch. You can also google “blackberry” and “gps phone”. Sending one-way messages to driver’s pager is so last century. Call those guys at Sprint, AT&T or Verizon, get a contract. I’m sure with tough times like these you will have an upper hand in negotiation a good deal. Next step – map your drivers. Know exactly where they are any time of the day. If you need someone to do it for you – hire me, I can get this done for you. Next step (here comes the trick!) – ask your customers when they want their package delivered. Seriously. For real. Don’t just game the numbers (“we deliver more packages…”), but actually deliver them. When customers want. Here’s how: you have live traffic maps (Google does it as well as other providers) plus you have exact location of each of your drivers. You can minimize their time driving by reshaping their route in real time according to traffic patterns. This means less gas burned, less time wasted, less destinations visited multiple times. With the money saved ask a quarter of your drivers to work second shift – from 2pm to 11pm. You won’t need many people because I imagine most of the deliveries would still be within 8 to 6 time frame. You already charge a bit more for residential deliveries, so here’s a way to put those extras plus whatever you saved to good use. This will unload the 8 to 6 schedule somewhat and reduce return trips. I’m sure you can have your own quality improvement department cough up the real numbers to do the math. But in addition to this all – you will get a customer satisfaction beyond any imaginable level. Which means – more business for your company. Isn’t it a win-win?

We love UPS, don’t we? Last week I ordered something for my wife and the package got shipped by UPS. Guess what? UPS excels again. After I have missed the delivery for two times because I was working at the same time UPS delivers packages (sorry, my fault), I have called UPS to either arrange the pickup or ask them to deliver the package at a more convenient time.

That’s when the fun starts. In case you live in the UPS local center you should know that annoying female voice that reads all the voice prompts. I needed the customer service rep, but she insisted on choosing either to track a package or order shipments. Once you concede – she will read you the status of the package. Hm… let’s see… I know what the status is, that’s exactly why I am calling! Let’s try to ask for customer service again. “I can connect you, but this is the latest information on your package that we have“. Right, why else would I want to talk to the operator – to find out if UPS is hiding the status of the package. Black helicopters, anyone?

The operator was slow enough not to realize what exactly am I asking of him. Once he told me the UPS will call me to notify of the time I will be able to pick up the package I asked where would I be picking it up – at home or at local UPS? I asked this question no less than six times, only to be told that (these are actual responses to my question, I omitted repetitions only):

• The UPS will call me
• I will receive the call from UPS within an hour
• I could be anywhere to receive the call
• UPS drivers leave early in the morning before anyone else is up
• all UPS drivers drive UPS trucks
• UPS drivers come back to local station around 6 PM
• the UPS will call me to arrange pickup

This guys is a genius, I think he’s a next UPS’s CEO. Too bad no one cares about UPS’s customer service for individuals.

Following up on the story I started here and here and since I haven’t heard from Advantage Rent-A-Car for two weeks, I decided to give them a call before disputing this through a charge back. After just 15 minutes on hold I got to talk to yet another rep that immediately told me that my contract didn’t exist. Thanks, I know that much already, all I need to find out now is under which contract you charged my card. Fortunately, she was able to locate the contract the money were charged to and things started rolling again. I was given a “manager’s personal fax number” (that was wrong, of course) and instructed to fax all the documents again to that number. The regular “we will call you back in 24 to 48 hours” cued in. After I figured the fax number was wrong it only took me another 22 minutes of hold time to reach them back and find out what the right number is. No big deal, right? In addition to the documents I have decided to document the whole story (the copy is below).

To much of my surprise someone from Advantage Rent-A-Car actually called me next day. Imagine that! I was told that they have recalculated my rates and the final amount would be something around 20 dollars less than the amount on the receipt I have. However, the representative declined the responsibility for overcharging my account. Overall I had a feeling she thinks she’s doing me a favor.

Therefore I guess the issue is resolved. I will try my best to avoid Advantage Rent-A-Car given how horrible their service is and how time consuming it is dealing with this company. Please understand – I am still at a loss here, since aside from the overdraft of the account I had to spend a few hours waiting on hold, dealing with ARAC customer service and so on.

Below is the text I had included with the documents from my car rental for Advantage Rent-A-Car.

The following contract is the only receipt I have so far for the Advantage Rent-A-Car rental that has occurred between May 24^th to May 31^st. As you can see the amount on the receipt is $XXX.xx whereas the amount that was billed to the card is $ZZZ.zz. Overcharging the account has also resulted in bank fees for funds overdraft.

The reservation was first made through Expedia.com. After 40 minutes waiting for shuttle to pick us up I have arrived at ARAC location near the Orlando International Airport. I wanted to upgrade the rental to a better car – Ford Mustang, of which a contract has been prepared by customer service rep. At the time of creating the contract I have declined personal insurance but kept the insurance that would cover the car.

At the time of loading my luggage into the car I have discovered that the car was infested with ants. I have quickly removed my luggage from the infested car and asked for a replacement. The car I was given (Toyota Avalon) was showing rusted spots. It also had mechanical issues at the speeds higher then 35 mph which were obviously impossible to spot while driving through parking lot to the exit.

Upon agreeing on the car the customer service rep decided to amend the receipt by hand writing on the existing contract instead of printing out a new one. At this moment the overall time spent at the Advantage Rent-A-Car facility was about one hour, which is about four times longer than any other rental car agency I have dealt with so far.

At the exit gate of the Advantage Rent-A-Car parking lot the security guard stated that the contract is wrong, but he’s going to let us through anyway because he’s tired of diverting people back to the office.

The car was returned on May 31^st, at which moment I was called into the reception area because of “some problems with contract”. After waiting just short of 20 minutes, I was told that the contract I had all along is wrong and not valid. A customer service representative spent another 20 minutes trying to enter a new contract into system, but for some reason was unable to do so. Another Advantage Rent-A-Car representative, who I believe was a manager, asked the rep who was working on our contract to draft one on a hand-written form to be able to let us go in order not to miss the plane, since the total time we have spent there was approaching one hour. The form was prepared by Advantage Rent-A-Car representative and signed by me. This is the only receipt I have in regards to this rental. I was also assured by Advantage Rent-A-Car customer service representative that $XXX.xx would be the final charge that should appear on the credit card statement.

Since Advantage Rent-A-Car failed to produce any other receipts that confirm that I had a rental agreement with Advantage Rent-A-Car/SimplyWheelz, I understand that the $XXX.xx is the final charge I am responsible for. Having my credit card charged for a greater amount resulted in overdraft of funds, and me incurring additional bank penalties of $68.00. Therefore the following charges are disputed:

Rental overcharge in the amount of:                                       $65.24
Bank fees resulted in account being overcharged:                      68.00
Total disputed: $133.24

On June 3^rd, 2009 I have called Advantage Rent-A-Car customer servce and spoke with representative called Denise. She asked me to fax the receipt and bank statement showing the overdraft charges to the fax # (800) 654-9925, which I did at around 3:40pm – 3:50pm same day. Denise promised that someone from billing department would get back to me within 24 to 48 hours period. Today is June 16, 2009 and I haven’t head anyone calling me with this issue.

I would like this issue resolved promptly and completely as soon as possible. So far Advantage Rent-A-Car customer service hasn’t demonstrated that they have any concern for the clients whatsoever. Hope you can break this impression and straighten things out.

There’s no doubt about various companies struggling in times of financial crisis. There is also little argument about lowered consumer spending. So if you want to keep doing business you have to provide an outstanding customer service to keep clients and to attract new ones – and that has to be just a part of overall picture.

Enter Advantage Rent-A-Car, where I booked my vacation’s car rental through Expedia. Upon  arriving at Orlando International Airport I was trying to figure out where’s their desk, since itinerary didn’t show anything about them. Finally I figured it’s out of terminal location (my bad, didn’t read the fine print) and nice electronic voice on the courtesy phone told me that there are Advantage Rent-A-Car shuttle buses every 10 minutes departing every 10 minutes from one of four locations at the terminal.

There were a few people in that location already, but they were quickly picked up by two other car rental shuttles. Then those shuttles came again. Then again. The Advantage Rent-A-Car representative told another waiting couple over the phone that they have four buses out there. As we found out later – he didn’t lie, we saw other three buses peacefully standing on their designated parking spots when we finally were picked up – 30 minutes later! Well, spending 30 minutes under Florida sun isn’t all that bad experience – but I rather do it on the beach, than all dressed up at the airport.

Upon arrival at Advantage Rent-A-Car off-the-terminal location (a convenient 15 minute drive, keep adding travel time) we were greeted by a couple of sales representatives who quickly distributed people among themselves. We’ve got nice young lady who were indeed very friendly. In fact, one thing good about this location is that reps are friendly. They obviously poorly trained and lazy, but at least they’re friendly. We picked gray Ford Mustang with black interior, just to have a bit more fun, turning down more bland cars. All formalities are done (took twice as long since there was this “one system not talking to another system” excuse that I keep hearing for the past few years pretty much everywhere), we started to loading our stuff into the car… only to noticed that this car is infested with ants. Ants were everywhere – in the trunk, in the salon, even coming and going through speakers on the door. They were hard to spot against black interior, but once you saw them – you saw them. Quickly, we got out.

Our nice young lady greeted the sad news with “Oh, our pet got away”. Still not sure what it means, but at the moment I translated that as “Too bad you found out while you’re still in our parking lot”. When pointed out there’s been enough problems with Advantage Rent-A-Car’s customer service already, we asked for another car. However, all they had to offer was either Toyota Avalon or Mercury Grand Marquise. With all the skills we couldn’t pretend to be 80-year olds, so we picked Toyota (is there a more bland car?). The lady, apparently tired of such demanding customers, didn’t even bother to reprint the registration, making some simple hand-written alterations to the previous ones while promising she would come with us to the security guard to let us through. Aside from one of the drivers who parked his bus right in front of our parked car (even though he saw us loading the car), there were no other issues we’ve encountered. We drove off to the gate.

When we were exiting the gate, the was no lady in sight. In fact, the guard admitted that he already diverted back quite a few people who’s registration wasn’t correct or some other issues with paperwork, but he’s just going to let us through, because he’s bored with people in the office doing stuff wrong. So we took off to our resort.

The car we got isn’t quite a pick either. Don’t know what happened to it before, but it jerks on the road a bit, like it’s transmission has run over 200K miles. The speedometer shows only 45K which is okay for a year-old rental, but the car sure doesn’t feel like it. Has dentures and benders on driver’s door, rubber pieces falling off here and there. Not exactly the experience I had with other companies.

My overall experience with Advantage Rent-A-Car in just a single day showed that this is a company that shouldn’t be trusted with your vacation trip. If you just need a box on a wheels to get from one meeting to another – it may suffice (given you’re not gonna get an anthill with it), but if you’re planning to enjoy your ride – pick something else, just don’t go with Advantage Rent-A-Car company.

Last week the Crunch gym that was conveniently located downstairs in the same building where I work suddenly moved. E-mail came in on Tuesday stating that starting Tuesday the gym is located within 15 minutes from the previous place, everybody’s welcome. Now, that’s what I call a good customer service (note: this is the case of heavy use of irony).

Crunch offered 3 months of free membership while at the same time upgrading the existing members of that location to all-locations membership at the previous discounted rate. However, a 20 minute travel eats out of workout time, not work time. I got concerned and started visiting other nearby gyms – to see if I have any alternative.

The closest one was NY Health & Racquet Club. Conveniently located within 3 minutes of walking time, it was an obvious choice. The drawbacks were a bit messy appearance, a bit too crowded cardio floor and narrow staircases between gym floors. However, nice sales reps, swimming pool with jacuzzi and attendants in the locker rooms made up for it.

Next on my list was the other Crunch location (where they actually moved to). I figured if I could work out after hours, it might be still better, plus I got a bit lower rate. However, lack of the pool, just the same amount of mess and cardio machines packed a little too tight made that a “NO”. Additionally, there was no guarantee that this new gym would not go yet another place overnight again.

Another one, within about 5 – 6 minute walking distance, was NYSC – New York’s sub-network of of a larger network of sports clubs. Being regarded as “Manhattan’s Bally’s” the gym truly stood out – in a bad way. I’ve spent about 10 minutes waiting for someone to come up to me and at least greet a potential client. Cleaning lady seemed to be the friendliest person to be found, as she was asking if I needed anything to dry out (I came in from the rainy outside without an umbrella). Ten minutes later the sales rep appeared, but figuring I am coming from corporate account he’s got nothing to sell me, he quickly vanished again, saying that another guy will take care of me and show me around. That another guy was, actually, a nice person, but having waited for him yet another 10 minutes while he was finishing the conversation with his colleague was in no way fun. I don’t know how traders react (the gym is located right on Wall Street), but I had enough patience to actually wait out till the end. He showed me around briefly, but I already disliked the place – because of the customer service. I don’t ask for much, but a simple courtesy of not wasting my 20 minutes on just waiting – that’s too much. Also, sales reps were boasting about having a pool as being a privilege of off-the-work gyms, rather than ones that are in the city. Too bad, as a sales person is such a dense area you should know your competition better. It really doesn’t cost a cent to send someone down the Broadway to check out three other gyms on the street. Takes one person less then 2 hours.

So there I was, left pretty much with only one choice on the list – New York Health & Racquet Club. The gym won without really trying, with their old-fashioned approach when sales woman talks to the guy and sales guy talks to female client definitely had added more positive influence (I liked that sweet girl that showed me around), the gym with the pool in Downtown Manhattan is definitely a plus and it’s the closest one I have found.

Now why all the trouble if I could’ve just went to NYHRC and not waste my time on gym visits? Well, for one – I am serious about my workout and I really do put a lot of time and effort into it. So I want a place where I would want to go to, with good atmosphere. Second – I workout during the day, so I need to spend on “other stuff” (like waiting for showers, equipment, lockers, etc.) as less time as possible, maximizing the workout time – this ruled out new Crunch location. Third – I want nice people around me. Most gyms in Manhattan keep a certain level of professionalism, where they treat the client as a decent human being. I haven’t seen that at NYSC.

Overall, I spent less than 2 hours on all three gyms, did my homework and made the best decision I could – based on what people who wanted to sell me a membership had showed me. What does your sales person actually show to your prospective clients?

You will be surprised, but the obvious

Dim arrChars(10) As Char
Dim strString As String
strString = "ABCDEFGHIK"
arrChars = strString.ToCharArray
strString = arrChars.ToString

Will not yield the same string as there was before. It will, rather, return “Char[]” response. To get your string back from Char Array (at least in VB.NET 2.0) you will need to call CStr on array:

Dim arrChars(10) As Char
Dim strString As String
strString = "ABCDEFGHIK"
arrChars = strString.ToCharArray
strString = Cstr(arrChars)

Funny, isn’t it? And totally counter-intuitive

Just a transcript, nothing else. Last e-mail was the best!

On the following question:

Message: Is there any documentation for setting up a merchant account
payment method as a way for buyer to pay for my listed item? I have a
merchant account and would like to process payments through that instead
of through other means.
Also, I would appreciate any guidelines on best practices for the
implementation of merchant account payment method.
Thanks a lot!

I’ve got the reply:

Dear eBay Member,
Thank you for writing eBay in regard to makign merchant account as the
payment method on your listing.
If you don’t see the “Merchant Account – Credit Card” option in the Sell
Your Item form, please click the “Show/Hide Options” icon in the upper
right corner of the Create Your Listing page. You may select to show
that option under the “Payment” heading.
Additionally, a merchant credit card processing account allows
businesses to offer their buyers the option of paying directly with a
credit card online (including through third-party checkout) or by phone.
The accounts are offered by many third-party providers such as banks or
credit unions.
If you have any questions, please get back to us or contact our live
chat support. To reach Live Help for assistance on billing issues, go
to:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/livehelp-billing.html
Thank you for being a valuable member of the eBay community. Have a
wonderful time shopping and selling on eBay!
Sincerely,
Ian S.
eBay Customer Support

This doesn’t answer almost anything, so I ask again:

Ian,
Thanks for your prompt reply. I have found the option under Add or
remove options in payment options section.
Also, if I want buyers just to click the button and be presented with
screen to enter their payment information – how would I accomplish this?
Should I just create a “Buy” button that would redirect them to a
shopping cart of my choice or is there any other way? Would this be in
line with eBay policies?
Please let me know.
Thanks!

And – tada! – here comes the best answer of 2009:

Dear <Member Name or Member ID>,

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to <issues>

It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing eBay.

Anyone else thinks eBay cares?

Everyone is talking about usability, it seemed to be a hot topic recently, but thanks to the crisis everybody seem not to care. I have covered some usability ideas in the past, but it just turned around and bit me in the back – again!

Yesterday I was paying my bills. By the way, just imagine how much of on open market is paying bills – banks play there, credit card operators play there, ISPs play there and still it isn’t a single way of doing things. But I digress. I headed to Banana Republic’s web site since I didn’t have a direct link to credit cards account login page. Click on Credit Card all the way at the bottom of the site. Redirected to a secure portion of Banana Republic’s site. Good. Now let me see where’s my account. Click on the big button with “HAVE A CARD?” question next to GET A CARD button (BTW, did you notice that it’s all ONE IMAGE MAP? With another huge image map below?). Imagine this – a new pop-up window opens, with totally random URL in it. The onlinecreditcenter6.com seem to be the flavor du jour, courtesy of GE Money Bank (has anyone heard about GE Water Bank? GE Blood Bank? GE Sperm bank?). Alright – no questions for GAP brands, let’s bash look at GE.

Aside from modern and very inconvenient way to log in the user (first you have to provide login only, then either answer two personal questions or provide password and identify an image), the whole idea of opening a new window with new URL seems strange. We seem to fight phishing wich partially based on deceiving the unsuspecting user that this new URL is the one he needs to visit – and you get something like this? No wonder banks keep being hit. And why do I need to provide a login only?

To protect your security, we ask for only your User ID to initiate access to your account. Then we show you the Personalized Image you selected before asking you to enter your Password. We do this to help prevent phishing, and to ensure your confidence that you have accessed the correct website for your account.

Right. With the proliferation of social networks it’s much easier to gather personal information about someone rather then guess somebody’s password. But nobody seem to care anyway.

But the turning point (and the reason for this blog post) occured a bit later. After filling all the fields to make a payment and clicking MAKE PAYMENT button, script found that I’ve made a mistake entering a date. Turned out I typed 2008 instead of 2009. Alright, I am not asking to fix such an obvious mistake for me, but WHY DID YOU JUST RESET ALL THE ENTERED INFORMATION? Instead of paying full amount I just made a minimum payment. And no – you can’t reverse it or make another payment today.

Now back to initial question – why would you care? It’s simple – because things like this matter in your personal and business life. It used to be 30 minutes to pay all of my bills – utilities, credit cards, etc. I use special software that opens login links for me, types in my passwords for me and submits it for me. The advantage is that I use one VERY complicated password to manage other VERY complicated passwords to my accounts – instead of remembering a bunch of simple ones). So with a single mouse click I can get right into account information screen. With modern ways to log in (that are just as prone to phishing as old ones) I spend over 2 hours for same amount of activities. An impact is kind of obvious.

The time is not the only concern here. It would take a really small distraction for the difference in amounts paid to go unnoticed. Next thing you know – you think the credit card is paid in full while it’s not. And we all know what a credit card company can do if you missed a payment.

Usability isn’t some form of useless science. It’s something that directly affects us in everyday life. The way we pay our bills. The way we interact with things. The way we achieve our goals.

As you already know, I have no love for US Postal Service. In fact, I almost expected something like this to happen soon. Crisis makes all kinds of shady deals get more shady.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Massive deficits could force the post office to cut out one day of mail delivery, the postmaster general told Congress on Wednesday, in asking lawmakers to lift the requirement that the agency deliver mail six days a week.

If the change happens, that doesn’t necessarily mean an end to Saturday mail delivery. Previous post office studies have looked at the possibility of skipping some other day when mail flow is light, such as Tuesday.

So if you were wondering – what does it take for a commercial entity to make money, now you have a clear answer. You have to do less work. Less work – more money. Got it?