Lost & Found

Thought this was pretty cool.

Just got an email from the Coachella festival. Starts off as a typical marketing "touching base" type email, but it includes this section:

LOST & FOUND
Once again we have successfully reunited many people with their lost items. We still have an assortment of random stuff so please email info@coachella.com if you are looking for an ID, Wallet or anything else and check out these links:

Cameras: http://coachella.com/cameras.html
Keys & Misc: http://coachella.com/keysmisc.html
Bags: http://coachella.com/bags.html
Glasses: http://coachella.com/glasses.html

Each link has a photograph to numbered items from lost and found, with a note that if it's yours to email the number and something that can prove it is yours (what's inside a bag, what photos may be on a camera, etc.)

A nice little above and beyond customer service touch.

(Though I don't know how one can describe: "Hey! That's my iPod dock and charger!" in a unique way...)

Should I Stay or Should I Tow?

I'll refrain from getting into the whole story for the moment and put out another opinion poll:

Car partially obstructing a narrow driveway. Need to leave for work and can't get out without jumping the curb (if at all).


Let it stay or have it towed? Vote in the comments.

(UPDATE 7/22 -- see comments)

Checking In Outside The Box

Hustle & Flow
Alaska Airlines' Airport of the Future makes quick work of getting passengers through check-in.

The results? During my two hours of observation in Seattle, an Alaska agent processed 46 passengers, while her counterpart at United managed just 22. United's agents lose precious time hauling bags and walking the length of the ticket counter to reach customers. Alaska agents stand at a station with belts on each side, assisting one passenger while a second traveler places luggage on the free belt. With just a slight turn, the agent can assist the next customer. "We considered having three belts," White says. "But then the agent has to take a step. That's wasted time."

Alaska, then, is likely to save almost $8 million a year on the Seattle terminal if it converts customers the way it has in Anchorage. The Seattle makeover cost $28 million, a far cry from a new $500 million terminal.

(via SvN)

International Harassment, or Why AT&T Still Puts $$$ Ahead of Customer Service

Warning: Rant ahead...

Woke up at 6:30 this morning to a call on my cell. It was too early, so I let it go. Immediately rang again, but had stopped by the time I got to the phone. Immediately rang again in my hand. I noticed an unfamiliar 503 area code. Though normally I let numbers I don't know go to voicemail, I figured three in a row might be an emergency so I picked up anyways. The caller said something in Spanish. I said "wrong number" and hung up.

Mildly annoyed at the early hour, I figured I could still salvage some sleep. Seconds later it rang again. "Numero incorrecto. No hablo español" I barked in elementary Spanish that I hoped was pretty close to accurate. 10 seconds later it rang again.

Now both angry and intrigued, I got up and Googled the area code. Portland, OR.

I tried Googling the full number to get a name to go with my prank caller, at which point I realized something was odd. The number had too many digits. It wasn't Portland. It was an international call from El Salvador!

After a total of 7 calls between 6:32 and 6:35 (2 answered, 3 ignored, 2 sent to voicemail with a minute plus of silence and background noise as the message) it finally stopped and I went back to bed.

It started up again at 8:02am with 9 in a row, a short break, then 15 more between 8:25 and 8:50. These again had a mix of long blank voicemails, hangups, and long pleas to leave me alone obtained via Google Language Tools.

I thought I finally got through to them with the phrase: "Si usted llamar a este número de nuevo, estoy llamando a la policía. ¿Entiendes?" (which translates to "If you call this number again, I am calling the police. Do you understand?"). Nope. 13 more from 10:11 to 10:13. 1 more at 11:06. 8 more from 1:46 to 1:49.

When the phone rang at 1:59 I answered it ready to explode, but it was my sister asking if I knew anyone who wanted her extra Red Sox tickets. The text message to my Boston friends was only half composed when another call came in. I repeated my Spanish phrase about calling the police from memory before the caller started laughing at me.

Ready to jump out a window, I finally decided to call AT&T and have them block the incoming number for me via the switch. We used to have to call Cingular/AT&T and other carrier partners to have this performed quite a bit at Voce. It usually required a trouble ticket with a 24 hour turnaround time and tier 2 assistance, but it was definitely doable. At the rate this was going I'd be able to deal with the possibility of a long turnaround time if I knew an end was near.

After navigating an overcomplicated phone tree and waiting on hold for slightly less than I anticipated I was connected to Christina. I explained my tale to her and asked if she could have the number blocked; she said she'd certainly figure something out and diligently started her research. After a few minutes I decided to reveal that I used to work for an AT&T MVNO and it was fairly standard to do this via tier 2 but it wasn't a function of the Telegence system. She said she was reading something about it but thought they might not have that ability anymore.

A few more minutes went by and a brief time on hold, after which Christina came back and told me it was not possible to have it blocked on the switch, but I could subscribe to a new Smart Limits parental control product they had that would allow me to restrict incoming calls. Her suggestion was to activate Smart Limits for the number in question, but only for a couple weeks hoping they'd get the idea and/or get bored of pranking me. I said that would work for me so long as she could credit my bill for the prorated $4.99 for the new feature, deciding not to point out that the existence of this feature contradicts the "it's impossible to block a number" statement, instead changing it to "It's impossible to block a number for free."

She said that wasn't within her authority, but she'd ask a manager and under the circumstances it would probably be possible. After a brief stint on hold she came back to tell me unfortunately the fee couldn't be waived since I do have the free option of ignoring the call, thus it wouldn't be reasonable to provide me the credit. Personally I could care less about the 5 bucks (actually more like $2 if I only kept the feature for 10 days), but on principal I wasn't going to budge. Also, ignoring the calls wasn't really a "Free" option, as AT&T dings you for airtime whenever you check your voicemail. She agreed and went back to the manager...and was promptly shot down again. This time I was told that the option was free since I could check my voicemail from a landline free of charge (even though I don't have a landline), and thus policy couldn't be broken in this case. (In full disclosure, I also thought that I was docked minutes when a call was sent to voicemail even if I didn't answer, but she corrected me that this is only true when roaming internationally, not domestically.)

I told Christina that I appreciated her help and knew she was just doing her job, but found it ridiculous that AT&T cared more about making $5 then helping out a loyal customer with perfect payment history and no complaints on an overpriced plan. She asked me if I was asked to take a survey would I say she solved my problem; I told her I'd say she was excellent but her employer was questionable as usual.

I understand policies exist for a reason. And I know that a good number of customers will try to game them anytime they can. If I had a recurrent prank calling problem involving multiple numbers or if I was complaining about a stalker or a jilted ex who wouldn't stop bothering me I can see the company holding firm to a degree. But there is gray area in everything, and each example should be viewed on a case by case basis. 60 calls from the same international number in 6+ hours sounds like extenuating circumstances, and you won't waive less than five damn dollars off of someone's bill one time for them to try out a brand new cash cow of a feature for 2 weeks? You've got to be kidding me.

PS: Ironically, it's now 3:30 and I haven't received a call from the bad number in over 90 minutes. Maybe Christina did block it for me afterall...

PPS: Why am I protecting the identity of a foreign prank caller? The number in question is 50379118478

PPPS: Looking at my AT&T account and looking at my live bill, it's dropping the last digit from the number to make it appear to be domestic. Ironically enough, in this configuration it's also labeled as a free Mobile to Mobile call :)

PPPPS: And yes, I do feel better after writing this.

[END RANT]

ATA Bankruptcy

I found the contrast between the celebratory anniversary banner at the top of the website and the content immediately beneath it to be quite amusing:

ATA Airlines Discontinues All Operations

Helpful Help

This might be one of the worst website help articles I've ever encountered. I know MySpace shouldn't be required or expected to teach basic html to their users, but a little effort via description or simple tools would go a long way.

How do I add color, graphics, & sound to my MySpace Profile page?

• Simply go to "Edit Profile"
  
• Enter the desired HTML or CSS coding where appropriate.
  
• If you do not know HTML or CSS, you can reach out and make a new friend by asking someone who has color, graphics, and/or sound on their Profile page how they did it. People on MySpace are friendly and always willing to help, so just ask! This is a great way to meet new people!
  

The Do Not What List?

This is great just for how brazenly ridiculous their loose interpretation is:

DirecTV Telemarketing

DirecTV is defending automated sales calls to Do Not Call List subscribers as "informational," and "not telemarketing." The satellite TV provider recently called customers to say: "Because you are on our Do Not Call List, we can't call you with all of our super-awesome special promotions."

Link includes letter to a customer from DirecTV lawyer explaining the reasoning:

Since our calls were informational in nature, and not telemarketing sales calls, they fall outside the scope of the Telemarketing Sales Rule and related federal and state laws and regulations governing telemarketing sales practices. As such, our calls did not violate any of these statutes or regulations.

Know When To Say No

Cool SvN post on how to innovate by staying true to your ideas and not being bullied into being something you're not.

How opinionated companies get customers to live without floppy drives, assigned seats, credit cards, etc.

Examples from the story:

Southwest
"...in the case of Southwest Airlines, customers who value more of the amenities, policies, and procedures of the legacy carriers aren’t ever going to be passionate about Southwest. Customers who are passionate about Southwest don’t just value the low fares that open seating supports, but have come to expect and enjoy the organized chaos that the experience involves."

Apple
If you simply had to have a floppy drive, then that new iMac was no good for you.

ING
You want to open an account with a million dollars? Please find another bank. “Rich Americans are used to platinum cards, special services,” Kuhlmann told me. “The last thing we want in this bank is to have rich people making special demands. We treat everybody the same, which is how we keep things simple.”

Sprint Gives Heisman

Hilarious, brilliant, CSRs dream, and PR nightmare rolled into one. I still can't believe they went through with this, especially given the suspect criteria used.

Sprint breaks up with high-maintenance customers
On June 29, 2007, Sprint sent letters notifying some customers that their service would be canceled by the end of July due to excessive calls to customer service.

"Our records indicate that over the past year, we have received frequent calls from you regarding your billing or other general account information," the letter reads. "While we have worked to resolve your issues and questions to the best of our ability, the number of inquiries you have made to us during this time has led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs."

Part II: Apple vs. AT&T - The Activation

We all love cell phone activations, right?

It seems like in the past I've spent more time than I care to in the store when I purchase a phone.

With iPhone in hand, I went home to complete the activation. I had already downloaded iTunes 7.3 in the morning, so I was ready to go.

Unwrapping new Apple products is always a pleasure. They focus on the design, the packaging and how it feels. And I've always noticed that for 1st generations they put much more effort into it. (If you ever bought a first gen iPod, you'll know what I mean).

I plug the phone into the dock, connect to my computer and I'm off and running in iTunes. 5-6 pages later I arrive at the "Complete Your Activation" screen. I'm told it may take up to 3 minutes.

I wait, and wait. And then receive a messages that says "You will receive an email confirmation once your activation is complete." WTF?

Now I have to wait for email confirmation. This can't be Apple. So, I call the 800 number on the screen.

I still don't know if it was an Apple rep or AT&T rep, but the phone rings twice and is picked up - no waiting. Clearly those extra 2000 staffers made a difference. And amazingly the woman was very pleasant and easy to understand. I suspect that the rep was from AT&T, but it was a specially staffed iPhone 800 number. It was just too good for a regular carrier.

Apparently, AT&T is backlogged in new activation requests and it may take 24 hours to receive an email. Keep in mind, that NO iTunes syncing can occur until after your phone has been activated. So, basically I can't even use the phone.

Many compulsive email refreshes later, I receive the email, and my phone starts syncing. I had already setup preferences to sync contacts, calendar, personal email account, songs, photos, and a couple tv shows.

In summary, the activation experience (aside from the waiting) was awesome. I did it all in the course of 5 minutes from my computer.

Word on the internet, is that if you were porting a number from another carrier, the WAIT is much longer.

So, it appears that Apple's design experience and server available were top-notch. AT&T needs to figure out how to activate phones quicker.

Apple vs. AT&T

So, did I get an iPhone yesterday? Read and see.

The Logic
I decided to wait in line at the local AT&T rather than the Apple Store. My reasoning was that the lines were a lot longer at the Apple Store. 300 in my neighborhood vs. 100 at AT&T. And Apple was allowing two phone purchases per person while AT&T was allowing only one.

The AT&T Experience
I had a late work meeting, so I didn't get to AT&T until around 5pm. At that point, I was about 95th in line. The mood of the crowd was reasonably happy, no one here had been waiting for days.

Fast forward to 6pm and the doors open. The line moves up a bit as people crowd forward, but from then on moves VERY slowly. We finally get to a window where we can see inside the store and they have 10-12 stations, but the computers are moving VERY slowly, and it seems to take 10-15 minutes just to get one person done. Apparently, they're doing FULL credit checks.

They won't say much about inventory, but say we should get a phone though it may not be 8GB. This continues for around an hour and a half. Then at around 7:30pm, they say that there's a very low chance we'll get the 8s based on where we're at in line. I waiver, and decide to wait a bit more time. At 7:50pm (with 40 people still ahead of me), they say they're out of 8s and MAY not have any 4s available by the time it reaches me.

To hell with that. I resign myself to trying tomorrow, but decide on a lark to walk down to the Apple Store on the Promenade.

The Apple Experience
I get to the Apple Store at around 8pm. The line has about 150 people. But, it would seem to be moving fairly quickly. There are 10x as many police and the mood is much more festive.

Rumor passes through the line, that there's still plenty of iPhones, both 4s and 8s. But, the Apple employees while nice, won't confirm.

Meanwhile, there's free Starbucks coffee samples AND they start passing out water bottles to people in line.

Every 10-15 min. they're letting in groups of 30 people at a time. They're cruising through.

Around 9pm, about 15 Apple employees clap and cheer as I walk through the doors. I'm siked to hear that they still have the 8s in stock. Going through the in-store line, Apple employees are letting us play with iPhones while we wait to get to a register.

I'm up, I want an 8, and they're done in 3 min. I HAVE the iPhone!

The Moral
When faced with a choice to wait in line at an AT&T or Apple Store. Choose the Apple Store if you want free water.

New GMaps Feature is the Holy Grail!

Neil sent me a text about this tonight, and I actually left a restaurant early to come home and play with it. (True that double true.)



Hmm, I'd rather take the 405...



Wait, what am I thinking. Surface streets make more sense...



Un-flipping believable!

Play with it here

Become Famous on Google Streets

So, by now you've already heard of Google Street View that was officially announced at the Where 2.0 conference:

Google Maps Street View and Mapplets

However, what I didn't think about was the potential for Google's cameras to find people and things in weird situations. Here's an article on 10 weird sitings:

10 Bizarre Sights in Google Street View

I like the Borat one.

Now, if I can just find out when the Google van is going to visit my neighborhood.

Google Maps Becomes Friendly to Local Businesses

I'm sure you guys will have seen this by the time you're reading.

Google is finally starting to do SiteSearch like things with Google Maps (photos, payment methods, websites, etc.)

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/photos-on-google-maps.html

And they've even added the ability for businesses to offer coupons directly in their business entries:

http://google.com/local/add/coupons?hl=en-US&gl=US

Money from Home

How flippin' cool is this?

USAA Federal Savings Bank Allows Customers to Send Deposits Electronically from Home

"Starting today, home banking takes on a whole new meaning for members of USAA Federal Savings Bank ("USAA"). USAA is now the largest nationwide bank to offer an easy-to-use, secure new service that enables its customers to deposit checks into their bank accounts using a scanner and an Internet connection."

How The Maps Are Made

Interesting article on the behind the scenes world of online map database making and techniques. Too bad they chose the worst one for the title ;)

Map Quest

Some interesting tidbits:

-Williams stares at his email inbox: a solid wall of news alerts from Yahoo and Google. His search terms aren't the usual fare, like "Hilary Duff." They're more like "Tulsa city one-way" – queries that will help Williams track down announcements of road changes reported by local newspapers. Today has been slow, but suddenly he lights up. An email has arrived containing a newspaper report that a particular one-way road segment in northwest Indiana is changing from westbound to eastbound. Sweet!

-GDT acquired detailed aerial photography of major cities. "We could look at a street and see which way cars were parked, even tire rubber going into intersections, and deduce 85 percent of the turn restrictions and one-way attributes,"

-"We've had projects with pizza-delivery companies where we've printed out for them a big wall map of their 30-minute delivery area. The guys mark things that are wrong and send it back to us," says former GDT president Mike Gerling, who now heads Tele Atlas' North American division.

Can't See The Target

From Consumerist, via LifeHacker:

The image with the article is priceless...

Target Still Being Sued For Having Website Blind Can't See

"The class action brought by the ADA on behalf of Bruce 'BJ' Sexton, a student in California, contends that Target.com is problematic for blind people because, "alt-text is missing from images, preventing screen readers from describing them to blind users; purchases cannot be completed without a mouse because keyboard controls do not work; image maps are inaccessible; and headings are missing that are needed to navigate."

For a blind person, Brian can sure see bad web design darn good."

Smart Phone

Another one courtesy of SvN (aren't they all these days? I'm starting to feel like a plagiarist when I'm inspired by my RSS list...):

Cooper Consulting does their conceptual take on a better UI for an office telephone. Brilliant and long overdue. How much of a pain in the butt is figuring out (and correctly performing) common tasks like conference calls, call transfers, or even navigating voicemail on a typical office phone or cell phone? Too bad it's not real.

Once again it makes me want to wax nostalgic about how far ahead of our time we were with web based phone switch integration, shortening the complicated key presses for iNetBlind call transfers into an elegant "highlight-->right click-->listen for ring-->click ok to confirm" experience.

And speaking of phones, who was the moron who decided 9 should access an outside line when it means virtually every call from an office phone will start with 9-1, giving good odds of a single miscue to reach the emergency operator? I must be losing my touch, since I can't find an intelligent answer to this question anywhere on the Internet.

Google Mobile with Real-Time Traffic

For those of you with a cell phone that runs Java-based apps, check out this new version of Google mobile.

http://www.google.com/gmm (you can browse to this from your phone)

"Real-time traffic: New! See where the congestion is, and estimate delays in over 30 major US metropolitan areas."

Dumping Unprofitable Customers

Cingular has an entire theorum - complete with fancy metrics charts and cold calculations - on how to determine "customer value".