Archive for the ‘technical support’ Category

User forums are state-of-the-art tech support

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

I wrote on this topic last year, but it is truer now than it was then.

Earlier today I had a question on something I was trying to do with Excel (exchange rows and columns on a spreadsheet). Several queries into the Excel help file did no good. So I went to the “Post a question or search for an answer in the user community” section and entered my question.

Within an hour I had the answer. (Turns out there’s an easy way to do it, just not very well-publicized.) That simple.

It’s remarkable that communities of users are providing support far superior to that provided by companies themselves (try getting answers to any email query to tech support in an hour). But as it turns out, for most hi-tech products, tapping (for free) the collective wisdom of the user base is the best technical support you’ll find.

Posted in technical support, user-generated content, web2.0 | Comments

Free, unsolicited product management advice for Verizon Wireless

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

As I mentioned yesterday, I am using EV-DO to connect to the internet here in Vegas for CTIA. It’s more economical and reliable than the hotels’ and convention center’s WiFi hotspots. What I didn’t say is that the way I contract for this service is convoluted and actually, on my analysis, loses money for Verizon. Details to follow.

It’s got me feeling a bit guilty, so I would like to offer them some free advice. If they implement my ideas and wish to share perhaps 10% of their incremental profits on the change, I’d be happy to accept. [VZW, you can email me at inquiry (at) caddellinsightgroup (dot) com for my PayPal info.]

Here’s the situation with EV-DO. I have a Blackberry, using a 10MB per month plan costing $24.95 per month on top of my voice subscription. This is fine for emailing and web browsing through the Blackberry, but not enough to support what I’m doing this week–blogging, video uploading, etc.

For that application, VZW requires I buy unlimited data access for $49.95 per month, and on top of that buy tethered modem service (that allows me to use the Bberry as a modem for my computer) for an additional $15 per month.

As a result, it would cost me $39.95 extra per month to subscribe to this EV-DO service. Except for the fact that I need it for perhaps 15 days per year. The rest of the time, cheap or free WiFi hotspots do the job. So I can’t justify an ongoing subscription for this service.

But here’s the thing: VZW allows me to sign up for the service, then, when I don’t need it anymore, I call them back to cancel. The billing is ugly and almost incomprehensible, but at the end of the day I only get billed for the days I use EV-DO, at the rate of about $1.33 per day. A bargain for me.

But not for VZW. Here’s a litany of costs they incur, each time I set up the service:

Calls to tech support: 2 @ $10 (one call to activate, one call to deactivate)
Letters informing me of a change in service: 2 @ $2.50
Incremental billing costs for changes, prorates, etc.: unknown

Total: at least $25

For this trip, I will use the service for four days. Meaning VZW will get incremental revenue of $5.33, but spend $25, for a marginal contribution margin of ($19.67). Ugh.

Here’s my idea. VZW should offer a daily plan. [Virtually every other wireless ISP offers such a plan.] I would pay $5 per day for that plan. Have the signup be online rather than through tech support, meaning the incremental cost should be near zero. Have me sign up for exactly the number of days I need, and have deactivation be done automatically by the ordering system.

Related post: “Worst Practices in Product Management“

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Posted in Verizon Wireless, customer service, mobile, packaging, pricing, project management, technical support, wireless | Comments

Mistake Bank #12 – Don’t forget about support!

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

What follows is a sample of a project I’ve been working on called the Mistake Bank. It combines narrative, learning from mistakes, video and web2.0 in an environment that companies can use to train new employees, create a corporate history, connect workers and mentors, and bring more humanity to the workplace. Email me at inquiry@caddellinsightgroup.com if you would like to know more about the Mistake Bank.

When John Caddell began his first job as a product manager, he inherited a new product that was being sold by a large partner. And once the first sale happened, he learned that having a support strategy is not optional.

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Posted in alliances, distribution, information technology, international, learning, marketing, mistake bank, mistakes, narrative, product management, software, technical support, web2.0 | Comments

Worst Practices In Product Management

Friday, September 21st, 2007

I had a call with Verizon Wireless yesterday afternoon that went something like this:

Me:

“I got a Blackberry recently and I was trying to use it as a wireless modem for my laptop and I’m having trouble.”

Tech Support:

“Let’s try some things.”

…time passes. We try lots of things. Problem persists…

Tech Support:

“I checked and I found out that you need to activate a feature to enable you to use the Blackberry as a modem. The feature costs $15 per month.”

Me:

“What? I am already paying for data access, by the megabyte. Modem support costs $15 more?”

Tech Support:

“Yes, I’m sorry. Would you like to speak to Customer Service?”

…on hold for a while…

Customer Service:

“Yes, sir, that feature is $15 per month.”

me:

“How come that wasn’t clear when I signed up for the Blackberry service? Plus, I’m already paying you $150 a month.”

Customer Service:

“I’m sorry, that’s the only way we sell it… think of it this way: It’s only $0.50 per day.”

me:

“But I only need it occasionally. I can’t justify paying $15 per month for occasional use.”

Customer Service:

“This might solve your problem. You can activate it when you need it, then deactivate it when you’re done. You’d only pay for the days you use in that case.”

me:

“I have to call once to activate, then again to turn it off? Every time I want to use it? Why don’t you have a daily access?”

Customer Service:

“That’s the only way you can do it.”

me:

“I might try that, but it’s unfortunate that you don’t have a plan that helps the occasional user, like me. And I don’t like having to pay $15 or even $0.50 per day for something that should have been included with the data feature I already bought.”

Customer Service:

“I’m sorry. Can I help you with anything else today?”

* * *

So: no resolution. Tech Support and Customer Service were fine, creative, even approaching that state of bending the rules to satisfy a customer. (Installing rigid processes that force this kind of behavior is a worst practice depicted nicely in a recent post by Dave Snowden.)

It’s Product Management I have the problem with. First of all, an additional fee for my laptop to use megabytes I’m already paying for is bad. (It’s done so that people who pay $60 per month to use the Verizon PCMCIA card in their laptop won’t feel that they’re getting ripped off–even though they already do.)

Second of all, not having an occasional-use plan and forcing me, the customer, to do work to synthesize this plan (call to activate, call to deactivate, every time I need the service) is also bad.

Finally, I am a $150 per month wireless customer. (VZW’s ARPU is around $50.) I’m a Verizon VIP. Yet there’s no accomodation built into the product for my kind of customer.

It’s just poor packaging all around. And it needs to be fixed. This is one of the reasons mobile phone customers hate their suppliers.

Aaargh.

Posted in Verizon Wireless, customer service, mobile, packaging, pricing, product management, technical support, wireless, worst practice | Comments

Tech support: an area where user-generated content is here to stay

Monday, September 17th, 2007

There’s a lot of hype out there about user-generated content. Most humorous to me are authors who want their readers to help them write their books. Very Tom Sawyer of them.

In one area of technology, however, user-generated content is king. And that’s product technical support. Good manuals are hard to come by, but user forums can answer just about any question you have. Here are two examples.

I just got a BlackBerry World Edition phone. The folks I called from any public place noticed lots and lots of background noise from my end of the conversation. BlackBerry and Verizon’s web sites (and Verizon’s tech support line) disavowed all knowledge of a problem. Yet the CrackBerry forums had more than forty posts related to the item. No solutions out there yet, but numerous ideas and, at minimum, corroboration that this is a real problem.

I also just got a MacBook Pro, and I was having trouble playing mp3 CDs that I burned on the MacBook in my car CD player. Forget the iTunes or Mac documentation (there’s very little of that). But it took 30 seconds at Apple forums to find my issue and suggestions for remedying it.

The unsung heroes here are the users who troll these forums and answer questions for newbies like me.

As for the manufacturers of these products, the least they can do (as Apple does) is to sponsor these forums and make it easy for their users to find them.

Product managers also may want to read them (even if they might not like everything they learn), to really know what’s going on with their products.

Posted in product management, technical support, technology, user-generated content | Comments