Orange Fuck up iPhone launch

Feeling a bit let down by Orange today. I was browsing the BBC Tech site looking for anything interesting and saw an article that Tesco are going to sell the iPhone. I open it up read it and it says Orange are reporting 30,000 sales on the first day of the iPhone going on sale.

I was pretty surprised as about 2 months ago they emailed me as a customer notifying me they would be selling the iPhone and asking if I wanted to pre-Register my interest. Here is the reply confirming I had pre-registered and that they will be in contact again nearer to the time. Well I have not had anything from them since.

So I'm a pretty pissed off Orange customer who is out of contract and if I do not hear from them I'll be giving O2 a call in the next couple of days to see if they are looking for new customers as I'm sure some will have left to go back to Orange.

Aside from totally mismanaging my expectations - why bother emailing people asking to pre-register then totally ignore them - they have obviously underestimated the response as their entire site appears to be down today. Really not making me feel they are the best operator/network.

The orange site today looks like this....

If you work in Customer Service Remember the name Dave Carroll

I love this story that Faris just posted about a Country & Western Singer - Dave Carroll who had his guitar broken by baggage handlers from United Airlines. Having had a very bad experience myself with Unite Airlines I am not surprised.



Dave says: Full Story: http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/story... -

In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn't deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise. Follow me at http://twitter.com/DaveCarroll

It looks like Dave has been on TV a lot stateside - the cynical side of me thinks this is not a bad publicity stunt for him and his band? We'll see.

A real Man Bites Dog moment - I love it when big corporations take people for granted and get bitten. I bet Ms. Irlweg is regretting not helping him out now. In one day his video has been viewed nearly 400,000 times, has 7,000 favorites and has over 3,000 comments - nice one.



Hopefully customer service teams are being briefed on this all over the world and they will change their behavior - but I doubt it.

Rackspace Customer Service Win

Just to follow up on last weeks post about the excellent Bunny Boiler mailer Rackspace sent us. Well no sooner had we made our tongue in cheek joke about boiling Barry up, then they were on the phone with the quote, and a damn good excuse why they hadn't sent it, bad timing.

It's refreshing to see a company that does in fact care, and when they get some feedback from customers, act on it pretty damn quickly - nice one Barry.

Just goes to show if you really mean you are obsessed customer service when things go awry its not what you say but what you do that counts. So if you act on it, rectify it, and explain it, people come out the back of it thinking even more positively about you than before.

Things do go wrong for everyone, but it really is a case that 'It's not what goes wrong but how you deal with things when they do go wrong that people remember you for'

I now remember Rackspace for sorting it out. Thanks guys, I look forward to the next mailer I hope it doesn't have an effigy of me in it ;-)

Nice Touch

I was walking past Evans Cycles just on Rathbone St yesterday and I noticed a nice gesture - they had placed a track pump outside the shop chained to the heavy signage so that any passing cyclist in need of a bit of air could stop by and use ther pump. Not only does this probably save the staff in the shop a considerable amounbt of time not being asked for a pump, its a great gesture and you would hope that people will remember it and frequent the shop with their patronage. Anyway, I just liked the thoughtful nature of it and will keep a look out for other similar gestures - I once saw a pub that had a mobile phone charging station complete with about 6 different chargers again it shows a certain affinity with the customers.

Where's the pot of gold?

This photo is awesome but it made me a little bit sad, they say never meet your hero's, and far to often in life expectations are set far higher than the reality.

New product launches are on my mind today as we have been meeting a potential client about a new product launch. We strongly believe that in this new idea economy its not just what you say online but how your brand behaves that matters and never is this more important than with a new product or service.

Communications have to work hard to cut through but there is a fine line to tread in terms of over promising and under delivering. Consumer expectations are high and they are set in parallel industries and brands from far flung corners of the world. When something is new or never seen before it captures imagination but if you aren't careful you can shoot yourself in the foot.

Anyway enough of that I'm sure this product will be gold, but we just have to be careful if we win it not to over promise to the customer, and the client.

Communication and Passion

Two things you need to be successful in this industry and probably quite advisable in running a restaurant. I had a lovely meal the other day at a restaurant in Covent Garden with 15 or 20 colleagues, peers and associates from other agencies.

It was spoiled though as there were two problems that running an agency, I have seen far too often:

1. Communication:

The salad to accompany the main course came 15 minutes after we had all finished the main course. Now there were 20 of us, and it was a busy night, but when we commented about the fact we had actually finished our main meal so the salad wasn't much use to us - the waiter told us it was Italian style menu, and it was a separate course. If this was the case then simply tell people before the meal (if it wasn't 10/10 for quick thinking). This is a classic case of managing expectation and keeping communication open. What could have been seen a a sophisticated 'nuance' was seen as a complete shambles by 20 otherwise very satisfied and well satiated guests.

2. Know your product:

When asked what the desert he had just placed in front of us was? the waiter looked at it and then back at us and said 'I actually don't know' (it looked like a nice Pot au Chocolat / Chocolate Mouse). I appreciated his honesty, and the fact he went straight off to find out, and came back to tell us it was a 'Melting Chocolate pot' but he should have known that fact before he went out to serve. If you don't know what you are serving to people (off a set menu), it doesn't seem like you give a shit about what it is you are serving, or your job for that matter.

The food was excellent and I'm pretty sure the owner and the chef were passionate about their product, the interior was great a nice mix between chic but relaxed atmosphere , the glassware and cutlery were quite cool etc etc and they had a good reputation - but the fact the waiter didn't know let down the experience.

I know my agency has not perfected our process yet but I want to make sure our clients don't walk out having had some excellent work served to them and only remember - it was nice but it was let down by poor communication, and the staff didn't know what they were doing or seem to care.