Ylliks

Not so long ago I wrote about how I thought a company went about it all wrong with their communication so it’s only fitting that when I have an experience that is completely satisfactory I should write about that as well.

For a while now I’ve ordered items from Avanti Sport which is a large online sporting goods retailer. Orders I’ve placed in the past have been shipped as confirmed and I haven’t had any trouble whatsoever. So when it was time for a new gym bag, since my heavily used one of 3 years was beyond mending, I ordered one from the site. To be honest, I didn’t really look at the specs, just the dimensions. That was a mistake. It proved to be one of those football players use with a hard bottom and spinning wheels. Not what I wanted, but my mistake. Still, I wanted to see if there were any option to return the bag. And there were plenty.

First I had a choice of returning the bag with a full refund or exchange it for another product (for both, items had to be in original package and unopened, which mine was). I choose the latter and picked another bag. The system immediately recognized that the newly picked bag was cheaper than the original one, so it gave me a choice to either order something else to make up the difference or have it reimbursed to my bank account. Again, the latter was my choice and then it was just a matter of picking the shipping method. I could either bring it to a Kiala point and shipping would be free, have it send to their postal adress and have a few euro of administration costs or have it send to their shipping address and have the shipping costs on me. Since the Kiala point was close by I opted for the first. I confirmed the new order and received an email confirming the exchange. I dropped the return parcel at the collection point, got a receipt with a tracking code and went home.

With the tracking code I could see the parcel had arrived at Avanti a few days later and that same day I received an email with the shipping tracking code of the new order and the amount difference was transferred to my bank account. Next day, new bag arrived.

As positive as I was about them before this, I noticed that I turned into an advocate for them, telling friends and family this story and how much I’m impressed with their service. Perfect example how a customer experience like this can create great word of mouth. I will surely order from them again.

This week I saw Anonymous. In it, it is suggested that an actor by the name of William Shakespeare got to take the credit for the writings of Edward de Vere, thus creating the illusion that it was him, and not De Vere, who wrote some of the greatest plays of our time. Historical accuracy aside, it was a perfect example of someone being comfortable with claiming credit for work that wasn’t his purely for financial gains.

In todays internet world this kind of behavior happens more than you could imagine. People like Chris Brogan and Tim Ferriss have used their Twitter accounts to point out people who have used their work and claimed it as their own in products or blogs. So I was aware this kind of thing happened, but never saw it up close. Until recently.

As I’ve mentioned before one of the people I follow on Twitter is Aaron Lee. Besides being a solid resource for social media news and information, he’s just a great and approachable guy. We’ve been having short conversations for a while now so I wasn’t exactly surprised when I saw (at least I thought) one of his tweets mention me. However, it was one that he send me a couple of days earlier. I hadn’t really paid attention to the Twitter handle because I recognized him from his picture, but then I saw that another name was mentioned. Since his name has become somewhat of a brand I found it strange that he would change it. So I took a look at the profile that send the tweet and I was stunned about what I saw.

Here was a profile with Aaron’s picture, his description and look and feel. It was the same but for a different name and (at that time) 3 tweets. I DM-ed Aaron to ask if he had seen it, but he was as surprised as I was and decided to take action against this. Luckily Twitter has a procedure in place for this kind of thing. In other instances you might not be so lucky.

When somebody copies your work on the web, there’s not much you can do. Of course you can go the legal way and send a seize and desist letter, but if they refuse and they’re in another country your options are limited. Because of this it’s easy for scammers to do this and ride the success of others.

I never understood why you would want to make money by copying what others have created. If you want to make money on the web there are numerous ways, but I’m guessing some just want to take the easy route. And it’s a shame there’s not much that can be done about it.

Last week I send out this tweet about my experience with the business division of KPN (For non-Dutchies: the guy I talked to at business support told me that if I wanted to know the phone number of our newly closed contract, I should call someone close so he/she could see the number). I was amazed about the fact that a company that had communicated every step of the process so well thus far, pretty much stumbled on the last piece of information. And such an important piece as well: knowing which number to communicate to your customers/contacts to be able to contact you is crucial in being reachable.

Reason for contacting KPN in the first place was the fact that I had to arrange a new mobile contract for a new account manager at my job. So, after comparing the offerings of the 3 largest mobile providers, I decided to go with KPN. The ordering side was pretty straight forward: go to the site, create an account (email received with account details), log in, place the order. After that I received an email with the order confirmation and a mention that we would be contacted by a courier to make an appointment for delivery of the phone. Within 2 hours we were called and delivery was scheduled for next day between 9 and 11 in the morning and received a confirmation of this by email as well. Next day, at 9:45 the phone was delivered. We received a confirmation mail of this as well. So far so good.

I opened the box, took out the packaging with the phone and the sim card. Also enclosed were a packing slip and a summary of the mobile plan. Nowhere was the phone number mentioned. Before I called support I rechecked the contents of the box and the emails I received. No mention of the number whatsoever. So that’s when I made the call and got that reply I mentioned above. He did also say that maybe because of the fact that the contract would be activated at the end of the month (our choice) I would receive an email when the number was activated. That might have the number on it.

So in summery: they send you an email with the details of your account, they send you an email to confirm the order. They send you an email to confirm date and time of delivery. They send you an email when it’s delivered. But they “might” send you an email when it’s activated which “may” hold the information of your phone number. Why would you gaff on the last step of the process? I cannot believe that a company like KPN isn’t capable of doing this right. What first started as a positive experience with a company I haven’t had many dealings with before, now left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

I think this is a great example of how a company could improve greatly on their communication to their customers by just adding/sending one small, extra (essential) piece of information. KPN isn’t the only company I’ve dealt with that has this problem, but it’s the most recent one I came across. Customers shouldn’t have to contact a company to receive essential information. They should get it automatically.

I haven’t used public transport regularly since I was a student (many years ago), mainly because I wasn’t impressed by it then. Yes, it would get you from A to B, but travel information was scarce, never mind the fact that it wasn’t the most comfortable way to travel. But with my new job I have been commuting and going to meetings outside the office more and used public transportation to get me there.

And I’m pleased to say that things have improved quite a bit since my earlier experiences. Trains, trams and buses have become more comfortable. Buses and trams have LCD displays which show which stop is next (so you don’t have to rely on the mood of the driver to know where yours is). Bus stops have electronic information boards which show you which line will be next and how much time it will take to arrive. Sites like 9292OV can give you a complete route to your destination and with the new OV chipcard you have a single payment option for all your public transport travels. And with the night lines it’s even become an option as transport for a night on the town.

But it’s not perfect yet. Every once in a while a train still will be late or will just be cancelled. Buses and trams still break down. You can order your OV chipcard online and have it send to you, but when you want to use it for train travel you’ll still have to stand in line at the station ticket desk to have it activated. Same goes for when you want to charge it automatically. Villages outside of the greater urban areas still are difficult to reach.

Still, it’s much better than I remember and there’s real improvement. In many large cities, public transport is the best way to get around. You don’t have to stand in traffic jams to get there and you don’t have to pay outrageous fees to park. During rush hour most public transportation is even a quicker and better option. Just hop in a train and relax with a book or paper (or use a laptop since free wifi is available in some trains now as well) and use a bus or tram to get to your final destination.

It can be quite a joy to use public transport nowadays.