wetherspoons

If Wetherspoons is supposed to be the no.2 food outlet in the UK by volume after McDonalds, why am I sitting here at their Bridge Inn in Belfast, still waiting for my food over half an hour after I ordered it and nearly 10 minutes after I was told it was just on its way down?

Cant we expect better from someone claiming to be no.2?

Towards a more flexible e-commerce model

Argos (a top 5 e-commerce site in the UK) reports on its website when you go to buy something:

Remember, you don't need to register to purchase on this website!

Glory be and hallelujah.

About the only site I know of that allows people to log in if they want to (potentially saving time in the long term) as well as not logging in (thereby saving time for one off purchases and especially if you have forgotten your password etc)

When I go to shop in a normal high street shop, I am not required to log in. Nor am I required in the main to have their store card and use it allowing every purchase I make to be tracked on every visit. Nor am I required to set up a username before I think about putting stuff in my basket. Nor am I required to give my date of birth before purchasing non-age related goods from them.

Yet on-line retailers indulge in this nefarious data gathering just because they can. Tesco.com requires to have a clubcard before purchasing with them (thereby allowing all your purchases to be tracked). Toysrus.com requires a date of birth when registering, even though the vast bulk of their products are non-age related and even though all they need to know is whether I am over 18 or not, see this analysis of their site in terms of the data protection act.

Argos were reviewed as Pants back in 2003 and still persist with the silly practice of requiring everyone to have a courtesy title even when many prefer not to use one. But nonetheless, credit where it's due for being courageous enough to say no to the marketing department's endless quest for customer data "we take your data because we can" and having a site that gives the customer the option of a quick purchase without having to log in as well as using their account if they have one.

A site that offers true customer choice, how long before others follow this lead?

Craig

St Andrew's day

The BBC reports that Scotland is to mark St Andrew's day. For more information see scotland.org or scotland.gov.uk. You can read about St Andrew on the gateway to Scotland site or on the soc.culture.scottish FAQ, the first online guide to Scotland and hosted on this site.

Craig

Scottish Software Awards 2007

News from Silicon Glen (yes, it's more than just electronics), the winners of the Scottish Software Awards 2007 have been announced. Congratulations to all who entered, and especially to the winners.

Craig

Welcome to Scotland

The Scottish Government has just spent £100,000 apparently to come up with a new slogan for Scotland to replace "The best small country in the world". The new slogan is to be "Welcome to Scotland" with the Gaelic translation of "Failte gu Alba" as you can see from the picture in the BBC article.

100K pah, I could have done it for a fraction of that figure. Oh, I already did.

See the comment dated 9:11pm 27 Aug 2006.

The comment was obviously far too ahead of its time and didn't take full account of inflation either.

Aye, right

Craig

Towards a gold standard for contact centre service

I find a good part of my lunch hour is spent dealing with fairly useless contact centres. I would probably get more out of my lunch break and be able to do more interesting things than listen to boring hold music if contact centres improved their quality of service. Things haven't improved much in many years, I recall spending long hours on the phone to Alliance and Leicester in 2001 - often it was half an hour before they even answered the phone.

In response to the lack of initiative and progress in contact centre customer service, I propose the following initial list as targets that contact centres should aspire to, in order to offer gold standard customer service rather than the poor quality crap we have to tolerate at present. No particular order here and feel free to add your own ideas.


1. For an independent company to assess contact centres for typical and peak wait times until you get to speak to someone (including having to work through the menus). Then customers can make informed independent choices regarding which companies waste the least amount of time. These timings should then be published centrally with the worst offenders named and shamed.

2. For companies to aspire to a high level of standard rather than unacceptably long queues and to publish their standard on their website (and on the site mentioned in 1). e.g. "We aim to answer 90% of calls in less than 10 seconds". A standard that some companies actually meet, yet others would laugh at the idea of answering a call within 10 minutes.

3. For information to be available on what the busiest and quietest times are for the contact centre and their hours of opening so that I can make an informed choice about when to call them.

4. To have a facility to turn off hold music. This means that if I am in a long queue I can put my phone on speakerphone and get on with my job without annoying the rest of the office with a tinny version of Vivaldi's concert for hold music annoying everyone around me.

5. When using phone menus, every menu must have a "help" or "none of the previous options apply, I'd like to speak to a real person rather than a robot" type option.

6. Again with phone menus, they must have information on how to go back to the previous menu.

7. An option that if you have waited more than a certain length of time (e.g. a few minutes) in a queue, that there is always the option to leave your number and have someone call you back where your call has reached the front of the queue.

8. A fast track menu system so that you don't have to wait for all the announcements before you can progress to the next menu - you should be able to interrupt any menu and advance quickly without having to hear all the options. Many contact centre menus already do this but it's worth mentioning anyway.

9. To publish the contact centre menus on the company's website so that I can work through them quickly via a web browser, click on the relevant menu option and then to open up Skype or similar and jump straight in the the relevant queue that I've just clicked on.

10. Not having to repeat my details every time the call is transferred, including when I have to transfer from an automated system to an operator. Surely the IT systems at the contact centre can do this?

11. The ability for the contact centre to text or email relevant information in the event that you can't write things down very easily (e.g. driving, walking down street carrying mobile and briefcase, etc.)

12. An acceptance that excessive wait times is not only exceptionally poor customer service but in the false economics of saving money for the company, it actually wastes time for the customers of the contact centre. Since cc operators are usually on less than the average national salary, the implication is their customers' salary average is near to the national average and thus more than the contact centre operator's wages. This means it is a false economy employing insufficient contact centre operators and transferring the consequent wait time onto people whose time is more "expensive" and who would probably be happy to pay a higher premium for shorter wait times.

13. being able to access my account via the same lookup procedure and security procedure used by operators (i.e. if I don't have my policy number, I can just enter postcode, security answers etc). Banning the use of "usernames" for telephone access. My address, security details etc are enough.

14. If you end up in the wrong queue, the centre should be able to transfer calls for me without me having to hang up and start again

15. When the contact centre phones me, they use a legitimate number that accepts return calls and which announces the name of the company (i.e. not like Powergen). This implies the said number is not withheld, a very irritating practice.

16. Operators that have a good command of English. This especially applies to companies thinking of outsourcing their contact centre to Asia.

17. If I don't select a menu, then the options are only repeated twice before I am put through to an operator. They are not repeated indefinitely, nor does the system hang up on me.

18. Being able to easily speak to a manager/supervisor/complaints department.

19. Being able to dial straight into a relevant queue so that I don't have to pay to wait on hold. 20 minutes on hold on a mobile calling internationally is not funny.

20. On completion of a call, being given the option to provide feedback there and then on what I thought of the service given (e.g. press 1 for delighted to 9 for unhappy, etc.)

21. Being able to email the contact centre without having to go through menu spaghetti.

22. Using a phonetic name field (in addition to the usual name fields) in the customer record so that people with names like mine, difficult foreign names etc can have the correct pronunciation of their name recorded, thus meaning that time isn't wasted explaining how to say the name.

23. Treating email as important as fax and phone and providing a response within a "phone call" order of magnitude turnaround. It can be done for a phone call, yet for email response some companies take 5 days to respond. I'm mailing you via a medium that works at close to the speed of light because I want a quick response, not because I want it to sit in a backlog for a week.

24. Employ operators in the contact centre that don't talk over me, listen, and have a good level of knowledge of the topic I am phoning about.


Any more to add to this?

Craig

First year contracting

Today marks the first anniversary of the start of my career full time contracting, so here's a look back on the previous year including some of the things that I did that were by products of that transition and the associated lifestyle and most of which I wouldn't have done had I still been a full time permanent employee in my previous job.

Here goes:

Was Project Manager for Tesco.com grocery, one of the world's leading e-commerce sites

Was Project manager for a major public sector project in Northern Ireland, part of the Causeway programme.

Gained security clearance

Bought laptop for working away from home

Bought PRINCE2 course, studying in my spare time

Went to the gym a lot

Went to over 80 live performances

Considerably improved my singing.

Turnover of my company that I founded in 2001 is now sufficient to require VAT registration. Filed first VAT return, very boring.

Got RBS Black card.

Visited debating chamber at Stormont

Met the Minister for Enterprise in Scotland

Appeared in the Belfast Telegraph, helped with research for programme on Ulster Scots

Learned about what really makes a good hotel and that few hotels are actually worth staying in for more than a few nights before total boredom sets in. Campaigned against rip off WiFi rates.

Significantly increased my income and moved house.

Admired Central Scotland and the Ayrshire coast from 16,000 feet on a clear blue day, several times.

Was Information lead for a Techcrunch 40 company, Crowdspirit.

Met lots of interesting people from all over the world.

Got used to 4am starts every Monday.

Walked from my bedroom to work every day.

I can now drink in a smoke free pub anywhere in the UK, something I campaigned for on national TV in 1990.

Became my own boss.

It's a PIN, not a PIN number

For months we have been told by the banks about Chip and PIN. Chip and PIN this, chip and PIN that. Use your Chip and PIN. Chip and PIN blah blah until we're fed up hearing about it and over 20 months after its widespread roll-out we still have signs telling us about chip and PIN.

PIN = Personal Identification Number.

A PIN IS A NUMBER THEREFORE DOES NOT NEED THE WORD 'NUMBER' AFTER IT
PIN Number = Personal Identification Number Number. How silly is that?

Yet there's a large number of organisations that really ought to know better who think it is now necessary to suffix the acronym PIN with the superfluous suffix 'number'. Maybe we could just change it to PI number instead?

Please enter your PI ?!

Here are the organisations so far that ought to know better:


1. The Royal Bank of Scotland. On their cashline machines, it states "Please enter your PIN number". Also applies to their Ulster Bank cashline machines in Northern Ireland.

2. Orange. No surprises here, fresh from winning the "worst contact centre award" when you call to collect your voicemail, the greeting states "Please enter your PIN number".

Please feel free to add your own examples...

Bollocks security

Continuing the theme of e-mail/Internet security.

Tonight I wanted to set up a new bill payment. The bank, in response to customer paranoia about Internet security and phishing attacks now require me to carry my bank cards and their calculator like number generator that I now have to take with me on business if I want to set up a bill payment. No thanks. No, I don't want to trail a variety of calculator like devices around with me one for each account or service I might want to use. I think the encryption offered by the bank site together with the random letters and digits from a security password is secure enough.

However, aside from that, let us now look at the two options the bank presents:

1. Log onto the website, have it over a secure encrypted channel, type in a customer number securely, random digits from two separate passwords securely and use the calculator device to randomly generate a number. Pretty secure huh?

2. Alternatively, use a phone, have the conversation in clear text, have the audible key presses recordable by anyone in earshot with a microphone, no need for the card reader calculator device either. Set up bill payment successfully.

Does the analogy of having 50 billion million trillion zillion locks on your front door and only 1 on your back door apply here?

Which way do you think a burglar would want to break in?

Why do banks and other sites continue to believe that the phone is a secure means of communication?

Orange wins the worst contact centre award, thanks to this blog

Check the link. Clearly still surpassing themselves in the worst contact centre award stakes and following on from their outstanding showing in this category last year it is clear there is no let up in form in the poor customer services stakes this year either. Why only a few weeks ago I phoned to ask how I collect voice mail for another orange account from my own phone and after 15 minutes of being passed from pillar to post the person still didn't understand the question, never mind actually give me an answer.

Meanwhile I posted the same question on the uk.telecom.mobile group who answered it correctly in less than 30 minutes, without me having to be on hold waiting for an answer and without me having to play irrelevant menu hell either. Maybe Orange should outsource their contact centre to usenet, it certainly provides a more useful service.

Craig

The Untouchables, Belfast

Greatest gig in town. Every Monday, Benedicts Hotel, Bradbury Place, Belfast. 11pm-1am. Best entertainment I've enjoyed in years! Check out their facebook group.

Craig

Program it all

Will we see increasing programmability and customisation around the home? If not just to meet the needs of the consumer perhaps any company seeking to market environmentally friendly products would prefer to be selling products that can be easily upgraded and adapted?

Please vote for this idea on crowdspirit...

Craig

Next big thing for the net to come from Silicon Glen, Scotland?

So says John Giannandrea, a Scot who became Chief Technologist at Netscape and is currently CTO of the hot startup Metaweb.

Watch this space then?

Craig

Rude business communication

I have already blogged about rude e-mails. These are emails sent by allegedly reputable companies who consider email to be a good enough medium to communicate with you, but not a good enough medium for you to reply. In other words, they are rude. Instead of a simple easy reply using the tool you used to pick up their mail, they incorrectly assume you have access to the web (you might be using a slow mobile phone/PDA), they incorrectly assume your device must be compatible with their website (usually not, especially if you are disabled) and they incorrectly assume that you enjoy playing "contact us" droplist spaghetti just as much as people hate playing contact centre multi-option phone queue and hold music hell. "I'm sorry, I didn't get that, please listen carefully to the following options again".

Powergen are one of the rude companies when it comes to email, sending their emails from a "do not reply" email address, however they completely excelled themselves in rudeness when they called me yesterday, hung up the phone and didn't leave a message. So I called them back using the number presented to my phone 01158434900 (0115 843 9400 just to ensure it appears in the search index) only to be greeted with an even ruder "This number does not accept incoming calls". Not even an announcement saying which company it was. Not even a "Thank you for calling Powergen, we'll direct you to someone who can help". Nope, sod off hang up the phone.

Guys, this sort of "crap on the consumer" is completely unacceptable. It's the telephone equivalent of leaving a pile of shit on someone's doorstep with a note saying "left by anonymous ha ha". People actually want to be able to reply, people don't want to be called anonymously by companies hiding behind dead email addresses or phone numbers. People shouldn't have to go to a PC, type the phone number into Google (other search engines may still exist) to find out who it was because the company was too rude to say so.

Dead email addresses, "contact us" drop list spaghetti, long contact centre queues and dead phone numbers may be really convenient for the company but they are really INCONVENIENT for the customer and I for one am getting fed up using a good part of my lunch hour playing these silly games just to get in touch with you (including 3 hours to Demon's contact centre recently trying to figure out why my 5 day broadband service was down for 26 days, my website wiped and my email bounced.

You want to know how annoying this rudeness is? The next time you want to contact me, I'll not give you my email address and any phone calls will go via a service that makes you wait for 20 minutes in a queue listening to "Your call is important to me, please hang on while we try to connect you" without the option of leaving a message, without the option of being called back when you've reached the front of the queue and without the option of hearing a valid email address that works.

Your productivity would go down somewhat and rather than being able to call 20 customers an hour, you might be able to call 2.

Annoying isn't it? SO DON'T DO IT TO CUSTOMERS THEN. In any case, if my phone call was really that important to you, you would make more of an effort to answer it quickly.

DONT email me from dead email addresses, instead email me from a working email address and include a reference number so that my reply goes back to the right place.

DONT phone me from dead phone numbers (or withhold your number like a dodgy scam artist might). Instead, call me from a real phone number than when I call you back allows me to speak to someone.

Don't tell me that you can pick up the phone, deal with my enquiry and resolve it in well under an hour but somehow for an email it takes the best part of a week. Just because I use a different communication method, it makes my issue no less important. I actually had a sore throat recently and preferred to send email rather than speak on the phone. Goodness knows how any disabled people with speech problems put up with this second class service. Can't speak because of a very sore throat? No web access? You might as well not exist.

Above all, don't be rude. You might even find customers being more polite to your contact centre staff when they eventually reach the end of the queue....

Thank You.

Craig

Stopping the junk mail

There are three kinds of junk mail.

1. Stuff addressed to you, you can stop this by writing to the Mailing Preference service

2. Stuff addressed to nobody. Leaflets, etc. You can stop this by e-mailing: optout@royalmail.com. This is the service that a postie was disciplined for telling his customers about. Good old Royal Mail, here to spam you and then discipline anyone who tells customers how to stop the spam.

3. Stuff addressed to a generic address, e.g. "The Occupier", "The Head of Personnel", "The Householder".

The Direct Marketing Association has you over a barrel here, because there is currently no way of opting out of this spam. This means that if you are moving house you can look forward to receiving several spam mailshots a day addressed to "The Occupier" offering you removal and storage services and other stuff you probably aren't interested in, especially if you have moved already.

Dear Marketing spammers. Kindly get your act together and have a "no junk mail" service that actually works.

Craig

peer commerce

Make money from your MP3 collection?

Peer commerce - will it take off?

why demon internet is not recommended

I first promoted Demon in June 1992, the month they set up. I joined them as a customer the following year. This is the first time I have moved house whilst having Demon as a broadband provider. It has been a total disaster and I would recommend that anyone who values their sanity avoids them like the plague.

1. As a business, the internet is important to me. I am changing address, but keeping the same phone number.
2. After a very lengthy conversation on 4 Sept, I explained BT were transferring my line on 18 sept. Demon has no concept of transferring, you have to cancel and set up a new service. Setting up the new service takes at least 5 working days, hence your business will be offline for a week. In this day and age, it is unacceptable.
3. During the call on the 4th, demon set me up with temporary dial up access. They then said to call back on the 13th to minimise downtime.
4. I return from my business trip on the 7th to find the arseholes at Demon had already cancelled my broadband.
5. I then called them on the evening of the 8th to log into the dial up account which was set up on the 4th to find that it hadnt been set up at all, they couldnt help me until Monday (by which time I will be out of the country) and they didnt even know if customer service was open on a Sunday or not.
6. Conclusion. Demon is crap and should know better than to outsource to India.
7. Avoid Demon if you value your sanity.

(posted via Orange WAP). Ha ha, you can take away our ADSL but you can never take away our freedom..... :-)

iPod touch, browser, calendar, personalised news. Patent application 1990.

The story of how an early keyboardless browser for pages and links (called PageLink) from early 1990 was canned by Digital. Has a surprising number of features in common with iPod touch, modern browsers (bookmarks, search), personalised news, calendars, PDAs today. Comments about the internet "revolutionising online advertising" also relevant.

read more | digg story

Scottish Government marks 100 days in power with national conversation

The launch of "a national conversation" is to determine the political and constitutional future of Scotland and the UK. The status quo, more powers for the Scottish parliament or full sovereign independence. In contrast to south of the border, the Labour party is now a poor second to the SNPs ever growing record lead over all other parties. Is the public warming to the SNP and will the independence debate be given a fair hearing?

read more | digg story

Traditional Gaelic events at the Edinburgh Fringe

For 2008 events please see the 2008 event listings.

2007 programme of events
Com-pàirteachas Gàidhlig Dhùn Èideann (Edinburgh Gaelic Partnership)welcomes you to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with:

"Cèilidh in the City"
Colmcille Centre, 2 Newbattle Terrace, Edinburgh

Ceòl (music)
Òrain (songs)
Sgeulachdan (storytelling)

Monday 20th August (7.30pm – 9.30pm)
Alasdair Codona (vocal & guitar) & Mairead Callan (vocal) with Martin Macintyre (storyteller) plus supporting local instrumentalists & singers.

Tuesday 21st August (7.30pm – 9.30pm)
Gillian Mackenzie (vocal) with Gaelic musicians and singers from Edinburgh Schools combine with Lothian Gaelic Choir for an evening of traditional entertainment for all generations.

Wednesday 22nd August (7.30pm – 9.30pm) "A taste of the Mod" with Medallists, Kirsteen Macdonald (vocal), Calum A. Macmillan (vocal), Màiri Macleod (clàrsach), Falkirk Junior Gaelic Choir, young musicians from Lochaber, & others.

Thursday 23rd August (7.30pm – 9.30pm)
A night with "Am Bothan" & guests – Roddy Campbell (vocal & instrumentals) & Don Mackenzie (guitar) with local artistes.

Friday 24th August (7.30pm – 9.30pm)
Top pipers Iain & Allan Macdonald & Griogair Lawrie with Margaret Stewart (vocal), Martin Macintyre (storyteller) and local musicians.

Saturday 25th August (7.30pm – 9.30pm)
Ever popular Kathleen Macinnes (vocal) & Griogair Lawrie (vocal & pipes) with Martin Macintyre (storyteller) & local musicians.

Nach tig sibh a chèilidh oirnn gach oidhche!

Tickets £8/£6 available 9.00am to 9.00pm
Fringe Box Office (0131 226 0000) or at the door.