Worst Customer Service Experiences of 2008

1. By a WIDE margin, our worst experience of 2008 was trying to use Singapore's vPost.

GHASTLY!
ATROCIOUS!
HORRENDOUS!

After $130 and about 15 emails and calls to Singapore Post, we finally received 2 of the 5 items we ordered, and never got the others which we had paid for online.

At every step of the way, Singapore Post was argumentative rather than helpful, defending their policies and not trying to help us get our items.

The worst shopping experience of our lifetimes (and we've done a lot of shopping!)


2. Air Asia baggage check

Budget carrier Air Asia has a low baggage and weight limit to go along with their low prices. But when you purchase tickets, they also sell additional baggage allowance.

When we bought family tickets to Thailand, I purchased an additional baggage check for each of us. When we showed up at the airport, the first words the attendant greeted us with were, "You're going to be overweight." Hello to you, too.

It turns out that the additional bags allow you to spread the 15kg among multiple bags, but do not entitle you to extra weight. Come again? Have you ever heard of a more deceptive sale?

When I got upset, the attendant told me that a lot of customers don't understand the policy. But he also said "please don't get upset at me, I'm just doing my job."

Well, not only is this a deceptive practice, but his job is to please the customers and be helpful, not defend his own feelings. He needs to get in a different line of work. And Air Asia needs to change the way they sale extra baggage allowance.


3. GV Cinemas Gift Certificates

I checked online to learn about purchasing gift certificates for GV Cinemas. They gave the information on the vouchers and directed people to purchase them at GV Box Offices.

I went to a box office near me, and was given a form to fill out and told it would take three business days to get my gift certificates.

What?! What kind of screening is necessary to buy a gift certificate? It's not like I am applying for a permit at "Speaker's Corner!" The GV personnel gave me the standard Singapore response, "Those are the rules." I first learned how this works at Delifrance in 2000, when I tried to pay to upgrade my set meal hot tea to an iced tea. I could not do it because, "Rules is rules."

Sheesh!

Real Hate Crimes

After California's Proposition 8 passed in November, an organization called "Californians Against Hate" has been publicly revealing financial contributors for and against the proposition.

The result has been vehement protests against some of the supporters of the proposition, as shown in this LA Times article, and quoted below. (I applaud the writer, an opponent of Prop 8, for denouncing the violence against Prop 8 supporters!)

While homosexual activists like to claim any position against promotion of a homosexual lifestyle is motivated by hate, their response demonstrates a real deep seated negative emotion against anyone who disagrees with them.

I have witnessed this many times in person, and can say that I have rarely seen emotions that rival the hatred of homosexuals towards those who claim their lifestyle is immoral. In fact, the other cases that rival their hatred were also by people promoting a practice that others considered immoral.

Margie Christoffersen didn't make it very far into our conversation before she cracked. Chest heaving, tears streaming, she reached for her husband Wayne's hand and then mine, squeezing as if she'd never let go.

"I've almost had a nervous breakdown. It's been the worst thing that's ever happened to me," she sobbed as curious patrons at a Farmers Market coffee shop looked on, wondering what calamity had visited this poor woman who's an honest 6 feet tall, with hair as blond as the sun.

Well, Christoffersen was a manager at El Coyote, the Beverly Boulevard landmark restaurant that's always had throngs of customers waiting to get inside. Many of them were gay, and Christoffersen, a devout Mormon, donated $100 in support of Proposition 8, the successful November ballot initiative that banned gay marriage.

She never advertised her politics or religion in the restaurant, but last month her donation showed up on lists of "for" and "against" donors. And El Coyote became a target.

A boycott was organized on the Internet, with activists trashing El Coyote on restaurant review sites. Then came throngs of protesters, some of them shouting "shame on you" at customers. The police arrived in riot gear one night to quell the angry mob.

The mob left, but so did the customers.

Sections of the restaurant have been closed, a manager told me Friday during a very quiet lunch hour. Some of the 89 employees, many of them gay, have had their hours cut, and layoffs are looming. And Christoffersen, who has taken a voluntary leave of absence, is wondering whether she'll ever again be able to work at the restaurant, which opened in 1931 (at 1st and La Brea) and is owned by her 92-year-old mother.

"It's been so hard," she said, breaking down again.

Memorable quotes are in the ear of the beholder

How did this guy get appointed as chooser of the year's most memorable quotes? I suspect it is because his taste closely reflects the taste of most journalists. The statements they enjoyed most were slip-ups by conservative politicians like John McCain and Sarah Palin. Similar statements by Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton were deemed unimportant.

When conservatives make dumb statements, liberal journalists believe they reveal something important about the politicians: that their suspicions about the politicians' true colors and character are correct - they really are foolish and evil - while dumb statements by liberal politicians are overlooked as being excusable because they do not reflect the politicians' true intelligence or intentions.

President-elect Barack Obama didn't make the list, not even for his much-criticized remark in which he said some small-town Americans "cling to guns or religion."

"To me it didn't seem like a very remarkable or very foolish quote," said Shapiro, who describes himself as a liberal Democrat.

Lame Air Asia baggage policy

I had a terrible customer service experience yesterday.

I flew Air Asia to Thailand. When I purchased the tickets online, I found that only one checkin bag of 15kg was allowed, but I could purchase additional baggage allowance. So I purchased a second checkin bag allowance.

When I showed up to check in, the first thing the staff greeted me with was, "You are going to be overweight." Hello, glad to see you, too.

I then explained I had purchased a second checkin bag, to which he explained to me that the weight allowance REMAINED THE SAME at 15 kg PER PERSON, that the additional baggage allowed me to SPREAD THE 15KG among multiple bags.

What?!! Have you heard of a more deceptive or stupid policy?

I haven't and I said so. Somewhat loudly. I asked to see the manager. He pointed me in a direction. Guess what, there was a line to see the manager. I went back to the checkin line, and the service person told me, "Please don't be angry with me, I am just doing my job." I apologized for being angry and told him I was not angry at him, I was angry at the policy and the way it was presented. He said "A lot of customers are surprised and angry about it."

Not only is it a bad policy that makes customers like me angry at Air Asia, but the staff who helped me is in the wrong line of work. His job is not to protect his feelings, his job is to serve the customer and make them happy. He should look for different work.

Some thoughts from Seth Godin on the lame excuse "I'm just doing my job..."

Post Election Tantrums

The minority is outraged that they lost the ballot battle on California's Proposition 8, and they want the majority to pay for it. Does this kind of behavior make anyone more sympathetic to their cause? I feel sorry for those being harassed and coerced.

More than a week after the passage of Proposition 8, activists opposed to the ban on gay marriage have shifted their protests to new arenas -- using boycotts to target businesses and individuals who contributed to the winning side.

Some gay rights activists also have gone onto the restaurant website yelp.com, giving bad reviews to eateries linked to the Yes on 8 movement.

"This one star is for their stance on Prop. 8," one poster wrote of El Coyote Mexican Cafe. "Enjoy it. . . . You deserve it."

Hundreds of protesters converged on El Coyote on Beverly Boulevard on Wednesday night, and the picketing got so heated that LAPD officers in riot gear had to be called.

All because Marjorie Christoffersen, a manager there and a daughter of El Coyote's owner, had contributed $100 to the Yes on 8 campaign.

Christoffersen, who is Mormon, met with protesters Wednesday and at one point broke down in tears, said Arnoldo Archila, another El Coyote manager. But the activists were not satisfied with her explanation and continued to post protests about her on the Web.

"She had a chance to make nice and blew it. I was almost feeling a tiny bit of sympathy for her. Not no more!!" wrote one blog poster, who also listed competing Mexican restaurants where diners should go instead of El Coyote.

Finding Talent

A great lesson for spiritual leaders from Tom Peters. Don't see proteges as threats that need to be controlled, see their success as the fruit of your mentoring. Work for it and celebrate it! We should all be talent scouts in one way or another.

In the last week or so, I came across an old Rolling Stone article (28 June 2007) about The Police—the '80s rock band that recently completed a $358-million reunion tour. In the article, drummer Stewart Copeland was singing the praises of Sting, the lead singer who originally broke up the group in 1984 (at the height of their glory) to begin his mega-successful solo career. But, instead of being resentful of the superstar status Sting had achieved on his own, Copeland actually took pride in it because—as he explained—he was the one who discovered Sting back in 1976. "Sting's my guy! I found him. I'm proud of him. When they shouted his name at shows, I was like, 'Yeah, that's my guy.'" Copeland, you see, identified himself as a talent scout, not just as a drummer or a band member. That way Sting's accomplishments became his accomplishments. This struck me as instructive to organizational leaders who, if they choose to, can take pride in their ability to identify—as well as develop and promote—talent.

Developing Customers Requires Understanding Them

This wisdom from Seth Godin:

Every business has customers. In order to grow, you either need to sell more to those customers or find new customers. When thinking about your business, I'd ask:

-How difficult is it to get permission to talk to our existing customers?
-How difficult is it to get them to introduce us to their friends, colleagues and competitors?
-What's the worldview of this audience? Do they trust us? Are they looking for new solutions?
-Will this audience go out of their way to avoid us? Will they try to rip us off as a matter of course?
-How price sensitive are they? Will that change if a truly remarkable or game-changing product or service appears?
-Is there a problem that they know they have? If not, then we have to not only sell the solution, we need to sell the problem too (Jeremy mentioned that to me today--problems are missing from so many new product launches).

The biggest problem marketers make is misjudging their audience. The see the size of the market, but not its true nature: Their accessibility and eagerness. Their worldview and motivation. All too often, we say, "that's Sales' job." And it's true, a superstar salesperson might very well be able to sell to an audience that doesn't want to be sold to.

Marketers are guilty of hoping for too much from a typical salesforce. In my experience, 90% of the salespeople out there are below average (because performance is a curve, not a line). The superstars are hard to find, hard to keep and hard to count on scaling. So that means you must create a product that doesn't require a superstar to sell it. And the only way you're going to sell an ad to a [insert difficult marketplace here] is to create a product/service/story that sells itself.

Rules for excellence...

...by the author of "In Search of Excellence." (Scroll to the bottom to see his list.)

While everyone is trumpeting internationalization, almost all excellence is demonstrated locally!

Rules for Success...

...in a gloomy economic environment. Back to basics!

What makes a good marketer

Article by Seth Godin on what to look for in hiring a marketer. Relentlessly positive!

Videos of Set and Tom

Two of my favorite thinkers/writers, with clear, insightful, provocative perspectives...

Fear and Opposition

Insightful quote from Seth Godin:

It's easy to be against something

...that you're afraid of.

And it's easy to be afraid of something that you don't understand.

What will be solved?

The questions in the bailout discussion are simple, but when politicians are providing the answers...God help us.

Their best shot at success depends on keeping the debate tightly focused on the questions that matter most. There are really only two: What steps are most likely to solve the immediate crisis? And how can the long-term cost to taxpayers be minimized?

Everything else — reducing executive pay on Wall Street, changing the bankruptcy laws, somehow slowing the descent of home prices — is either a detail or a distraction.

Iraq War Restated

Here is a great summation from Thomas Friedman of the NYT of what was at stake in the Iraq war and where to go from here:

Many Americans and me are relieved by the way you, the Iraqi people and Army have pulled back from your own brink of self-destruction. I originally launched this war in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. I was wrong. But it quickly became apparent that Al Qaeda and its allies in Iraq were determined to make America fail in any attempt to build a decent Iraq and tilt the Middle East toward a more democratic track, no matter how many Iraqis had to be killed in the process. This was not the war we came for, but it was the one we found.

Al Qaeda understood that if it could defeat America in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, that it would resonate throughout the region and put Al Qaeda and its allies in the ascendant. Conversely, we understood that if we could defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, in collaboration with other Arabs and Muslims, that it would resonate throughout the region and pay dividends. Something very big was at stake here. We have gone a long way toward winning that war.

At the same time, I also came to realize that in helping Iraqis organize elections, we were facilitating the first ever attempt by the people of a modern Arab state to write their own social contract — rather than have one imposed on them by kings, dictators or colonial powers. If Iraqi Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds can forge your own social contract, then some form of a consensual government is possible in the Arab world. If you can’t, it is kings and dictators forever — with all the pathologies that come with that. Something very big is at stake there, too.

It’s not the stakes that have changed. It is the fact that you are now going to have to step up and finish this job. You have presumed an endless American safety net to permit you to endlessly bargain and dicker over who gets what. I’ve been way, way too patient with you. That is over. We bought you time with the surge to reach a formal political settlement and you better use it fast, because it is a rapidly diminishing asset.

You Shiites have got to bring the Sunni tribes and Awakening groups, who fought the war against Al Qaeda of Iraq, into the government and Army. You Kurds have got to find a solution for Kirkuk and accept greater integration into the Iraqi state system, while maintaining your autonomy. You Sunnis in government have got to agree to elections so the newly emergent Sunni tribal and Awakening groups are able to run for office and become “institutionalized” into the Iraqi system.

So pass your election and oil laws, spend some of your oil profits to get Iraqi refugees resettled and institutionalize the recent security gains while you still have a substantial U.S. presence. Read my lips: It will not be there indefinitely — even if McCain wins.

Our ambassador, Ryan Crocker, has told me your problem: Iraqi Shiites are still afraid of the past, Iraqi Sunnis are still afraid of the future and Iraqi Kurds are still afraid of both.

New Evangelical Identity in the US

Interesting in-depth article in the NYT examining a generational shift in the American evangelical movement.

a younger generation of evangelical pastors — including the widely emulated preachers Rick Warren and Bill Hybels — are pushing the movement and its theology in new directions. There are many related ways to characterize the split: a push to better this world as well as save eternal souls; a focus on the spiritual growth that follows conversion rather than the yes-or-no moment of salvation; a renewed attention to Jesus’ teachings about social justice as well as about personal or sexual morality. However conceived, though, the result is a new interest in public policies that address problems of peace, health and poverty — problems, unlike abortion and same-sex marriage, where left and right compete to present the best answers.

Keys to a Life Well Lived

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan reflects on the heavy coverage of newsman Tim Russert's death, and tells it says something about values in America:

The beautiful thing about the coverage was that it offered extremely important information to those age 15 or 25 or 30 who may not have been told how to operate in the world beyond "Go succeed." I'm not sure we tell the young as much as we ought, as clearly as we ought, what it is the world admires, and what it is they want to emulate.

In a way, the world is a great liar. It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day it doesn't. It says it adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn't, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. At the end it gives its greatest tributes to generosity, honesty, courage, mercy, talents well used, talents that, brought into the world, make it better. That's what it really admires. That's what we talk about in eulogies, because that's what's important. We don't say, "The thing about Joe was he was rich." We say, if we can, "The thing about Joe was he took care of people."

The young are told, "Be true to yourself." But so many of them have no idea, really, what that means. If they don't know who they are, what are they being true to? They're told, "The key is to hold firm to your ideals." But what if no one bothered, really, to teach them ideals?

After Tim's death, the entire television media for four days told you the keys to a life well lived, the things you actually need to live life well, and without which it won't be good. Among them: taking care of those you love and letting them know they're loved, which involves self-sacrifice; holding firm to God, to your religious faith, no matter how high you rise or low you fall. This involves guts, and self-discipline, and active attention to developing and refining a conscience to whose promptings you can respond. Honoring your calling or profession by trying to do within it honorable work, which takes hard effort, and a willingness to master the ethics of your field. And enjoying life. This can be hard in America, where sometimes people are rather grim in their determination to get and to have. "Enjoy life, it's ungrateful not to," said Ronald Reagan.

Tim had these virtues. They were great to see. By defining them and celebrating them the past few days, the media encouraged them. This was a public service, and also what you might call Tim's parting gift.

Tom Peters on Excellence

Tom Peters has been one of my favorite authors for two decades. He burst into prominence among business writers with his book (co-authored by Robert Waterman) In Search of Excellence.

Here is his three minute encouragement to practice excellence:


Excellence Always from Tom Peters on Vimeo.

Remember When the Olympics Were About Sports?

This article will start getting you excited about the competition in Beijing in August, as the LA Times gives a primer on American contenders

On Persuasion

Do you want to change how people view the world? Do you have a message that would revolutionize peoples' lives?

Recognize that your message will be greeted differently based on people's personalities and viewpoints. It takes all kinds of approaches to persuade all kinds of people. Seth Godin gives a few examples:

Do I show you a powerpoint filled with bullets?
Or give you a spirited sales pitch while looking you in the eye...

Perhaps I should send a very attractive salesperson.

Do I amplify my word of mouth and be sure you hear about my idea from three people you trust?
Do I minimize fear or maximize gain?

Are you best persuaded in a group, surrounded by your boss or your employees or your family or people you trust? Will it matter if those around you give me a standing ovation?

Can I persuade you over time, drip, drip, drip, or do you respond better if you feel an avalanche is coming?

Will you change your mind if I'm funny? Or if I scare you to pieces?

Perhaps there's no way you'll be persuaded. Perhaps nothing I can say will make a difference. However, you've told yourself that before and been wrong...

Will you buy if you get a discount? What if the price is high and going up tomorrow?

Do you want to be the first person to embrace an idea (or the last)?

Here's the thing: unlike every other species, human beings make decisions differently from one another. And the thing that persuades you is unlikely to be the thing that persuades the next guy. Our personal outlook is a lousy indicator of what works for anyone else.

Remembering Larry Norman

Soon after I became a Christian in 1974, my high school classmate loaned me the album "Only Visiting This Planet." At first, I couldn't stand it. But the message and style grew on me. When we saw Larry Norman in concert later that year at a neighboring High School, I turned into a rabid fan because of his deadpan humor. He was a revolutionary.

Christian music legend Larry Norman died Sunday of heart failure, according to his brother Charles Norman. He was 60.
Norman, a blonde, long-haired rocker who is often called the father of Christian rock music, was a giant in the Christian music industry, said Chris Willman, senior music writer for Entertainment Weekly.
"His influence outweighed his sales so much that it's comical," Willman said. "He certainly had a heart for evangelism — almost to his detriment, I might say. He really could've been a star if he were singing about something other than Jesus."
Norman's 1972 Only Visiting This Planet album is regarded as one of the top contemporary Christian music albums of all time. His many hits were at the cutting edge, said Larry Eskridge, associate director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College.

American Map of Faith

Look at this article for more details about what Americans believe:

A new map of faith in the USA shows a nation constantly shifting amid religious choices, unaware or unconcerned with doctrinal distinctions. Unbelief is on the rise. And immigration is introducing new faces in the pews, new cultural concerns, new forces in the public square.

"It's not that religion won't matter in the future, but that it will matter in new and less predictable ways," says co-author John Green, a political scientist and Pew Forum senior fellow.

Living Like Jesus

Interesting to read this article in light of "Social Base Analysis." There are some Christians who think Jesus should be enough and all of life ought to be ministry, with little attention to our own needs. When they burn out, they feel their failure is because of spiritual immaturity. I was probably like this in college and earlier Christian ministry years. Yet the older I get, the more I recognize my own limitations. Some of those include my emotional, economic, strategic and physical needs. Once those have been met, and they don't need to be extravagantly met, then I have the resources to be able to reach out and help others. We all need to gauge our own needs and how well they are being met, and then also gauge our service for others.

Five friends came together to stretch their faith.

They left comfortable apartments for a communal home within walking distance of a prison, a pawnshop, a derelict trailer park. Exhaust from a sugar beet factory drifted down the streets.

Moving in last January, they pledged to spend one year together, learning to become true followers of Christ. They would give generously, love unconditionally. They would exchange their middle-class ways for humility and simplicity, forgoing Hardee's fries, new CDs, even the basic comfort of privacy.

"The focus has to be on God and the way of life he has set out for us, as opposed to the way we want to live, which is very selfish," Jeromy Emerling said.

A few months into the experiment, at a weekly house meeting, Jake Neufeld framed the vision this way: "Church is not something we attend. It's something we are."

But even lofty rhetoric could not lift the mood that sleety evening in early April. A quarter of their year together had passed, and the friends felt they had failed. They had not met a single neighbor. They had not given any aid. Everyday life seemed to suck up all their energy; it was draining just to figure out whose turn it was to mop the kitchen floor.

"We're trying to live so every dimension of our lives is different," Jeromy said. Then he admitted: "We don't know what that will look like."