Telescope by salendron via flickr

If there is one thing we can all agree on, it is that customer service is pretty much dead.

It has devolved to the point where most of us would rather give up on trying to contact the company we are frustrated with instead of putting up with endless menu navigation via phone, listening (or viewing) canned answers that are of little help, or ‘solutions’ that oddly solve nothing.

Enter ecotools

ecotools, as you may imagine by the name, is a manufacturer of ecologically, green-minded bath and beauty products. They are a member of 1% for the Planet®, support such charities as the Conservation Fund, Jane Goodall Institute and Ocean Conservancy, and use innovative earth-friendly materials to craft their products.

Most of their products are cosmetic accessories but they also manufacture some bath tools. In the name of cleanliness, I purchased the EcoPouf^® Cleansing Pad. It provided a great scrub in the tub but after only a couple of days, the mesh started to come undone. This obviously was not supposed to happen, so I sent a note to their customer support team through their website.

Mere days later, I received a small package from Paris Presents (the parent company of ecotools) with a sincere note apologizing for defective product along with a replacement and some extra bath tools.

Needless to say, I was happily surprised.

I have also purchased the Bamboo Bristle Bath Brush and have been very pleased with its performance.

Customer service exists!

Related articles

• Salesforce.com Launches a Customer Service Product for Small Teams (mashable.com)
• How Has Social Media Affected Customer Service? [Infographic] (socialtimes.com)
• The Art of Customer Service…. (tootallfritz.com)

RIP Steve Jobs

Amazing. Inspirational. Revolutionary. Legendary.

Image via Wikipedia

I came across this nifty page on ESPN.com that will compare your salary with that of top-tier professional players from the NBA, NHL and MLB. You get a breakdown of how long it takes a player to earn your annual salary (before taxes).

For instance, if you make $65,000 a year…

Peyton Manning makes $65,000 after the following…

.06 Games
.12 Touchdown passes
16.97 Passing yards
1.63 Pass completions

You will need to work 276.92 years in order to make Peyton Manning’s annual salary.

To find out how long it takes your favorite sports personality to earn your wages, enter your annual salary here.

New Era Cap Company

Summer’s on its way and I am in desperate need of a new cap. For the most part, New Era, is pretty much the only game in town. They are the brand that started the official on-field cap and now worn by every MLB team. They also make official caps for just about every major sports team, college team as well as bespoke hats to your order. DISCLAIMER: this starts out ugly, but turns out beautiful

The obvious element when buying any clothing or accessory is first and foremost size/fit. Not aware of my cap size, I cruised through their site looking for a sizing chart.

I looked and looked. And looked. And looked.

Either I was really missing something or really missing something. I thought there could be no way an apparel seller would not have a size chart on their site. Enter LivePerson customer chat.

Here’s the chat transcript:

info: Thank you for visiting us!  An operator will be with you shortly.
info: You are now chatting with ‘A******h’
A******h: Welcome to our live chat service.  What can I do for you today?
Joshua Kitlas: i need help with cap sizing
Joshua Kitlas: i can’t find it on your site
A******h: Do you have the style number for the item that you are inquiring about?
Joshua Kitlas: i need to determine my size first
Joshua Kitlas: that is what I am trying to figure out
Joshua Kitlas: there is no size chart
A******h: Please hold one moment while I find the information that you are looking for.
A******h: To measure your head, take a measuring tape and place it around the circumference of the head, slightly above the ears. Visit our FAQs for our Hat size chart!
Joshua Kitlas: there is no size chart in the FAQs
Joshua Kitlas: can you send me a link
Joshua Kitlas: are you even there?
A******h: One moment
A******h: Sorry that is all the information I have available
Joshua Kitlas: really?
Joshua Kitlas: that is ridiculous
A******h: Is there anything else I can do for you today?
Joshua Kitlas: how can you expect someone to determine their size?
info: Your chat transcript will be sent to josh@kitlas.com at the end of your chat.
Joshua Kitlas: no that is it
A******h: We can’t see you have have to already know your size.
A******h: You are welcome
A******h: Thank you for visiting and have a great day!
info: Thank you for chatting with us!  Join our email mailing list and receive great updates on products, sales, and more!

I was in disbelief. Did a customer service person on an apparel website not have the sizing chart, but tell me I have to ‘know’ my size?

Duh.

Though I was not to the point of boiling blood, I was pretty frustrated. Aren’t sellers of anything supposed to make it easier to buy?

I shoot off an email to New Era telling them how lame this is and how lame their customer service people are.

I, almost immediately, get a response apologizing, thanking me for bringing this to their attendion, and the promise of a gift card for my troubles.

Wow!

New Era Gift Card

I then get another email asking if they can place my order, gratis. Done.

The NEXT day, I get a gift card with a HANDWRITTEN note. Who does that anymore? Apparently New Era.

I also get a follow up email checking that I got the gift card (VERY generous by the way) and that everything was ok.

I’m totally impressed and a fan for life.

Felt good writing a positive comment, so double bonus for good vibes.

Unless I”m really missing something (which is always possible) is there a reason why Netflix doesn’t have social media outlets displayed prominently (if at all) on their site?

I’m just saying…I should get a t-shirt…anyway…from Reid Hoffman at LinkedIn:

Dear Josh,

I want to personally thank you because you were one of LinkedIn’s first million members (member number 388931 in fact!*). In any technology adoption lifecycle, there are the early adopters, those who help lead the way. That was you.
We hit a big milestone at LinkedIn this week when our 100 millionth member joined the site.

When we founded LinkedIn, our vision was to help the world’s professionals be more successful and productive. Today, with your help, LinkedIn is changing the lives of millions of members by helping them connect with others, find jobs, get insights, start a business, and much more.
We are grateful for your support and look forward to helping you accomplish much more in the years to come. I hope that you are having a great year.
Sincerely,
Reid Hoffman
Co-founder and Chairman
LinkedIn
*Your member number is the number embedded in your LinkedIn profile URL (after “id=”).

INTERNET By Stuart Caie

Below is a short paper Julia Allis and I developed for IST 618 – Survey of Telecommunications and Internet Policy taught by Professor Milton Mueller. It takes a look at the Open Internet Coalition. Enjoy!

About/Policy Agenda

For our lobbying organization, we chose the Open Internet Coalition. Founded originally as “ItsOurNet Coalition” in 2006, the Open Internet Coalition rebranded with its current name in 2007 (Crum, 2007).  The Coalition is a group of corporations dedicated to keeping the Internet open to all producers of Internet content, affordable and available to everyone, and maintaining a high quality of service through a competitive marketplace (Open Internet Coalition). The organization’s policy agenda commonly refers to what it calls the ‘Four Opens’ – open devices, open applications, open services, and open networks (Paczkowski, 2007). Part of their policy, ‘network neutrality’, is an agenda item that the organization and its members have vacillated on throughout the years.

Despite their noble-sounding mission, the organization has been criticized of clubby, behind-the-scenes operations when pushing their policy agenda to the FCC (Lasar, 2010). Despite actions like these, the organization has a well-oiled public relations machine capable of balancing the bad press they receive for their back-room dealings with very visible end-user oriented campaigns such as their ‘Protect the Net’ campaign.  This initiative was launched at last year’s Computer Electronics Show and targeted consumers and entrepreneurs (Crum, 2010) (Hart, 2010).

Net neutrality is a hot item on the Open Internet Coalition’s policy agenda. In tracking the organization’s lobbying and its members’ actions independently on that topic, some interesting patterns emerged, namely member companies acting counter to the organization’s interests on the same issue. This is discussed in greater detail later in the paper under the How Its Policy Agenda Relates to the Self-Interest of the Members section.

Despite a seemingly limitless supply of resources and influence, Josh tried unsuccessfully for two weeks to get any official documentation from the Open Internet Coalition. We thought that with world-class organizations like Google and Amazon on their roster, we’d get world-class service and a world-class document or two clearly defining and articulating the organization’s agenda. Despite repeated attempts, we received nothing. This brought up questions surrounding the cohesiveness of the organization as well as its dedication to its mission. It certainly brings into question the organization’s transparency, something they try to create the illusion of. If they’re going to ignore the innocent information-gathering request of a student, what will they divulge to the press or other bodies making inquiries?

Membership/Supporters

The Open Internet Coalition is a who’s who of Internet titans and membership organizations – Amazon, American Library Association, eBay, Facebook, Google, Match.com, PayPal, Skype and Twitter to name a few.  Its membership also counts non-profit organizations with an interest in freedom of communication, such as the ACLU, Free Press, Educause and Internet2, and library organizations including the ALA and ARL.

From Comments Of The Open Internet Coalition (January, 2010):

“The Open Internet Coalition (“OIC”) represents consumers, grassroots organizations, and technology and Internet companies working in pursuit of a shared goal: keeping the Internet fast, open and accessible to all Americans. We support a process that results in common sense baseline rules to ensure that the Internet remains a key engine of economic growth, innovation, speech, and global competitiveness. The Coalition spans the political spectrum, standing together to protect an open Internet.”

How Its Policy Agenda Relates to the Self-Interest of the Members

All the organizations which comprise the core of the Open Internet Coalition’s membership have a vested interest in maintaining net neutrality.  Fundamentally, they all benefit from an open architecture that “allows worldwide users to make decisions about what businesses and which voices succeed and fail in the Internet ecosystem” (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010).

However, due to the diversity of the membership, the particular benefit they derive from net neutrality varies.  These can be broken down by type of organization.

Entrepreneurs and startups rely on net neutrality to “develop new online products and services with the guarantee of neutral, nondiscriminatory delivery to users.“ (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010)

Existing businesses “leverage the power of the Internet to develop innovative product lines, reach new consumers across the globe, and create business models.“ (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010)

Small businesses “…rely on the open Internet to grow and to increase their sales.” (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010)

Social networking sites exist for the purpose of online communication.  Their profits typically rely on ad revenue, which is severely affected by any practice that drives away membership. Furthermore, they are vulnerable to public response to the content their users put on the site.  Data transmission regulation could function as a form of discrimination against undesired content.

Online video providers such as Amazon.com, Netflix, and Blockbuster.com “provide high quality video content that competes with traditional video offerings from the network operator” (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010) and could tempt network operators to discriminate for competitive advantage.

Non-profit and NGO organizations are concerned with safeguarding First Amendment values.  “These values are at risk because of potentially discriminatory policies implemented by a handful of companies that provide access to and from the Internet.” (Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition, 2010)

Because of the large number of organizations making up the OIC’s roster, conflicts of interest sometimes arise. After internal disagreements, the OIC opted to abstain from a stance regarding net neutrality legislation developed in 2010 by Rep. Henry Waxman, because certain parts of the legislation supported the interests of some member organizations but not others (Jerome 2010).

In fact, the member organizations sometimes find themselves working unilaterally against the interests of the group as a whole. In August 2010, the a lawyer named Lazarus attempted to broker “closed-door” talks between Verizon, AT&T, Google, Skype, and the OIC, in hopes that internet service providers and internet-supported companies could come to terms outside legislative avenues.  These talks went poorly, and ended when Verizon and Google revealed that they had been negotiating their own arrangement.  Notably, Google is itself a major member of the OIC, but in this case represented its own interests rather than the coalition. (Gustin, 2010)

Works Referenced

Coalition, O. I. (n.d.). Open Internet Coalition Facebook. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/openinternetcoalition?v=app_4949752878

Crum, C. (2010, January 7). Open Internet Heavily Promoted at CES: Open Internet Coalition Encourages Petition Signing. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from WebProNews: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/01/07/open-internet-heavily-promoted-at-ces

eBay. (2010, May 24). eBay Sends Letter Supporting Genachowski with Open Internet Coalition. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from eBay: http://www.ebaymainstreet.com/news-events/ebay-sends-letter-supporting-genachowski-open-internet-coalition

Federal Communications Commission; The Open Internet Coalition. (2010, January 14). Comments Of The Open Internet Coalition. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from The Open Internet Coalition: http://www.openinternetcoalition.com/files/OIC_NN_Comments_FINAL.pdf

Gustin, S. (2010, December 1). Google, Facebook, Twitter to Feds: Man Up on Net Neutrality. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from WIRED: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/tag/open-internet-coalition/

Gustin, S. (2010, August 9). Google, Verizon, and the FCC: inside the war over the Internet’s future. Retrieved February 14, 2011, from DailyFinance.com: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/company-news/google-verizon-fcc-war-over-internets-future/19605776/

Haselton, T. (2007, July 11). Open Internet Coalition wants unlocked iPhones for everybody. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from ars technica: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2007/07/open-internet-coalition-wants-unlocked-iphones-for-everybody.ars

Jerome, S. (2010, September 28). Sources: OIC not supporting Waxman net-neutrality bill. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from The Hill: http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/121493-sources-oic-will-not-support-waxman-net-neutrality-bill

Krigman, E. (2010, August 13). Open Internet Coalition to FCC: Don’t Wait for Congress. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from National Journal: http://techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2010/08/open-internet-coalition-to-fcc.php

Open Internet Coalition. (n.d.). Open Internet Coalition. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Open Internet Coalition: http://www.openinternetcoalition.org/

Ou, G. (2010, January 19). Improving on Amazon’s Net Neutrality proposal. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Digital Society: http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/01/improving-on-amazons-net-neutrality-proposal/

Ou, G. (2010, April 19). Open Internet Coalition opposes Open Access. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Digital Society: http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/04/open-internet-coalition-not-your-fathers-title-ii/

Paczkowski, J. (2007, July 31). Of Course We Could Just Blame the FCC for Our Refusal to Bid and Still Come Out Looking Like Heroes. Retrieved February 14, 2011, from All Things Digital, Digital Daily: http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20070731/spectrum-auction-google/

Schelmetic, T. E. (2010, November 8). Policy Management – Open Internet Coalition Issues Statement to the FCC. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from TMCnet: http://policy-management.tmcnet.com/topics/policy-management/articles/115108-open-internet-coalition-issues-statement-the-fcc.htm

Silver, J. (2010, August 5). Google-Verizon Deal: The End of The Internet as We Know It. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silver/google-verizon-deal-the-e_b_671617.html

The Open Internet Coalition. (n.d.). Collection of Comments to the FCC on Net Neutrality. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from The Open Internet Coalition: http://www.openinternetcoalition.com/index.cfm?objectid=3A9109DE-89F9-11DF-A6BC000C296BA163

Aufbruch - Breakup By dolorix

It’s been a rocky relationship, and now it’s over. You really thought doubling the monthly rate would keep customers around? Later.

I’m gonna give BackBlaze a shot ….

stop! by StartTheDay

Because we’re connections, it doesn’t give you the right to automatically add me to whatever email list you send out. I’m not interested in:

Peruvian, Greek, or Brazilian vacation properties (or any real estate properties), healthy relationship retreats, secrets of Executive Leadership, any seminar (be it web or otherwise) on accountability or anything else

I’m also not interested in in joining your real estate club, your investment banking forum, invites welcome or whatever LinkedIn group you’re starting.

I’m pretty aware of what’s out there and, believe me, I have no problem finding it on my own.

The bad news was here but now there is some VERY good news. It looks like Xmarks will be saved. This is great and if you haven’t checked out the best Firefox plugin, you should.