It's all good so far

I spent a little time this morning updating my portion of the company website to reflect some changes in reporting. It did not take very long, but I now have things where they need to be at the moment.

It’s a small victory. As readers (the few and brave that actually return to my blog) know, I spend too much time tilting at the proverbial windmills. Two recent examples.

1. I wanted to upgrade my fitbit flex to the new model that can count steps. I thought I would be able to do this in spite of BP providing over 13000 of them to their employees. The device is available on the Best Buy Website. But the fine print says not available for shipping – check stores. I check – there is not a single device to be had in a 500 mile radius of Houston. I ask why they don’t show the item as sold out. – Well it is because it still shows in some store inventories.

Newsflash Best Buy – if it isn’t in the warehouse and one has to drive over 500 miles to get one – it is effectively sold out – update your website. Say something about due to demand, the item is currently limited to in store stock at a limited number of locations and that it will be available again in approximately some number of days for online ordering. This could even be an automated update based on inventory.

2. Quickbooks: You have often been the target of my ire. Yesterday was no different. I am trying to buy an older version of software that is available on your website. I am switching one company from an online version back to the desktop. The company activity is not large enough to warrant the ongoing online charges. I search the website for products – I see the option for online or desktop. They offer to chat with a picture of a flannel shirted guy wearing a headset and a ball cap on backwards. This inspires a great deal of confidence it is kind of hard to tell where Skippy got his MBA or IT degree, so I avoid the opportunity to chat.

i get to a screen where I can select Quickbook, then choose between the online version and the desktop. I select desktop. It takes me to the download area. I want to purchase the downloadable version and register it. I download the setup files. I figure that there will be a point where it will want to confirm the purchase during the set up process.

We get to a registration screen. I don’t have the numbers because I haven’t been given the opportunity to purchase it. The support section does not have any information. I check the FAQ’s on how to obtain registration numbers. I finally find a phone number, dial, and tumble down the rat hole.

The first support person does not have a strong command of the King’s English and after a few minutes of repeating my needs clearly and distinctly and waiting for a response read from a spread sheet in heavily accented Pidgin, I ask to speak to a manager. I am promptly punished with 35 minutes of hold time. When my call is picked back up, I get another rep speaking Pidgin. They want to go back through the flow chart of questions. I continue to enunciate clearly and distinctly what I want. No I do not want to give them my account, my company name or anything else other for fear that they will over assist and delete all the companies we have online.

After 20 minutes of this and she offers to put me in touch with a manager. I explain quietly and calmly (which the HR rep sitting in cube across from me will confirm) that I had already asked to speak to a manager which resulted in 35 minutes in the penalty box. She says that they can not sell me the registration codes for anything other than the most current version (they revise the software quite a bit – my own 2013 edition is version 14), and that I should probably find a hard copy from another vendor.

I thank her for taking an hour of my life. I suggest that they spend a little programing time explaining this on the website instead of cranking out a revision of the software every 15 minutes. She apologizes but is unable to help me with this issue and asks if there is anything else she can help with. I tell her she can discontinue the phone call and then plan on reading about my experience in every customer survey that I can find and in social media (blog fodder).

I order the software on Amazon. The only reason I did not do this at the start was to see if I could avoid the downtime waiting on a vendor to find and ship the software. I would have liked to have been able to use the software before the end of the year so I could help close the 2013 books for this company. I then go apologize to the HR rep. She said that I was much more professional and polite than she would have been.

Folks – if you are responsible for putting something up on the web so that customers can use purchase or use your products – look at it critically. See where the gaps are. There are a finite number of hours that I can give away to your foreign call center.

At the end of the day, I have the software ordered, and Intuit will get a royalty payment for my purchase, and can continue to keep the their tech support folks paid. I am a little older, and a little wiser, and the windmill has suffered a minor battering.

This entry was posted on December 17, 2013 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.