24 July 2008

Bad Customer Service or E-commerce Pirates?

E-commerce is big business. In the United States, where gas prices have spiraled and the currency exchange rate is horrible, more and more people are doing all they can to eliminate the need to drive.

More and more people are shopping from home, and Amazon's latest stellar earnings and revenue reports are just greater evidence the analysts are right. More and more cash is being exchanged online, slowly trying to replace the traditional brick and mortar storefront.

I'm no stranger to buying online. I'm always looking for a deal, and can usually find one on the web. Most Americans can relate to me when I mention buying a cellphone. Until recently, buying the latest Nseries device usually required going online, researching sellers, and comparing shipping and product prices. Sight unseen shopping isn't so scary anymore.

But I'm still old fashioned. I still prefer to have a person I can relate to for assistance and service. This is where the online sales experience has been found wanting. The clerk at the checkout provides me a little peace of mind when I buy anything. Anytime I buy online, I always get the feeling my money just went down a storm drain, never to be traced, never to be recovered.

I think since we did alot for Quick Office by posting their specially low priced limited time offer for Office Suite the other day, bringing them much new business, I should tell you my experience with Quick Office.

Honestly, it's the best document creating application suite available for S60, and the price was ridiculously low, so I threw caution to the wind. "What's a dollar?" I thought as I fired up my Nokia Webkit browser. I've really wanted this suite for quite awhile, especially for .docx filetype support, so it was a no-brainer. I logged onto the Quick Office site, entered my credit card information, and downloaded the installation file. Pretty painless.

It automatically began to install. After a few seconds staring at the progress bar, the installation finished, and my smile stretched across my face. I immediately wanted to open a .docx file. I open my menu to admire my new and slightly different Quick Office icon, then press... nothing. Again... slight blink of the screen, and then... nothing. Not only did my new Quick Office not work, the default built-in Office file reader was also disabled, so I was now without document file support! My smile quickly turned upside down, then became a scowl. I'd just been robbed! And I never did get an email confirmation for my purchase. "What's a dollar?" I asked myself again. Too much to simply disable features in my device, I surmised. And especially when I paid for a much different experience.

After rebooting my device twice, and losing, then regaining my sanity, I logged back onto Quick Office's site, and attempted to get some support. I couldn't help noticing the ominous feeling I felt when I realized the site had not one image of anything remotely human, not even a caricature! Where's that clerk at the service desk when you need them? Seeing the site was deserted, I refocused my search for help.

Since I've been a customer relations management professional in the past, I attempted to make it easy on them first by trying to find a solution before actually contacting support. I noticed the Quick Office Knowledge Base, which held a list of frequently asked questions, and proceeded to look for clues. I instantly noticed one frequently asked question about the app not launching. Optimistic a solution was close at hand, my mood was just as quickly deflated when the answer instructed me rather politely to "Please turn off/on [my] phone. When [my] phone comes back on, [I] should be able to open Quick Office." Humph... I agreed that I should've been able to use Quick Office, and it had nothing to do with Quick Office's advice, and everything to do with my quite possibly squandered dollar.

I clicked the link to express my dissatisfaction with the answer given, and sought the email support contact. That's when I really began to panic, because I saw there was no email support contact, or any other contact information whatsoever! Not a phone number, mailing address, email contact, or anything even telling me what country Quick Office does business from. I was beyond shocked. The Wizard of Oz couldn't have been more faceless! Who the heck's behind the curtain??

My only course of action left was to submit a help ticket. To do this, they first wanted me to, get this, register for a customer service account! This despite the fact I'd already given them my full name, credit card info, postal address, email address, and my required dollar I was beginning to miss more and more. I'd seen it all, but set forth divulging my privacy and identity in another form for a company unwilling to reveal much of its own.

Upon completing the registration, I was instructed to check my email for a confirmation of my support account, which was invalid until I receive and confirm my account. That wait for the support account confirmation, much like my purchase confirmation, and my distant memory of one particular dollar, turned out to be a big waste. I even reattempted to establish a support account, but was not allowed to, as my email address was already registered. So they did remember who I was. I tried to recover my missing password in hopes of finally logging into my support account just to enter a support ticket. Once again, they want my email address! What they needed it for so many times eludes me, since obviously no one has used mine. I was instructed again to check an email that never arrives.

At this point, Quick Office's logo is the equivalent of the infamous skull and bones, the banner of a pirate. They tempted me with low cost, high end goods, fleeced me of a paltry sum, partially disabled my phone, all while wearing a mask. I can't contact Quick Office if I tried, and they show no desire to contact me. That ended when the credit card information went through. Now I sit asking myself a question: "What's a dollar?" I can't tell you. Maybe you should ask Quick Office. They certainly know much better than I, and have a pretty slick method of amassing them anonymously. I seriously doubt you'll have much luck getting their attention, though. Needless to say, I still am a dollar short, without the app I paid for. I'll be dealing with Mobisystems again from now on.

Customer service is a dying art in today's online market. And yet it will continue to experience growth out of necessity. Will these e-tailers learn from the old school brick and mortar stores, or will they simply continue becoming the pirates of the digital sea?