Monday, July 21, 2008

GE's Customer Care Doesn't

I'm about to arrange to take my third Monday afternoon in a row off from work so I can be here for GE’s service technician. He's repairing my microwave, which is less than 6 weeks old.

Here's what happened.

Week 1, I call the service center, describe the problem I'm having (power cuts off after a few seconds) and the rep says "it's probably an inverter board," and schedules a repair call.

Week 2, The technician arrives, diagnoses the problem and says it's an inverter board. He orders the part.

Week 3,.The part has arrived, the repair guy comes to install it, but it's the wrong part. He has to order the right part, I have to take a third day off from work to be available, and we have to go another week without a microwave.

Wouldn't the RIGHT thing for GE to have done is replace the microwave? Just ship us a new one, and have us ship the old one back? Or have the repair guy make the swap?

That would be showing GE cares about their customer's time, they’re concerned if they waste time because of their error, and keeping customers satisfied is its top priority. Instead, GE parrots back the warranty and disregards what this experience has meant to its customer and his perception of their company.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

It's Time to Take Another Look at eBay

The Nortica 500 ranks eBay sellers according to feedback, so it's a pretty good measure of which sellers are successful.

I've been following top eBay sellers for about 5 years now for the books we've written. So on a lark, I checked the Nortica list from February 2006, which I reprinted in eBay PowerSeller Million Dollar Ideas. The surprising news? All of the top 10 sellers from then remain in the top 20 today. And all but one is ACTIVELY selling on eBay. Some have tens of thousands of listings.

So what happened to all the sellers who jumped ship to Amazon?

Well some did, but as it turns out many of eBay's most successful sellers, who've been on selling there for years, remain on eBay.

This isn't to say there are not a lot of disenchanted sellers out there. What with the changes in feedback rules, fees, searching, etc. But to dismiss eBay has a "has been Web 1.0 company that's irrelevant" would be wrong.

Let's all take another look at eBay!

Sunday, March 9, 2008

E-Books: Come on Baby Light my Kindle!

Brad used to work for a Silicon-Valley based Internet startup called MightyWords. MightyWords provided information in the form of everything from white papers to small books, but this information lived online, only. The company didn't digitize existing information, it created (or had created) new information that never saw the light of paper. This was back in the day, of course, when lots of Internet companies were attracting VC money, whether they had a solid business plan or not. No news there.

If you've never heard of MightyWords that's ok. The company vanished after a year or so, as it was burning through many hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, while taking in a fraction of that. But the idea of e-books persists, thanks in part to Amazon's Kindle.

The Kindle does solve a lot of the problems that other e-book readers had. Document delivery is fast and effortless. You can even get updates as they become available. And you're not limited to books either. You can subscribe to blogs, newspapers, and magazines also. The screen is much easier to read from than the screens of other readers. However, at $399 who is going to buy this device? You can still buy a lot of "tree books" for $399, and thanks to Amazon Prime you can have them in a day for a song.

Computer techies that need access to information immediately to troubleshoot, for example, would find the Kindle indispensable. So would others with a need for up-to-the-minute information and the deep pockets to get it (say some of those in the medical profession).

In the meantime, it's still seems it will be a long time before the Kindle really catches fire.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

eBay Strike Flames Out

This was supposed to be the week that eBay sellers showed just how upset they were with the company by going out on strike. That is, by not posting any listings. Guess what? It looks like it didn’t happen folks. Not in the numbers many anticipated, anyway. Our own survey of top sellers, including members of the all-powerful Professional eBay Sellers Alliance, found that very few PowerSellers, at least, are participating in the strike.

This is not to say the strike sizzled out completely. The media has been all over the story (what story there really is, anyway). There were definitely people who chose not to list this week. But the vast majority of successful PowerSellers walked right through the strike the way a tough boxer walks through a jab.

Here are some reasons why:

*Sorry, but these guys are too busy selling. They don’t have time to plan for a strike, and frankly they don’t want to give up the income. Some of the PowerSellers we spoke with were not even certain of the details of the strike, like when it was!

*Many top sellers think the strike really won’t accomplish anything anyway. eBay is going to do what it’s going to do, regardless of what a tiny percentage of its sellers do. Haven’t any of these folks ever worked for a corporation? It’s all about the stock price guys. That’s what management is ultimately paying attention to.

*A few sellers actually think the changes eBay recently announced are GOOD for their businesses, and are not about to strike. One seller we spoke with noted that this will force some sellers to raise their Customer Service standards, to ensure their overall ratings are high. That’s a bad thing? Certainly not if you’re a buyer.

*Some sellers have left, or are leaving eBay’s site anyway, and are busy moving their wares through other pipelines, such as Amazon’s.

So despite the media circus, the strike has struck out folks. Let’s move on.