Spritz: Good Product, Good Marketing, Rotten Customer Support
We see it all the time. Some innovator comes up with a good idea or product. He raises the money to develop it. He starts a company.
Then the company comes up with a marketing plan that works. They are now two out of three. Very few firms get this far.
Then they turn customer support over to untrained people who have had no experience dealing with the public. These support staffers are paid something over minimum wage, but not much. They are given no manual on how to deal with customers. They are paid the same, whether they do good work or bad work. Their performance is not monitored. So, they do what most people do: as little as possible.
These are the only employees the public ever comes into contact with. The public then rates the quality of the firm in terms of the responses they get from customer support.
Customer support people in India want to do well. They may not know much, but they try. They have the best jobs they can get, because they can speak English. In contrast, Americans in this position sense that they are at the bottom of the pile. They do not have the Indians' inner drive to do the best job they can on their way up. On the contrary, they want to do as little as possible, since there is no way up. They do not see their jobs as opportunities. They see them as dead ends. This, at least, is the image they project to the public.
SPRITZ: A CASE STUDY
A GaryNorth.com site member posted a link to this site on a forum. http://sdk.spritzinc.com/js/1.2/bookmarklet/index.html
Spritz is a speed-reading program. It is free. It sounds pretty good.
They make their money a wise way. It is free to begin using it. They provide a full version to you if you go above 450 words per minute. If you want training above 450 wpm, you must register. This means that you register only if it works for you. There is no risk to the user. I like this approach. It is innovative. It is fair.
But there is a problem. Customer support. These people should be sent to India for training.
On this same page, we read this.
Getting the Spritzlet to work on every webpage is a tall order. If a page doesn't work as expected, let us know if you see any problems at support@spritzinc.com. In your email be sure to include the URL of the site, your web browser, and what exactly went wrong so we can get everything fixed for you as soon as possible.
So, I sent an email with this subject: No Link. I pointed out there is no link. I got this reply: "If you just click the button on the page that says 'Spritzlet' it will give you a preview."
In short, "link" means "button" at Spritz.
This is your standard techie response. "It's not our mistake. It's yours. You are a user. You people make lots of mistakes. We are techies. We don't make mistakes. You must change."
Let me explain rephrase the reply. "We don't need no stinkin' link! We got a button. When we say 'link,' we mean 'button.' Got it, bozo?"
On-screen, the button is presented as an activation tool. It has a function: drag it to your Bookmark bar to install it.
I have never seen an activation button that is also a preview tool. Buttons on a tool bar are for activating a program, not providing a preview. But not in this case, I am informed.
I also sent this: Grammar.
(If you want a preview of what its like, you can just click the link.)it's
No response.
I checked the page the 36 hours later. No change. Same mistake. Same response. "We don't need no stinkin' grammar rules."
A PREVAILING ATTITUDE
Companies put on a good face. They say that they want feedback. Some do. Most don't. Most want to avoid the simplest sort of changes. They do not want to be reminded that they have made an obvious error.
Does this cost them money? They don't know, and they don't care.
A grammatical error has sat their product description page from the beginning. I presume that no one warned them. Site visitors rarely do. They know it's a waste of time. They do not bother.
This looks like a good product. It is easily imitated. When you make your living selling something that is easily imitated, it's a good idea to keep improving your marketing. Using words in a common way is a good way to improve marketing. Using grammar checking is also good. Making obvious changes when politely warned works, too.
The world is filled with products that can be imitated. Bill Gates imitated Netscape Navigator, and killed it. He imitated Lotus 1-2-3, and killed it. It's not that hard to do if you have a lot of money.
One of my strategies is to post my books for free in advance, and ask for corrections. I always get at least a hundred. I make the corrections. I use the division of labor. It works for Wikipedia. It works for me.
This doesn't impress the customer support staff at Spritz.
CONCLUSION
Good customer support requires a detailed manual for the staff. It requires training and constant evaluation. It requires a person in charge with years of experience -- a well-paid person.
It requires monitoring with feedback: raises and demotions. It ultimately requires these words: "You're fired." If the job is really dead end, then sometimes employees should be terminated. They must learn to fear the unemployment line.
If a firm has a good product and good marketing, it had better have good customer support. Quality is a package deal.
Senior managers ignore generally customer support. "It will take care of itself. Our time is too valuable to monitor customer support. Our job is to find ways to increase revenues." As they might put it on the site, "Its the way we do business here."
They changed its to it's after I sent out my article to 100,000 subscribers of Tea Party Economist. Someone forwarded it to a senior management member. I knew someone would. That is why I sent it out. Customer support teams don't expect anyone to do this. It's outside the normal chain of command.