The follies of our Charities

A few years back around Christmas time, I was discussing with my kids the importance of charity and how to choose who to donate to. The kids got interested and wanted to participate in making such choices. As a result we ended splitting up the amounts we had earmarked for charity among a number of organizations serving various social needs.


A short time after we sent our donations I noticed a substantial increase in mail soliciting donations, not only from those organizations we donated to, but from many others we never dealt with. This started me thinking on the lax ethical standards of organizations that promise not to share your address, but then feel they can do so under the pretext of a "good cause". From there I got thinking about the efficiency of those organizations in fundraising and started a small experiment: over a period of 2 years I collected all soliciting mail from organizations I had stopped donating to and analyzed the contents.

The first surprise was the sheer volume of soliciting mail we received, which indicates to me the scale of donor address sharing going on in the charitable sector. Here is a picture of just a year's worth of these solicitations.

The next surprise was the scope of unsolicited gifts and print materials we received: calendars, planners, tot bags, pen, paper pads, key chains etc. Here are some samples:

While paper pads and calendars could find some use, there were also items that could be useful if it weren't for the excessive quantities we received. Here are 2 examples - greeting cards and address labels:

In an age where regular mail use is declining in favor of electronic communications, the greeting cards we got were way more than my team of 10 people at work needed for ALL occasions. The address labels were just a humongous waste, not to mention other labels of even rarer use like these:

More ridiculous were things that didn't make much sense at all such as "Supporter Cards" that can't be used for much, or nickel coins:

Some thought that overwhelming donors with multiple mailings will do the trick!

All of this made me realize why the charitable sector is so inefficient and vulnerable. Others may enjoy the continuous flood of unsolicited junk. For my part I'd rather see the organizations I support avoid the waste and offer donors choices of electronic communications as well as choices of what gifts they'd like to receive if any at all for their donations.


Until I see such behavior that indicates some financial rationality and responsibility for our environment as well, the bags of soliciting mail is going straight to the blue box.

Rogers Choco Promo

I recently went in the morning to a major Rogers location for updating the hardware of my daughter's cell phones. The first contact with staff was on the cool side. The person assisting us was sitting behind a long counter and did not stand up and join us as I am used to in that location (must be some new "stay-put" policy!).

Once we explained what we needed the rep started typing on his computer. His body language and terse responses communicated annoyance. I thought for a while it was because we disturbed their peaceful morning rumination, but it turned out that he was stuck trying to retrieve the account information.

Long story short, we selected the new phone (BB of course) and started the process of settling, which involves committing to a 3-years contract with exit penalties in order to get the subsidized cost of the phone. As soon as we signed on the dotted line a magic transformation in the attitude happened. Two bottles of water were offered. The contract was briefly explained, particularly the checklist of what a customer satisfaction survey to be expected in few days will be asking us.

Then, with the phone and papers we got handed two CD jewel cases. I was expecting the usual promotional materials, perhaps a manual in electronic format, or even a music selection like Nissan does sometimes.

To my surprise each case contained a thick CD made completely out of chocolate!



Now I don't know about you, but I am quite a chocolate fan. So I was initially pleasantly surprised. On second thought, however, and having eaten the chocolate, I have the following to say to my friends at Rogers:

• Thanks for the promotional chocolate; its quality was medium, but hey, it's free.

• While I am a chocolate fan, I would have much preferred a friendlier service before sale.

• I was not happy that despite being a VIP customer with significant spending with Rogers for many years, a hardware upgrade had to reset the account lock for another 3 years.

• I realize I am hostage to the only GSM carrier in Canada for the time being. All the chocolate of the world will not stop a hostage from seeking freedom. So I'll be seriously looking for alternatives as soon as other GSM carriers become available. Customer service is not post-sale token rewards. It starts with genuine and fair value of the products and services you offer your customers.

• Oh and by the way: After 4 months I am still trying to remove a Rogers monthly charge for web hosting that I canceled over six months ago for a web site that never ran on Rogers servers. I assure you, you can remove our web domain from your servers while keeping our (hosted exchange) email domain.
  

Rogers Rocket Mobile Internet Stick - Customer Report

Rogers is offering recently a wireless broadband modem in stick format with a USB interface, which it has branded as the "Rocket Mobile Internet Stick". The stick supports multiple wireless broadband technologies (GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA and HSUPA). The device is being offered free with on one-year activation with an MSF (monthly service fee) of $25. I was looking into a mobile Internet solution for my team's MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops, so I contacted Rogers.

The sales person I was dealing with offered me to evaluate one unit on a 30 days refund basis and promised delivery of the evaluation unit by overnight courier. I received the unit only several days after, as Rogers needed three trade references for my company, despite being their customers for business data products for over 7 years.

Package Contents

The unit arrived in a box and contained the Stick, a SIM card, a CDROM, a USB cable, a hook for attaching the stick to the top of a laptop's screen or LCD monitor, and documentation.

The Stick is an Ovation MC950D mobile broadband modem made by Novatel Wireless Inc. The documentation consisted of a Novatel Quick Start Guide and a Rogers Wireless Services User Guide. Also provided were a single sheet with information on the assigned cellular number (user name, cell number, ESN), a UPS courier bag and labels for return shipment if required.

The SIM is inserted directly into the side of the stick as shown here.

A slot in the stick shows how far the SIM has been inserted. Once in place, the SIM still protrudes a bit at the top and the slot length gives the impression that there is more room for the SIM to slide down. It turned out however, that this is as far as the SIM would go and is sufficient for proper operations.

The Novatel printed guide (glossy, 4-color, 5 languages) turned out to be only relevant for Windows installation. It did provide a table to decode the 6-color LED status display of the stick. The CD provided a Quick Start Guide for installing the modem under Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger as well as 3G driver v2.0.

Mac Installation

The stick can be inserted directly into a USB port or in case of weak signal in that position it can be attached on top of the screen using the plastic hook and USB extension cable provided.

Although I followed the instructions provided, the Stick would not show up in the MacBook's network interfaces at all, and hence I could not configure it as required. From the colors displayed by the status LED, the modem seemed to connect properly to the cellular network. However, differentiating between the colors blue, cyan and violet could be challenging in normal operating conditions.

I contacted Rogers Technical Support. It took quite a while to get to the proper skill set. Once there the Rogers technician had me remove the drivers I had installed, download new drivers from Novatel's web site and re-install. Several variations of the same approach yielded no progress. The technician then consulted a superior and came back with the following stunning answer: "We only support Mac OS X Leopard". Both the included Novatel documentation as well as Rogers own web site stated clearly that Mac OS Tiger is supported. The only thing I got out of this wasted time is a case number!

Windows Installation

I continued my efforts by installing the Stick on a Windows XP (SP3) laptop following the Novatel instructions. Using address information that was not supplied with the package but obtained during my support session, I was able to install and configure the Rogers stick on this machine and access the internet. Speed tests with various sites ranged between 642 and 1046 Kbps download and 509 to 1067 Kbps upload with latency ranging between 103 to 167 ms. The maximum throughput recorded was 1243 Kbps. I tried again on the Mac with no success. I did notice that the serial number of the device showing up in the USB section of the Mac System Profiler was slightly different from the one on the modem and in the accompanying documentation.

Speaking about my frustration with the Mac installation to a Rogers reseller while on other business, he suggested trying Nerds Onsite Technology Partners, who were providing paid assistance to Rogers customers over a wide scope of issues: from assessing their communications needs to assisting in complex deployment or installations, to on-site technical support. I contacted the Nerds Onsite and a technician was made available on site on Christmas Eve afternoon. I was impressed with their commitment and hopeful of a solution. Unfortunately, the technician was unable to get the Stick working.

The Verdict

I had invested at that point 200% more time than I had initially planned for this evaluation. Thinking about deploying and supporting this device to multiple users with such lacking vendor support, I decided it was not ready for Mac users. The Stick will be on its way back to Rogers tomorrow. It is unfortunate that such a promising product would fail due to poor customer service. If only Rogers technical support for the Rocket Stick was as good as their billing department! They've already sent me an invoice dated December 17th for $65.77.

Symantec NAV Saga: The Third & Final Episode

Last month I blogged about my second episode with Symantec's Norton Anti Virus (NAV) support. At the time I was to recontact their technical support in about a week's time. The season being what it is I did not get to schedule the 1-2 hours that this contact will require until about a month later. As I logged in to Symantec's chat, I was quite confident that with this extra time the brilliant people at NAV would have found a solution to the issue.

I completed once again the pre-session form, dutifully entered the case number given to me, and when I finally had "Analyst Mamta" joining my chat room, here is how that conversation went, literally:

Mamta> Could you please elaborate the issue for me?

Me> I guess your case file did not include info on what your 2 previous colleagues did with me over 2 sessions of couple of hours each?

Mamta> I'm trying to look for the information.

Me> In the last session I was told that Symantec did not have a solution for this and had escalated the issue. I was asked to re-contact you in a week's time. It has been a month since. Is there any new information from the party it was escalated to?

Mamta> Please confirm if you have worked on this issue with a case manager.

Me> I don't know if the previous 2 "analysts" that worked with me on this are "case managers" or not.

Mamta> It looks like you have contacted us multiple times about this and it’s still not resolved. I’d like to transfer you to a Case Manager who will study this case and investigate further possible solutions. Is that okay with you?

At that stage it became clear to me that there was no recording of information in the case file and hence no hope for progress on resolving my problem, so I asked for a refund. I was told that for a refund I needed to contact Symantec's customer service (CS), again chat only unless you pay for their time!

Long story short, I connected by chat again to "Radhika" of Customer Service (Returns). She asks me again what the issue is; have I re-installed the product; am I getting error messages etc. Thirty minutes into that conversation Radhika asks to connect remotely to my machine. I feel the need to reiterate that I am using a Mac and Firefox browser, to which she then states "I am not dealing with Mac operating system". If I needed any further proof that no case file of any significance exists, that was it!

Now I am transferred to "Analyst Lakshmikant" who of course starts by asking me all the same questions again! To shorten the process, I actually copied segments from my blog on the second episode describing what his colleagues already tried and sent them over chat line. Finally, he recommends that I completely remove and re-install the software (the fourth time in this process!). As I have to leave to my next appointment by then, he provides me with the instructions to do so and we agree that he'll call me by phone next day at 11:30 am EST to check that everything went as planned. Next day I spend an hour following his steps and waiting for his call. To add insult to injury, no one calls me at all.

So tonight I took the time to connect once again with this wonderful organization. It took half an hour and two representatives until I was promised an email spelling out terms that once I agree to, would start the process of refund that usually takes "5 to 7 working days".

Needless to say that as of the time of this posting no such email has arrived. I am nominating Symantec as one of two finalists for the 2008 worst customer service experience. If you're curious about who the other finalist is, read subsequent posting in this blog.

The Symantec Support Saga (part 2)

Just a quick update on Symantec's handling of support for Norton Antivirus for Mac:

My second session had to start again through the WinXP machine, but got me an "analyst" online a bit faster than the first time (about 20 minutes waiting). I typed in my case number and the analyst took time to read through it. To my surprise he started asking me if the previous analyst had done this or that. I had to tell him about the previous session's actions!

As no new action for resolving the issue was being taken, I asked the new analysts again if my selecting of a Mac OS case sensitive file system might have anything to do with the problem. To my horror, he suggested that I "change the file system and try running NAV again" !!! I had to explain to him using NTFS as example, what the consequences would be if I followed his advice.

I was told that this being an unknow issue, I should contact them again in 4-5 days. I am really curious to see what escalation procedures they have over there! Stay tuned for the next episode.

An Open Letter to Symantec's Tech Support Manager

Dear Manager,

I have recently purchased your Norton Antivirus for Mac (version 10.0.1 (3)) for my MacBook Pro running Mac OS 10.4.11 on Intel processor. After installing it and using LiveUpdate I wanted to complete an initial full scan. Each time I started the manual scan of the entire hard drive (over 110 GB) the program immediately reported having completed the scan and found nothing.

You can appreciate my scepticism in this case. So I checked all the console, system, and crash logs for any signs of problems with your application. None was found. So I moved to searching your web support pages for some indications. I selected the product and version and got a list of the top asked questions, which of course did not include anything close to my problem. It did, however, include an invitation to contact a support person by chat. I was thrilled that you offered such immediate and free support and clicked on the link and guess what I got?

I can see your anticipating smile while you're reading this. The page I got informed me that I have to use a Microsoft IE 5.5 browser or higher to chat with your agent. Now I know that you are very busy and not able to follow up on browser news, but at least your web developers should know that Mac machines have long stopped using IE in favor of Safari or Firefox.

OK. So what to do now? I resigned myself to establishing contact through an older laptop that runs Windows XP and has your cherished IE. I filled in patiently your form and clicked to finally get someone to solve my problem, but your support application insisted that it must download it's auto-diagnostic application to my Windows machine, eventhough this is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. What a wonderful logical design you have!

Now curious as to how bad it could get, I allowed the installation of your remote diagnostic. It opened then the chat interface in the default position "Full Control" of my Windows machine. There were 2 other options available: "Disable" and "View Only", but if you try to select either you get a warning that this will terminate your current support session.So much for customer choice and respect of privacy.

This was about an hour ago. Since then I have been waiting for your "analyst" to join me in the chat room and address my issue. The only things displayed is a periodic message in red saying "We are experiencing higher than usual service times. Please wait and an analyst will be with you shortly". I have now 6 of those wonderfully informative messages on the interface.

Well the time invested in Symantec support is not fully wasted. I have written this blog while waiting and I just wanted to share my lovely experience with you. Oh! Wait, here comes the analyst.

First action is to direct my Mac browser to a Symantec page and give me a PIN to access a similar remote support application to the one I had to endure on my Windows laptop. Once connected he asked and got control of my Mac. He repaired some file permissions using the disk utility, then uninstalled and reinstalled the anti-virus application (I could have told him that I already tried that). The result was obviously the same! He tried to reboot my Mac remotely, but the iChat session prevented him from doing so. I had to do it manually, which meant I lost the remote session to Symantec and had to contact you again via the Windows laptop to get a new PIN for reconnecting the Mac. The second run consisted of downloading through FTP a patch for the Stuffit component in NAV for Mac V.10 (My version is 11 and it's unclear to me why the installation files of my version didn't have the right Stuffit version in the first place). Another reboot and reconnection episode and the end result was still the same.

I had spent at that point over 2 hours on this and was running late for an appointment. So we concluded this session with a case number for me to reconnect with support.

I was not able to reconnect until 48 hours later. Believe it or not we do have a few things to do that are more important than spending hours with your online support. Back into the WinXP session. This time I only waited about half an hour to get an "analyst". He is now reviewing the case and I am wondering how long this is going to take again.

Would you be surprised if I told you that I am not a fan of Symantec any more based on my user experience? I recommend you get out of your shell and experience yourself what your customers are going through. It helps a lot!

Sincerely,
NH