Have you got error messages when using applications that have made you wonder whether a real person wrote these messages? It has happened to me numerous times. The best error message I have ever seen is when Pro/PDM, a CAD data management product from PTC once crashed with the error message - “Gastronomic error occurred, exiting” - I am not making this up - this was in 1996.
Though software development has made great strides since then, the usefulness of error messages have not changed that much. I was visiting one of the websites today (I cannot reveal the site name), when this information message caught my attention.
I was quite happy to notice that they wanted to improve my shopping experience, but look at the message. I am left to figure out when the site would be down. What would it have taken to say the exact date and time when the site would be down - nothing. But I speculate that some web developer discovered a cute little function that could update the number of hours and minutes to shutdown real time and he/she would have said”Wow, cool”. If the person who put this message together had stopped to think for one second whether the message provided the useful information he/she wanted to convey (the information that his/her customers could process), he/she very likely would have changed the message.
Think about all the information you put out there for your users and think about how much of it would make sense to them. Your users don’t have your product as the center of their universe, they are using it as a tool to get their real job done. Do all the messages that your product puts out help them get their job done? - that is the only benchmark that matters.
It is up to us as Product Managers to emphasize to our documentation/development teams that error/informational messages put out by the product has a significant enough influence on usability and user perception of your product that enough attention should be put in writing user friendly messages (and not one that makes great sense to developers alone).
My previous post was about the horrible customer experience at the Apple store. I find out that I am not alone - there are more and more stories on the internet how their customer service is bad. Here is a recent post on San Jose Mercury News - very much along the lines of my experience.
Apple’s So-Called Geniuses Can Do Better: In order to fix my daughter’s iPod, a staffer at an Apple store wanted me to request an appointment with one of their ‘geniuses’ — their word, not mine - San Jose Mercury News 10/15/07
Yesterday, my Mighty Mouse, only 10 months old and the one I purchased with my iMac, stopped working - all I could do was scroll down and not scroll up. I decided to take it to the nearest Apple store in Natick - about 25 miles away. I also had a $600+ gift card from Apple and I intended to spend it. I am a great fan of Apple products (see my previous post where I have raved about Apple products). I walked in like a kid in a candy store confident that I will get a new mouse and then get some more of new toys with my gift card.
I talk to one of the reps at the store only to be asked if I have an appointment to replace my mouse. Excuse me, now I wondered if I have hearing problems. Yes, he was serious - he said I needed an appointment to talk to someone about getting a new mouse. He refers me to the manager who says the same thing - I needed an appointment with the Genius Bar and if I want, I could wait around 2 hours to see if they could squeeze me in - hallo, first of all, I don’t need a Genius to replace my mouse and two, I was not looking for a doctor’s appointment. I could see that there were at least 10 sales reps in the store, some selling new stuff, others just standing around waiting for customers to whom they could sell stuff. Now here I am, a very loyal customer being told to leave, drive back 50 miles, set up an appointment and then drive back another 50 miles the next day all for replacing a mouse.
None of this reasoning would go anywhere with the store Manager. He told me that they had a system in place and we had to follow the system (hallo, I am the customer) and it was put in place to be respectful of other customers - never mind, this customer being insulted. Only when I told him that I was intending to spend $700 in the store did something dawn on the manager. Not immediately, but after about 10 minutes when he saw me looking at the new iPod. He knew that I was serious about spending the money. He came by after 10 minutes and he said he will do me a favor (sure I am the customer and you are doing me a favor) and exchange the mouse. So why all the hoopla, if you could do this - it took him a mere 5 minutes. Amazing !!
Apple got away lucky - I had an Apple gift card and hence I was a captive customer. I could not exchange the card for money to spend it elsewhere - who knows even if I could do, I am sure that would need another Genius Bar appointment. I ended up spending all the money getting my new iPod, iPod shuffle and the Bose sound dock.
While I am happy with my new toys, I can tell you that I am still shocked at the horrible experience. Does this mean that as long as you churn out great products and the world is beating a path to your door, you can get away with horrible customer service? Maybe Apple will - but I don’t think this is a model anyone else would want to follow. After all, history is loaded with examples where companies once market darlings found themselves out of reckoning (Just ask Dell), when they forgot what got them there - the customer !! If my experience is what loyal customers get from Apple, maybe Apple deserves no better. Apple, you have got arrogant.
My previous post was about how product managers should think more about customer experiences. I had mentioned about how I have had the most memorable product experiences when I bought my iPod and my iMac. Here is another one that is service related that has truly been enjoyable. For the last one year, we have been seeing doctors who are associated with Fallon Clinic. I am truly impressed by their service because of the attention they have paid to details. Everytime, I show up for my appointment, they print a page of labels with all the pertinent information - my name, my phone number, my address etc. on these labels. The doctor then uses the labels on all the forms, prescriptions that he writes. Not a big deal you think until you show up at the pharmacy or at the labs. I no longer have to repeat all this information over and over. I use the pharmacy drive thru, hand off the prescription and off I go - nothing else said - the label has all the information the pharmacy needs.
This is a classic example of walking thru the entire customer experience and then designing a solution. Fallon Clinic did not have to do this, they could have easily dropped this feature and put the onus on me - after all by showing up for the appointment, the clinic get its money. Instead, they chose to make my life easier - net result they have won a long term customer who is now spreading the word.
