Design By Tim

Recently in a post titled, Amazon Sends “Best Customer Service E-mail I’ve Ever Received” the author posted a supposedly true story of a well written customer complaint to Amazon in regards to their fire-sales during “Black Friday week”. You can read Mr. Hildebrandt’s post as well as the replies it prompted, here.

Just for kicks Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s president was CC’d in the email. Several days went by when a reply was received.  In the same tone and whit the clever customer service representative wrote a nice letter that stated the terms of the sales. As well as wishing him the best of luck in next year’s promotion!

Now that is great Customer Service: it’s the ability to take a beating - rather it’s the ability to cleverly say no and have the customer not only accept the rejection - but also be happy and continue to evangelize the company’s reputation.

Recently, the NY Times had a short piece on how UPS eliminated left-hand turns for delivery trucks.

Last year, according to Heather Robinson, a U.P.S. spokeswoman, the software helped the company shave 28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which has resulted in savings of roughly three million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons.

Implemented about 2 years ago it has had its series of hurdles. Costing $600M to adopt nationwide, the improved end-to-end flow, which will ultimately be used by more than 100,000 employees, begins when the customer generates a smart label using a Web application that transmits customer and package information to UPS and pre-processes it before the driver arrives for pickup. That information then passes to UPS’s Dispatch Planning System, which charts UPS truck pickup and delivery routes.

Beginning in 2007, when the new system will be fully deployed, increases in operational efficiency are expected to save UPS that $600 million each year, says project leader Cathy Callagee, operations portfolio manager at UPS.

The hardest part of the project, according to Callagee, has been integration with legacy AS/400 and mainframe systems. But the lessons she has learned from the project are of a less technical nature. Before digging into technology, the project’s planners focused exclusively on streamlining processes — and when the new package-flow apps were ready, the company rolled out the new system slowly, so feedback from the field could be leveraged to improve the software.

Callagee’s final advice has become the refrain for modern IT. “If we don’t have a business reason … we don’t do it for technology’s sake. Unless there is a true business-case ROI, don’t do it.” So what can Brown do for you?

Apple has warned users that upcoming iPhone updates could ruin the device for users of third-party unlocking software. The company said in a statement on Monday that it has found “irreparable damage” caused to the phone’s software by many of the unlocking tools currently available.

When new updates are installed, the iPhone could be rendered “permanently inoperable”. The iPhone will also be unfixable, as the company pointed out that unlocking the iPhone is a violation of the licensing agreement and voids the warranty.

Apple executives have said that the company does not purposely design updates to disable or damage hacked iPhones, but warned that it would not accept any responsibility if its updates damaged phones with third-party software.

What’s great is that all my M$haft friends have thrown this in my face as how “Apple doesn’t think of their consumers”. Even articles: “Why the world says ‘meh’ to Apple’s next product“  allude to the lack of buzz surrounding the launch of Leopard. Is Apple going down the tubes?

I think not.

Why? Because it makes sense - do you really want to support something someone has violated your warrenty etc on? - at least Apple warns their users of this rather than being a dick munch like M$haft and rendering your computer a paper weight. My opinion is that Apple is actually one of those companies that gets product development. First because OSX is not their bread and butter (granted it’s the butter for their bread), then all the new feature adds are for their consumers. Secondly, why is it wrong (or even un-American for that matter) to protect your investment.

Look at the lack of excitement over Vista. Dell had to re-introduce an option to include XP rather than Vista on new PCs because so many people shunned it. A year after its completion, people still mutter about device drivers not being ready. The graphics twiddles add nothing to its usability. Like sweets, the initial buzz is superseded by a gnawing hunger for something substantial.

While I agree consumers are a greedy bunch - always wanting the latest greatest, lumping OSX and Windows together in comparison is difficult and hardly fair to either product. With the looming launch of Leopard granted it isn’t as exciting a jump from osx 8 to 10 - but the goal is not to shock with the new version - rather take on the success of the previous version and expand on it. With all the rumor sites out there - I think this advancement really  allows for the ultra-portable device - because ultimately you’re looking for connectivity and reliability.

Granted, some of the new features may never be used by consumers (if you’re playing to the crowd they all won’t use the same feature set) - however I see a lot of the advancements that Apple is taking with this release as gearing for more application development from third party software groups to target their users. A complaint is that Apple is adding needless bells and whistles that don’t target the web audience - however in my opinion they are focusing more on the web group than even Vista is capable of. Look at just widget development tools - essentially it’s glorified JavaScript, which means now anyone JS developer worth his/her salt can easily integrate a widget into their latest webapp…

Matt wrote a response to his recent post on frustration he has with the button layout of the GameCube controller when playing Super Mario World on the Wii.

Not too long ago I wrote a post on this blog titled WTF Nintendo?. In it I expressed my frustration toward the button layout on the GameCube controller when playing Super Mario World on the Wii. There were many similar postings on various forums, so I felt justified in my position. I knew that a single post on a no-name blog wasn’t going to do anything so I turned my blog post into a letter; Presented in a slightly more diplomatic fashion of course. I mailed it out the next day but really never expected a response.

Apparently, the great Nintendo must have head his pleas for redemption of a sorted issue. They tracked him down at his home with a phone call (gotta love the Internet). Please note he used snail mail to make them aware of this troubling feature abuse. Using the following points they explained the reasoning behind the layout of the controller etc…

• Not much QA is done on Virtual Console games, after all these games were well tested 15+ years ago. They just make sure the game runs and send it out.
• If you compare the button letters of a GameCube controller to a Super Nintendo controller you can see that they match up perfectly. It’s the GameCube button layout that’s messed up.
• Nintendo does not have a mechanism in place to “recall” a VC game.
• Nintendo designed the Classic Controller for the virtual console and thus it is the preferred method of input. (read “Cough up the cash, that’s what we made that classic controller for.”)
• Nintendo reps have no fore-knowledge of upcoming VC games (I had to ask about Pilotwings).

Even after sending him a free classic controller to enjoy the Nintendo freedom. It hasn’t swayed his opinion of the pricyness of hotness, yet has really sucked him in as a big N evanglist to the new classic controller.

This is a great segway into my complaint over Wii Strikers and online play. I love the game - it can easily be the best game since the console game out (in my mind it easily rivals Wii Sports, Tiger Woods, and Excite Truck). There have been many hours of tears, sore fingers and wrists and spilt drinks over jubilation.

However, thankfully they included that wrist strap on the controllers because I do not know how many times I have cursed the day when playing online that the connection drops. I (almost*) know it’s not my side of the connection, because I have run speed tests before and after playing when the connection will drop and there is no change in the speed. So either it’s Nintendo’s servers, or the other players - I find it odd that other players would be so routine to drop off.

What I find strange as well as when I first got the game - online play was crisp (albeit connection drops weren’t a problem then either). Now when I can log in - game play freezes and stutters. What’s with this? Granted I use the notorious *Comcast at home for the connection and with the recent debacle over traffic shaping it really wouldn’t surprise me if the Wii has been mistaken for something that they would shape.

So Nintendo - I know this lame - but I challenge you to find me and surprise me with some token of your affection seeing as how I must be your greatest evangelist (at least in Richmond Va - there I gave you a hint to find me). I need this fixed - because without confidence in online play with Strikers why should the future online games be any better. Wake up folks if the 360 and ps3 can have it - it has to be available for the Wii. The experience is what it’s all about and in my opinion the experience without online play severely limits the future of this as a legitimate big player in the console arena.

John Chow dot Com is holding another evil blog contest. He’s giving away a 24″ wide screen LCD monitor and a signed copy of the best selling book, The 4-Hour Workweek! Find out how to enter here. The contest is being sponsored by The Million Dollar Wiki. Use coupon code JohnChow to save $10 on a page.