Up until now Qantas has been the only true air carrier in Australia as far as I am concerned with regard to “old style” air travel. By that I mean, not all their customers are treated equally – the regular customers enjoy certain benefits according to just how regular they are.
Sadly, as the years have passed Qantas has lost site of what it means to look after their regular customers – and is more and more trying to use the same “all passengers are equal” methodology as their budget carrier JetStar.
This would be fine, if the pricing was inline with a budget carrier – but you can’t charge normal domestic rates, and treat your customers as budget travelers.
Given that we are touring a show, I have had to purchase additional luggage for several members of our touring party. I did this online, and have printed the confirmations. I received a receipt a little later – that showed the incorrect amount billed to my card (they hadn’t charged enough).
I called customer care, after a little over 10 minutes on hold – the assistant spent some time researching it. It appeared as though there system had “dropped” one of the additional bag requests. At this point in time I would have expected an apology, and then their rectification of the problem. Instead, they offered nothing.
When I pressed them and explained that I didn’t just buy the extra luggage for my health – it was actually needed – they said that they could separate the traveler out – and I could try the booking online again.
This is not my type of customer service. I shouldn’t have to “try again” when I was not at fault. And not when we are flying a party of 11.
A little later, I tried to undertake what I would consider a simple task of getting a touring party of 11 seated together. Because for some reason the bookings were made under two reference numbers – I wasn’t able to sit everybody together. One group (that includes a Qantas Club member and another Silver Frequent Flier) were allocated seating near the front of the aircraft – and the other larger group allocated seating near the rear.
Because I couldn’t use the online seating allocation to sit everybody together, I tried calling customer service. I had the screen open on front of me where a group of 11 seats were available together. I told the phone assistant the rows that were open, and she told me it just couldn’t be done – and then went to end the call.
When I insisted that it would be done – and that our touring party will travel together – she put me on hold, and then proceeded to take nearly 30 minutes to (not) assist with the call.
On returning she explained again it just couldn’t be done, and that she had checked with a supervisor. So, I asked to speak with this supervisor.
After a brief explanation, I was told that it could in fact be done, and that I would receive a call later to confirm that our seating had been arranged. And about 15 minutes later, it was all done.
My disappointment here is firstly that I am now sitting some 18 rows behind where we could have initially sat as a group, this may not sound too bad – but I do like to get off and not have to sit around when we land.
Finally, it’s just not good customer service. The two “first level” service staff didn’t care at all about my concerns and didn’t want to resolve the issue at hand. They wanted to blame policy, or their computer systems – and have me just accept it. Which I would do if I was flying with a budget airline – but I’m not, so I don’t.

As the Android mobile phone platform takes hold across the board as one of the leading operating systems for handheld and portable devices perhaps it is time for Google to start identifying risks to the platform.

One of the biggest risks facing any platform is the developers that release applications. As Android grows Google has been tweaking their application requirements that are imposed on those developers. The biggest issue with this is that lazy developers who don’t maintain their applications, end up frustrating users.

With recent changes to the Android Marketplace requirements for developers, many applications have “disappeared” for some or all handsets. From an end user point of view – this looks like it might be a problem with the market. Many users complain that App’s they used / last week are now no longer accessible via the market.

Common complaints in forums are that users have re-installed or upgraded their handset and when searching for their favourite app’s – the market returns zero results.

If developers don’t stay on top of the details communications sent out by Google, and ensure that their applications comply – of course they will disappear from the market. The problem for google is that most end users will not know it is the developer of their application that’s at fault – leading to frustration with the platform – and not where it should be directed.

If you are a developer and have been too lazy to keep abreast of the requirements – the most common issue with disappearing apps is copy protected applications are no longer allowed – you can check out the application security changes here.

12 Hours and still inaccessible

I use and recommend Google Hosted Applications constantly. I live out of my email, especially leading up to crucial things like opening a performance in a venue.

I am currently days away from opening a two night performance for one of our major clients.

The loss of functionality for any business system can lead to issues, but the loss of email – something that is now a very acceptable way of communicating – has a serious business impact.

I have called Google 8 times, have a ticket lodged, and requested updates to that ticket now over 8 hours ago. The silence is resounding.

If this were a free account, I would be happy to expect the level of service commiserate with what I invest in it – but we are paying customers, not only that – we refer many paying customers both directly and via our reseller account.

I can live without access to the GUI, but at least give me IMAP or even a plain text feed to get old email out – this level of customer care is unacceptable.

or.. “Why Vodafone should offer compensation for wasting a week of my time”.

The Vodafone twitter team requested I write this article, and I am glad they have. It will be a great opportunity to document what I would consider some of the worst customer service that I think I have ever been party to.

It started over a week ago, when one of the Purple Oranges team who had just purchased a new handset contacted Vodafone to get the unlock code for his device after trying the web interface and receiving an incorrect code.

He explained that the code supplied on the Vodafone Australia unlock site didn’t work, and was told they would have to talk to the unlocking team, and they might get back to him some time in the next 10 business days. For those playing at home, that’s two weeks. And – as far as I am concerned – two weeks is just about two weeks too long.

If you own the hardware, and through no fault of your own can’t use that hardware – then why should you be inconvenienced?

I personally got involved a few days later, calling VHA to find out why it could possibly take so long to retrieve a code. I was assured in no uncertain terms that I was mistaken – and the code was correct. I tried everything I could to convince the abrasive consultant that the code was not working. They did everything they could to convince me that I was somehow mistaken – and the code would work. When they realised that I wasn’t going away – they hung up on me.

So, I called back.

This next operator was at least a little more helpful. After initially assuring me that the code was correct, they at least paused to listen to my assertion that it was in fact not working. They placed me on hold to talk with the unlocking team, and came back to assure me that the code is correct.

Again, there being nowhere to go – the call was ended.

Friday afternoon, I tried calling again. I got the offer of a return call in 30 minutes, so I entered my number. Two hours later (late Friday evening) VHA returned my call. I was annoyed, but hopeful. This was the first operator who actually took the time to listen to the issue. He initially insisted that the number would be correct, but finally agreed to have somebody call me the following day when he started his shift from technical support to resolve the problem.

Saturday evening, true to his word (which shocked the pants off me) I received a call from VHA, as promised – the operator was ready to transfer me to technical support. Sadly, my happy face disappeared when the person I was transferred to told me that they were from Nokia – and couldn’t help me, and there ended the call.

As luck would have it, this particular VHA operator followed up to check the problem was resolved about 20 minutes later. When I explained that I had been transferred to Nokia – he apologised, and tried to find somebody again. However, as it was now late Saturday evening – nobody was available.

Notes were put on the account authorising an in-store return. Given that VHA were adamant the subsidy unlock code was correct, the hardware must be faulty. The unit was summarily swapped on Sunday.

About 30 minutes after the unit was swapped, we realised we had a serious issue to deal with. The new device also did not work with it’s subsidy unlock code.

Come Monday morning I started to feel quite confident that VHA and their staff weren’t going to resolve this any time soon, so I started my contact with Motorola. Initially, they were hesitant to discuss carrier unlocking a device – but after I explained the sheer lack of customer service experienced with Vodafone – they were happy to at least try and help.

Initially they contacted their support / unlocking team – which confirmed that the number I had was likely to be correct. We agreed to follow their instruction – and leave the device idle for 12 hours. Then try the code again.

…12 Hours later, we were no closer to having an unlocked handset.

I called Motorola to follow up, who were apologetic. A call was lodged for their engineering team, and we were given a new number to try. This unlock code was completely different then the one supplied by VHA – so we were excited and hopeful. Sadly however, it also did not work.

Motorola engineering were again contacted, and today we received a phone call from a very happy Motorola operator. It turns out the devices need 16 digit subsidy codes. The codes on file at VHA were incorrect. And I’m assuming we are the first to try and unlock a handset, because even Motorla didn’t realise.

This is ultimately an issue caused by Motorola. If indeed it is true that they supplied the wrong codes to VHA – then that is most assuredly the root cause of our issue here.

VHA’s hands however are far from clean. They are covered in dirt in fact. It would be reasonable to assume that VHA has a business to business channel of communication open to Motorola that I don’t have access to. And as such, you could be forgiven for assuming that had VHA made an effort to talk about this problem directly with Motorola – it would have been resolved significantly faster then I managed to get it done as a consumer (for those not keeping track – it took me two business days with Motorola).

VHA’s stance is that the issue has nothing to do with them. Although I spent many hours (I have a log of all my communications with them) either on hold, being hung up on, or generally having to try and convince their own staff of the issue… Some how – there abhorrent customer service is Motorola’s fault.

Stand behind your name VHA, apologise that we had so much time wasted on something that could easily have been resolved in 48 – 72 hours. Our paging service is hosted at VHA, and I am giving very serious thought to closing our account. I know they are entirely separate teams – and I honestly only have great things to say about the paging team. But this issue can not be overlooked – how can I be assured that one day I won’t have to deal with this same sort of ignorance in other departments at VHA if they clearly don’t care that it’s happening in their mobile phone area?

[UPDATE 25/11/2010 10:44]

Obviously information about the invalid codes is not being shared internally at VHA. We just received the email below from their Correspondance Team.

Hi Troy,

Thank you for your email,

Vodafone do pride themselves on a high level of customer service and I am disappointed this what not the level of service you received. I would be more then happy to look into this for you.

To unlock a handset there is a series of keys you need to hit in a particular order then followed by the unlock code. If you use only the unlock code the handset won’t unlock.

I have looked up your IMEI number for your handset to check the instructions, and it came back with the response that there is a charge for you to retrieve your unlocking instructions. You can also obtain these by going to www.vodafone.com.au/unlock.

If you have already obtained your full unlocking instructions, I would recommend you taking them into a store and having the dealer go through them with you manually. This way, if anything goes wrong, you will also have someone there to assist you further.

If have any further enquiries, please don’t hesitate to contact us again,

I hope you are having a good week,

Kind regards,

Alicia

Correspondence Team

Vodafone Pty Limited ABN 76 062 954 554

www.vodafone.com.au

Not only does it show that they are completely unaware the lock code is incorrect – it also is a great written example of just what we had to endure with the telephone staff, the complete lack of understanding that the customer may actually be doing it correctly – and it may be Vodafone’s issue – not the customers stupidity.

Finally – it also shows a failure in their record keeping – the handset in question is not subsidised – as such – there should be no unlock fee.

An example of the gross errors in the Telstra Account Management System

Again I have had to spend weeks chasing Telstra to resolve a critical problem with their billing system.

I first became aware of the accounting issue on the 9th of June, and immediately called Telstra. After talking for quite a period of time just trying to explain what was going on, the consultant said it was going to take several days to clear up, and that I would get a call back before the end of the week to let me know everything had been resolved. My first mistake was hanging up the phone and letting the consultant get away.

The key issue was that in April I had the data plan on this SIM changed to a $39 per month for 3GB of data. 3 Gigabytes is 3072 Megabytes – and for those playing at home, this will become a very important number.

Telstra was only crediting me with 307 Megabytes of data each month. No, that’s not a typo – my permitted account usage in the usage manager was 307MB. You will notice that it’s very similar to the 3072 that I was meant to be getting, but just missing that final and exceptionally important “2″.

After several days went by, and I had heard nothing from the consultant who was going to write Telstra’s wrongs and get everything squared away – I called Telstra again. After some initial issues trying to explain that I had already had somebody looking in to the problem, and that I really should talk to them I was told by this new consultant that there were no notes on the account, and that she could assure me – no notes about the issue meant that nobody was going to be doing anything about it.

The new consultant however, was happy to start from scratch again, and try and resolve the issue if I could just explain my problem to her.

I started explaining that our business account manager at Vita Group had applied the change to my account, and that I was meant to get 3072 Megabytes of data per month, but was only being allowed 307. I continued explaining other particulars, and about half way through I was interrupted with her assurance that there is no 3GB account, and that it was I who was confused.

I told her that I had the email confirming the change in front of me, and read her an excerpt from it. Again, she interrupted telling me that there simply was no 3GB account, and there was nothing more she could do. Then, as I got the busy tone – I realised she had felt confident enough that I would just go away that the call had been ended for me.

It was now obvious that Telstra call centre consultants were either simply not equipped to resolve the issue, or that I just could not find one that was prepared to resolve the issue. I had tried contacting our account manager during this whole saga as well, but – there was no response from him (that was no surprise).

On I moved to the TIO. I completed my complaint and sent it off.

I will save you a lot of time but over the course of more then a week, every time I was told my call would be returned by my complaint liaison, it never was. I have had to call him to chase this up regularly.

So now we are nearly at a resolution, there may indeed be light at the end of the tunnel. I have an offer from Telstra to move me to a $49 per month plan, and that they will credit my account with $120.00 to cover the $10 difference per month for a year. This is indeed appreciated. The final sticking point however is the $1560 (at time of writing) that I have been overcharged for data usage, and the seven and a half hours I have spent chasing this issue.

Why should I be out of pocket for my time all because of incompetence at Telstra with systems, processes and staff? If I had contributed to this, it would be a different matter, but – not a single one of my calls has ever been returned when mutually agreed – and I didn’t cause the issue in the first place.

Possibly the worst GPS device ever - MY500XT by Navman

After all the issues I had with my Garmin GPS unit, I decided to replace it with the most expensive device I could find. It turns out it is a Navman My-500XT. I have persevered with this device for many months, and now at the point of extreme frustration – I have decided to reach out to Navman for some advice. Below is an extract of my support ticket to the good folks at Navman.

My unit seems to be faulty. It was sold as being able to play video and music files, as well as being a market leading navigation device.

There seems to be a lot of functionality missing that is included in far cheaper devices – so I can only assume that there is something wrong with this particular unit.

Firstly, the device seems unable to play any video uploaded to it with your software. Playback is jerky, and pauses for long periods of time.

Music playback is also troublesome – with the music menu being unresponsive and slow.

I can not find an option to have the device automatically turn off when the car is turned off. Perhaps this option is in a menu that I have as yet been unable to locate.

Traffic reporting is operational, yet – unlike every other unit I have compared – I am yet to see your device automatically route me around traffic events. As I am sure you are aware – interacting with a GPS unit while the vehicle is in motion is prohibited by national and state law in Australia. So, presenting a hidden window that requires the user to interact with it is surely a bug?

I can’t seem to find any reasonably functional software to manage the music and videos on my device. The only software I have come across was on the software pack included with it, and isn’t even available for download from your site. Surely your own staff have used this software and identified the need for something else? Could you suggest something that doesn’t try and emulate the functionality of other much more widely accepted applications (like iTunes or Windows Media Player).. I don’t need yet another application, managing yet another media library.

Finally – the suction cup vehicle mount has now become so loose as to not be able to keep the unit facing towards the driver during normal use.

All in all – given that your unit is far and away the most expensive GPS device available in the domestic market at this time, I am sure that all of the issues raised above are simply bugs specific to my device. I look forward to your advice regarding a software update to resolve all these issues.

I would be deeply disappointed having to raise my concernes with the office of fair trade if you have misrepresented the device in your advertising as being able to play audio and video when it is obviously under-powered to do so.

My Nexus One has Arrived

My Nexus One arrived yesterday here in Brisbane (thank-you DHL).
So far I am beyond impressed with the phone, and I am pretty confident this could be the phone that will actually be able to challenge other devices.
I am already a big Android OS supporter. What I have not been to keen on so far are the devices that are running it. My experience so far has only been with the ADP1 (or HTC Dream) and the ADP2 (or HTC Magic / Google I/O). They are nice phones, but far too underpowered for the needs of Android.
Finally however, the Nexus One comes with the power needed to use the phone as intended. Run apps, even in the background. Take great photos, and talk on the phone.
There are a few niggling things that are annoying – but I am hoping future updates will deal with it.
So often the Google developers seem to forget that Google accounts don’t always end in “@gmail.com”. As is the case with the automatic Picasa syncronisation built in to the phone. Although my PicasaWeb account is under my email address, the sync application has decided that I can’t possibly sync with it – which is a touch annoying.
Of slightly more concern are the four “soft” buttons at the base of the screen. They are the back, menu, home and search buttons common to most Android handsets, however, on the Nexus One – they are not actually physical buttons – just touch sensitive areas.
So far – it seems that you have to be touching another part of the phone at the same time as pressing these soft buttons to have any chance of activating them. This can get quite frustrating if you want to put the phone down on a desk and use it.

Rear image of the Nexus One

All in all I am really impressed with the phone. My business partner Adam, who has been searching for a phone for quite some time has spent the better part of a day playing with it as well, and even he has decided that it may be the device he has been searching for as well.
I hope that an Australian carrier (all the evidence points to Vodafone being the first) brings this device to market quickly here. I feel just a touch greedy keeping the Nexus One to myself.

I have come to Adelaide to join my cousin Tracey and family for her wedding. This is the first time I have travelled for leisure in quite a while, and it’s quite strange not really having anything that I have to get done.
I am staying at The Oaks Embassy, which is on North Terrace. It’s a four star hotel, which I would suggest is not deserving of a couple of those stars.
Not only was the whole reservation procedure painful and error prone, when I arrived I was surprised to find that they require a $100 per night deposit – to cover incidentals and damages. This is a four star hotel, so there’s no room service. Incidentals are the Movilink movies, and whatever they have left in the fridge.
Before I take you on a pictorial tour of my room, there is one photo I left out. On top of all the other issues I have had, the first thing I get to see when turning on the TV in my bedroom is two very scantily clad women tasting each others breasts for some reason. I am no prude, but – I don’t want to see straight porn, even if it is for free.
Now, on to the tour… (click on images to see a full size version)

I should have realised that I was in for a quality room when I noticed that the lock on my front door was broken.

My favorite room feature.. pvc tape which has obviously been in place for some time, holding the shower head in one, quite difficult, position.

Given that the front door obviously can’t be secured, I assume that house keeping’s solution was to leave a knife by the spa.. just in case there is an unwanted visitor as you relax.

Not tremendously important, but just indicative of the overall lack of maintenance – the broken toilet seat that will not stay up.

We then move on to the spacious kitchen/dining/living room. Where the kick-board under the dishwasher has been… kicked.

I guess it’s like a tip jar. House keeping have left some rubbish in the bin, so I would feel more comfortable putting my own in there.

Almost all the lamps in the room are all unplugged. Some with good reason… there just isn’t a power point to plug them in to.

Join me outside now to enjoy some of this dry Adelaide heat. Mind the lock on the door though, it’s completely broken and barely able to even stay attached.

If there’s nothing to look at apart from the building next door, I guess they have left this water damage as a feature? Maybe when it rains it’s like a waterfall or something..

And finally as we retire for the evening, why would I be shocked to find that the clock radio was unplugged?

The Queensland Performing Arts Complex (operated by the Queensland Performing Arts Trust) has yet again excelled in being a shining example of exactly why the theatre industry in Queensland may never get to stand on it’s feet and be the success that it could be.

Under instruction from a client, I have been trying to get pricing and availability to mount a production in one of their venues later this year.  With every other venue that I have ever dealt with all over the world – I gather this type of information by making a phone call, sending an email and then awaiting a response. I generally get back a technical specification, along with a schedule of charges – and dates that are still available around the time I was looking.

In the case of Queensland’s Premiere Entertainment Complex… QPAC… it took, 8 phone calls, 6 emails and that is to just find out that it’s $22,000 per week for venue hire and about $200 per night for first aid. I still don’t have availability, or any other schedule of charges.

Time and time again I hear discussions about why we don’t get any of the larger touring shows being mounted at QPAC… I can only assume those production companies experience the same problems I have and come to the same conclusion – stay well away from QPAC.