Future Shop Customer Service – Fail

via johnarobb.com

Here's a blog post from my frustrated buddy John.

John if it's any consolation I was in an empty Staples around 6:30 and waited 20 minutes for the (only) nice counter lady to figure out how the chip card reader works (the stripe goes to the left. LEFT. Dammit). On Saturday Tim Hortons managed to lose yet another one of my orders because the manager serving me got embroiled in a brawl with an angry customer who was questioning the available options (lettuce or tomatoe and/or lettuce and tomatoe or/and/or nothing) on one of those BELT sandwiches (I'm pretty sure the L stands for lettuce and the T for tomatoe?). When it was all said and done, I was out my coffee and donut. I stayed VERY calm.

See John, apparently you're new to this. Not me. I'm a veteran. Happens to me all the time.

And like you, I've tried blogging and tweeting away my frustrations. Without much luck.

The first time Tim Hortons messed me up I tweeted my pain and got a response from some dude in the US. To this day I'm pretty certain he was just absolving the US of any responsibility. Do they even have bagels in the US?

When Westjet kept us all waiting for almost an hour to self check our bags, I sent out a flock of tweets - then sat next to the hot Westjet marketing lady on my flight to Miami. I showed her my tweets (she's dropping the charges). For three weeks those tweets sat on my twitter profile and on my blog. I never heard a thing from Westjet. I'm not even sure they're still in business?

So on Saturday I stayed calm. No tweeting or blogging. Same tonight with Staples.

John, I recognize that like you, I am doomed to be check-out/check-in challenged and to just grin and bear it. Besides, you think Future Shop is following your blog? Come on. Like Westjet, their customer service is probably still living in the past. Off-line.

Posted via web from Jim's posterous

Not a Gossip Girl Fan

Sunday night. Everyone but me is into Gossip Girl. Then those Desperate Housewives.

It's a decent opportunity to reflect on a terrific past week skiing/boarding out west with my two twenty-something kids. Although the timing may seem surprising, spring skiing at Whistler seems like a bit of a hidden gem. This is our third year. No crowds. Amazing conditions (we skied top to bottom every day; the weather was cloudless). Big discounts (passes for the week were $200).

Some observations.

1) We flew Westjet. There were no surprises and the laid-back Westjet approach is pretty easy to take. Having said that, I got the sense of a tiring brand. The jokes were kind of flat. While the crews were friendly and helpful, they too appear to be tiring of the schtick. All in all, I didn't get the sense of much differentiation from the competition. Maybe I'm expecting too much.

2) All week, the endless swine flu pandemic noise felt (and still feels) like a dangerous case of crying wolf. One day, almost without a doubt, there will be a serious pandemic. Scaring the world population now over something that appears to be less lethal than standard flu, probably ensures that when the big one actually hits fewer people will take it seriously.

3) Whistler/Blackcomb knows service. I've noticed this before. The staff everywhere at Whistler/Blackcomb are helpful, yakkitive, polite and friendly. From the kids in the grocery store and the waitresses at Longhorns, to the lifties all over the hill, I don't recall one that didn't seem engaged and feeling pretty good about what they were doing. It's a nice atmosphere. It gets bigger tips.

4) The domestic portion of YVR, Vancouver's airport, is under renovation - still - and pretty much sucks. The lounges are small and the services are limited. A couple of the gates (the ones I've flown out of, my last four times there) are out-of-the-way, down seemingly endless ugly hallways of renovation, far from shops and restaurants, and easily overcrowded. Vancouver is a beautiful city and the airport is a major Canadian gateway. It always surprises me how the domestic portion seems like a second thought.

5) I wonder about the future of Toronto. My kids have both been to Vancouver before. Both had the same reaction again - "this is so much better than Toronto"(we didn't talk gang wars). The next day I saw an interview with a Much Music DJ on some kind of assignment in Paris. His first comment "this city is so much better than Toronto". It's probably just a coincidince to see the same reaction 2x in 24 hours, but it got me wondering whether Toronto can stay competitive with other top cities in the world. Probably it can. Other cities are far from perfect - especially when you live there. But it would be nice to see more dollars flowing to keeping Toronto clean, updating it's infrastructure and revitalizing it's key attractions. A winning sports team would be an unbelievable - and probably unachievable? - bonus.

5) Expedia rocks. I booked the entire trip including transfers to Whistler in less than an hour. The prices were very, very good.

6) Just do it. I was hesitating on this trip for a few reasons. I was crazy. I had the time of my life - again - traveling with my kids. Every time we do this, they're a little older. A little more worldly. A lot more knowledgeable and competent. Our conversations ranged from drunk driving to American torture. From John Stewart to The Hills. We had a bunch of laughs and shared experiences we'll remember forever.

The big question now is where next?

Out of Touch in the Boardroom

You just knew this story was going to get a bad reaction: 'Air Canada pins hopes on service'. From today's Globe and Mail.

I checked the date. It's not April Fool's Day.

Then I checked the comments section of the story. 170 and still growing (the Globe has a nasty habit of shutting down comments on juicy topics - who knows how long this one will stay open). In the first 50 comments, one person actually suggested AC isn't the worst airline in the world....then ended with 'go Westjet go'.

As a modest AC fan, even I had to admit that if this is AC's plan to avoid their second bankruptcy in a few years - they're done.

How does a management group get so out of touch over so many years? Westjet - their prime competition has made their name on service. As AC's market share declines, Westjet's (and Porter's) continues to grow.

One has to wonder what management was thinking. Maybe they thought it didn't matter?

Pardon the pun, but crap just doesn't fly.

It never did.

But today with on-line rating systems, comment sections, travel advisory sites, blogs and Facebook death is swift, obvious and brutal. I got stuck in a Westjet scew-up a while ago and participated with other passengers in berating their service site from our Blackberries - WHILE WE WERE STILL IN LINE (I even got a response)!

The other day I saw an airport rating site. You don't want to know what the word in the air is about YYZ.

So, poor Air Canada. It seems unlikely that years of creating a bad reputation will be undone in time to save them (although if they're looking for some clues Jeff Jarvis' Dell service story would be a good place to start). It's too bad.

It's not like a Westjet monopoly is a terrific outcome.

For a sampling of some heartfelt thought on AC, check some of these out:

You do NOT have a superior product. Start with a big bowl of reality soup and then talk to reporters. You airline is overrun with mediocre people doing a sub-par job. Deal with it.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.......Service? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.... Really? Service?

Arrogant SOB's huh?

GO WESTJET!!!

'Air Canada reported Friday that it lost $1-billion last year.'

“It is small comfort that our loss was the result of factors outside of our control – soaring oil prices, foreign exchange losses due to a drop in the Canadian dollar, and the slowing economy,” Mr. Brewer said.'

Yet.... under those same conditions, Westjet was profitable. Strange isn't it. Those condtions weren't under Westjet's control, yet they made money... hmm.....