The DOBlog

So, I’ve been having problems with my broadband. Problems significant enough that I would suggest that the Dept of Comms actually think through the potential reliance on Fixed Wireless solutions for Ireland’s broadband deficit. More on that another time.

What annoys me in the immediate sense is the level of customer service that people seem to think is OK. I had my FWA antenna removed from my house today. I found out about it when I looked out the window and saw the van from my provider in the drive way and the legs of a ladder going up the side of the house. I expected a binglybong on the door bell to let me know what was happening, but nowt. I was working so I couldn’t rush out to talk to the man. By the time I’d finished the work stuff he’d vanned away again.

I’d complained to my provider in writing back in May about some issues. I got a nice email addressing part of my complaint and bugger all else. After this morning’s visitation I emailed them to find out what was going on.

Apparently they’ve tried to contact me “numberous” [sic] times over the past month to talk to me about the problems I was having.

Checked email… nowt.
Checked spam filter… nowt.
Checked missed calls on phone… nowt.
Checked the drawer in the kitchen where all the things that look like bills get hidden… nowt.

I know I had no voicemails from them on the phone as I would have remembered it (and I would have downloaded the voicemail from the webmail service provided by my mobile service provider -betcha didn’t know you could do that did you, unified messaging almost - and put it in the folder of documents/evidence I am compiling to go with my inevitable ComReg complaint).

Apparently the only contact information they have for me is my mobile number. Apart from the fact they’ve sent me emails to my email address and a man-in-a-van could find my house, where letters also go. And I included all of that information again on my complaint letter.

So the lack of a follow up email, or a letter responding to my complaint or a friendly binglybong on the doorbell from the man in the van to fill me in on things were all beyond them, because they didn’t have the information. Which they, errmmmm, had, for the reasons mentioned above.

So that thing about only having a mobile number to contact me is a… [mistake] [lie] [cop out] [failure of internal processes to properly manage customer information]… (select one or more options as appropriate).

It would seem it’s all my fault I didn’t know what was going on. I should have felt the disturbance in The Force, as if a small call centre of people suddenly cried out as one and then suddenly felll silent. Curse my failing and fading Jedi skills.

At least that’s how I’d feel if I wasn’t so peeved at the whole thing. I think that once I’ve updated ComReg with the nonsense I’m dealing with I’ll send my ex-provider a request for all personal information they hold about me (electronic and paper file, and ip and traffic logs etc. ) under the terms of the Data Protection Act. ‘Coz I am fond of my regulatory frameworks and codes of practice etc.

Notice that I’ve not named the service provider or discussed the specific issues here. That would be unfair to my (it would seem former - at their initiative) Broadband Provider. However, they are exactly the type of organisation that DCENR seems to be pinning the Great Broadband Hope on.

The good news is that the Vodafone broadband dongle I have for using while commuting and which has been my main tool for getting on line at home recently - even though it is just 2G around these parts, picked up a 3 3G network last night. Couldn’t connect to it but knew it was there. So that’s got me thinking….

A few things peeve me on the web. One of them is website form validators that do not recognise tlds other than .com, .org or a country tld. These validators seem oblivious to the fact that since 2000 ICANN has been rolling out ‘new’ tlds to take the ‘pressure’ off the .com and .org domains and .info has been active as a tld since 2001.

I chose .info for my domain name partly because my old obriend.com domain was hijacked and partly because that problem manifested an opportunity for me to rebrand myself on-line with a domain name that related to me and my interests. Obriend.info is a website dedicated to information about OBrienD (me) and where OBrienD can discuss topics relating to Information Quality and Information Management (Info).

However I find myself having to fall back on other email addresses such as my gmail or IAIDQ email address when filling out web forms as many validators (often on very reputable and high-profile sites) reject .info as part of an email address, in blissful ignorance of the fact that up to March 2007 there were 4 million .info domains registered with 1.6 million .info websites active (this being one of them).

This is a small but significant information quality problem. The ‘master data’ that is being used to support the validation processes on these sites is incomplete, out of date and inaccurate. Web developers should take the time to verify if the snippets of code they are using to validate email addresses contain all valid TLDs and if not they should update their code. Not doing so results in lost traffic to your site, and in the case of registration forms for e-commerce sites it costs you a sale (or three).

Another thing that peeves me is the use of (or not) of apostrophes in email addresses. Names like O’Donnell and the usual spelling of O’Brien have apostrophes. Some organisations allow them as part of their email addresses (joe.o’connor@thisisnotarealdomain.lie). For some reason however, many CMS platforms, website validators etc. don’t handle this construct particularly well. Indeed I’ve seen some chat forums where ‘experts’ advise people to leave out the apostrophe to avoid problems, even though the apostrophe is perfectly permissable under the relevant RFC standards.

I’ve experienced the problem with Joomla and Community Builder on the IQ Network website which required me to manually work around the issue as I am not a good enough php developer to hack either application to fix the problem in a way that doesn’t cause other problems (such as the apostrophe being displayed back with an escaping backslash - ” \’ “.

On the web you are in a global community. Just because your country/culture doesn’t use apostrophes or accenting characters doesn’t mean that they are not valid. Your code should be built to handle these occurences and to avoid corrupting data. Joe O’Connor’s name (to return to our fictional example) is not Joe O\’Connor. He should not see his name displayed as such on a form. Furthermore it should not be exported as such from a database into other processes.

Likewise, if Joe.O’Connor@fictionaldomain.info decides he wants to register at your site you should make sure you can correctly identify his tld as valid and get his name right.

So for shits and giggles I decided to google Dell Hell and Ireland. (The wife is out for the night, I’m bored, it seemed like a good idea at the time).

http://www.google.ie/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLF_en-GBIE226IE228&q=dell+hell+ireland

To increase the sample size, I removed the reference to “Ireland” and instead googled for “Dell Hell Information Quality”… frack me, there I am again - the top 2 (tonight, 27 July 07).

http://www.google.ie/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLF_en-GBIE226IE228&q=dell+hell+information+quality

So to be fair to Dell I removed the reference to “hell” to see how the DoBlog might fare with the Great Search Algorithm in the sky. This was a ‘positive control’. Wasn’t I pleasantly surprised when I was again the top 2 listed links on this day…

http://www.google.ie/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLF_en-GBIE226IE228&q=dell+information+quality

Not yet in Damien Mulley/SkyHandling Partners/”the server cannae take it Captain, she’s goin’ te blow” territory one can always dream…

I googled a few other combinations… for “Dell quality Information” I was results 3 and 4 out of 16,800,000. That was a very neutral query. Still other combinations were picked but I can’t be bothered typing them … the screenshots below will show you the story.

What I learned is that I am missing a very important tag from these posts… “Dell Quality”. That will be fixed tonight.

Also by googling for Dell Quality and Ireland I found this pdf of a Dell presentation. I was interested to read this quote from Michael Hammer (Business Process Re-engineering guru) towards the end of the slides… I’ve highlighted a few words that leapt out at me.

“ The 21st Century Belongs to the
Process Organization Centered on
Customers and…Operates With
High Quality, Enormous Flexibility,
Low Cost, and Extraordinary Speed.”

With regards to my broken keyboard Dell are hitting the marks on this one. Quickly dealt with, within the agreed time period - the failure of the delivery is down to me… (sorry Dell, I’ll sort it out as soon as I can).

My Graphics card issue however is a result of a failed process (assembly) as a result of poor quality information (either the assembler didn’t know to put in a 256mb card or couldn’t tell a 128mb card from a 256mb card) which has dragged on now for five months (which is extraordinary speed, just not in a good way). The fact that the issue still isn’t resolved and I’ve got a second ‘Customer Advocate’ from Round Rock Texas on the case now is indicative of how wide of their goals Dell are.

(A big shout out to Rick and John… hope you guys are reading this as you reached out and I believe you have done your best to help with my situation. Elizabeth in Dublin… if you are back in the office could you PLEASE respond to the last few emails I’ve sent you as they are quite important… the email address you gave for the person who was covering for you kept bouncing back.)

Joseph Juran, the Quality Management guru put it very well:

“They thought they could make the right speeches, establish broad goals, and leave everything else to subordinates… They didn’t realize that fixing quality meant fixing whole companies, a task that cannot be delegated.”

Joseph M. Juran, “Made in the USA: A Renaissance in Quality”, Harvard Business Review, July 1, 1993

Deming’s Point 10 tells us “Eliminate slogans, exhortations and numerical targets for the workforce since they are divisory. The difficulties belong to the whole system”.

Firefighting does not improve quality, especially when the fire is let smoulder on for nearly half a year (and a whole new product launch).

I have others but I can’t be bothered to put them up… I think my point is made.

Perhaps Dell should consider getting in contact with the knowledgable practitioners in the International Association for Information and Data Quality (www.iaidq.org) who might be able to share some pointers on how to address the root causes of this problem.

The other guy’s story

Came across this on Tom Raftery’s blog. Looks like Tom’s guest writer Frank P had ‘issues’ with Dell when trying to buy some kit off them. A barrier had been created that prevented him from buying a machine from the UK Dell outlet store simply (it would seem) because the UK uses sterling and the Irish Republic uses the Euro.

This does not seem to be a problem for Marks and Spencer, who will happily charge my credit card in Euros or Sterling when I am buying bits and bobs when on trips to London. Nor do the people in the UK I’ve bought stuff from (including a laptop and spares for my guitar) on ebay have any problems selling to the Republic of Ireland just because we use Euros… they let paypal sort the currency conversion for them and whammo the wifey has a new toy and I can get back to trying to hammer a few tunes out of my much abused fender strat.

Quality is about meeting or exceeding customer expectations. Deming advises us in his 14 Points to ‘break down barriers between departments’. To meet FrankP’s request, Dell could have simply charged him a slightly higher fee to cover currency conversion costs and transport from the UK (chances are the machine is in a warehouse in Ireland though…). Bingo- one sale, one happy customer. The barrier might have more to do with internal accounting for products by the market they are sold to… but that is a supposition on my part.

The economics of this ‘non-quality’

If I’m right, that is just crazy and is an excellent example of how ’stovepiped’ management of ‘battling business units’ is a fricking recipe for disaster in most businesses and how such artificial barriers to delivery of quality products or service should be torn down.

It’s like having a football team with defenders who won’t pass the ball to their strikers who are in the box with a clear shot on goal and the keeper off his line just because the strikers are paid in Euros while the defenders get their cheques in sterling. (Jaysus, I think that was a football metaphor.. not sure what it means or if it makes sense but it reads well).

If you have ’seconds’ stock or ‘returns’ you have inventory on hand. That costs money to store and if not sold costs money to dispose of. The longer it is stock on hand (in a warehouse gathering dust) the faster the resale price is dropping (due to obsolescence and the entry of newer/better products into the market at the original price point) and the less likely you are to recoup the cost of production, cost of storage and other related costs. Eventually the inventory becomes ‘below-zero’ in that it will have cost you more than you’ll make by selling it… resulting in declining profit margins.

In order to reduce the costs to your business you should really be trying to sell that fecker to anyone (within the bounds of the law) who comes knocking/calling/writing as soon as possible without putting seemingly petty administrative barriers in the way. Doing so results in a business process that does not meet the expectation of the customer and as such is not a process that delivers ‘quality’. Furthermore it creates a risk of negative profit margins in the business.

Instead Dell got a blog post on a highly trafficked blog (Tom Raferty’s)written by a respected professional pundit on the IT industry and Web2.0 trends (not an amateur by any stretch) where through various comments the customer service issue is discussed at length. And then that post is in turn linked to by me, with my particular perpsective on the issue.

And for all we know the laptop still sits unsold in its cold warehouse shelf, unloved and spurned by the new Vostros and Inspirons that swank by with their swish coloured lids and ‘more bang for your buck’ specifications. Stick a red nose on that laptop and call it Rudolph. It won’t be let join in any laptop games I can tell you.

My saga continues

I have had and continue to have my issues with Dell. Currently I’ve been dealing with John, one of their Customer Advocates, Elizabeth (a Dell Ireland person) and half a dozen others over the past 5 months. At this rate I’ll probably have spoken to more Dell employees than Michael Dell himself by the end of the year.

To cap things off (no pun intended), the ‘Q’ key on my keyboard broke off on Tuesday (too much angry typing of ‘Quality’ I fear and the end of my career as a ghost-writer for James Bond novels unless I do some business re-organisation of MI6 or cut back on the gadgets).

HAPPY NEWS

I contacted Dell support and was dealt with promptly. I was informed I’d have the keyboard today. I arranged to work from home to be available to take delivery here. Unfortunately I missed the call from the courier and will need to try to rearrange delivery (hopefully I can get it tomorrow rather than having to work from home Monday as well).

Crappy News

This is the GOOD NEWS. The BAD news is that some strange things happened to my information as it bounced around Dell Customer Support. For one, they changed my name.

Here is the email I received yesterday informing me of delivery:

Dear Mr. Brien,

Thank you for your reply.

Your call has been logged, and your reference number is [edited out by me]. Keyboard will be with you on next business day, between 09.00 and 17.30 (or other local working hours). If you are office based then please advises your reception of the expected Courier visit. You will be contacted in the event of any unforeseen delays.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to assist you. Your case number for this interaction is [edited out by me].

Thank you again for contacting Dell Hardware E-Support.

“BRIEN” That’s not my name. That annoys me. That’s not good information quality. Why not?

Well, Dell’s on-line Tech Support form looks like this (once you key in the asset tag that identifies your machine)

I’ve blocked out the asset tag for my machine (for privacy) and you’ll need to click on the thumnail to see the full image but you’ll need to for the rest of this to make sense…
Note the first two mandatory fields:

I won’t go into why this is a bad labelling convention that is Anglo-centric (Given Name/Family Name are better)… for now it is enought that Dell’s form has distinct fields for my Firstname (given name): DARAGH and my Lastname (Family Name): O Brien. That’s what got typed in there. So why/how did Dell decide that the “O” in my name was surplus to requirements?

Attention to the little details (like getting my name right or ensuring that my laptop ships with the correct graphics card installed) are evidence of a coherent and congruent quality culture. Soundbites, slogans and self-contratulatory marketing materials don’t build such a culture. The IAIDQ is a professional organisation that exists to support the development of ‘Information/Data Quality’ as a management discipline. Their website is www.iaidq.org and Dell employees (or anyone for that matter) will find some useful information there about the root causes and real impacts of these types of problems

But back to the happy path

That said… the tech support guy Guaran was great in sorting out the replacement keyboard and I am kicking myself I missed the couriers call when it came bang on schedule.. when you’re good you’re good.

I recently bought a case for my PDA from the lovely people at Proporta. Unfortunately, a few days after getting the case the belt clip disintegrated with the hinge part simply snapping off. I was dismayed.

By co-incidence that day I received an email from one of Proporta’s customer service people following up on my order. I responded to the email and explained the situation. By return of email I was assured that some replacement belt clips were on the way and I am expecting them soon.

Proporta have asked me if they can quote my feedback to them in their testimonials… and I say definitely they can as their process seems to be very customer focussed with a quick turn around on issues. I can’t help contrasting that with my experiences with Dell.

The cost to Proporta of replacing the belt-clip is probably a lot less than the likely referrals or follow on sales that they will get as a result of the positive feedback (and link from this blog). I am likely to buy from them again myself.

Good quality, be it in products or service, promotes growth and profitability. Well done Proporta.