Something that really irks me is the way many communities enact legislation that effectively pays more attention to the rights of offenders than to those of their victims.
While I accept that a case could be made for protecting the identity of very young minors, for the most part I do not believe that justice is best served by concealing the identity of perpetrators based simply on age. And that goes double when junior criminals are punished with nothing more than a metaphorical slap on the wrist, all too often to smirk and reoffend.
But, you know, there is a corporate variation on the theme of letting offenders go free, unchallenged and unexposed, leaving them to prey on even more unsuspecting victims.
It’s not legally criminal, but maybe it should be.
The Customer Service Criminals
I’m talking about the inexcusably bad attitude that so many businesses have towards customer service. And if you try to follow up and press for a response to your concerns as a prospect or customer, quite often you will encounter an arrogance that permeates the organization from top to bottom.
Oh sure, they will get their just deserts eventually. Any business that continually neglects customer service and treats customers as an annoyance is, ultimately, doomed to fail. Unfortunately, because so many disgruntled customers and prospects will simply give up, walk away, and/or go elsewhere, the word doesn’t get out fast enough and these businesses survive a lot longer than they should, giving them time to upset even more “suckers”.
But because treating customers with contempt is not a crime, the only recourse we have is to enact our own retribution, and that is best done by speaking up and exposing the culprits — very specifically.
Unfortunately that’s something that is rarely done because of fear — fear that the offending business will sue complainants for saying nasty things about them. But so long as your complaints are legitimate and you can prove it, that shouldn’t be a concern.
I’ve always believed in naming names, both in giving credit where it’s due and in outing the villains, and I’ve got one of the latter for you today.
Naming names
You see, ultimately for the benefit of my readers and members, I’ve been doing some research on the protection of laptops, and in particular in relation to theft prevention and recovery.
Some of my research involves sifting through companies that offer some practical and proven solution to the problem of laptop theft.
One product that came to my attention fairly early in my research had the catchy name of “LoJack For Laptops”. The first thing you need to know is that this is not the same company that offers LoJack car theft protection. “LoJack for Laptops” comes from a company called Absolute, who have licensed the Lojack name from the car theft recovery company. That was a smart marketing move because LoJack is a cool name and well-known, particularly in the USA.
Unfortunately for the reputation of the originators (the car theft people), they have put some prominent links on their site which will take you to “LoJack for Laptops” on the Absolute website. You’ll see in a moment why I say that’s “unfortunate” for them.
As I started to look around for pros, cons and opinions on “LoJack for Laptops” I found the usual swath of reviews that were obviously based on little more than the company’s own promotional material, but there were a few apparently more independent and worthy of closer study.
However, I’m not concerned here with the contents of reviews. Instead I’ll tell you my own personal experience and then refer you to some opinions by actual customers of “LoJack for Laptops”.
LoJack letdown
So anyway, I shot off an e-mail to an address published on the Absolute website. Some time later I received two delivery notifications. Apparently messages to that particular address are automatically redirected to 2 different employees. Good idea, you’d think. But here are the two delivery notifications I received back:
#1. From : Geeta S.
Message : Your message was read on Friday, January 08, 2010 2:06:27 AM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada).
#2. From : Nicole C.
Message : Your message was deleted without being read on Friday, January 08, 2010 9:28:03 AM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada).
Well, after a reasonable time I still hadn’t received a response from Geeta S, and “deleted without being read” is always a bit of a concern, so I tried again. This time essentially the same results, but a different recipient enters the picture:
#3. From : Israel G.
Message : Your message was read on Monday, January 11, 2010 8:59:04 AM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada).
#4. From : Nicole C.
Message : Your message was deleted without being read on Monday, January 11, 2010 11:09:29 AM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada).
It would seem that Nicole is a complete waste of space as far as a backup recipient of e-mails from the general public. Not that Geeta and Israel are any better if they’re going to read and not reply.
Who’s to blame?
Whenever I encounter situations like this my first thought is to wonder if the employer knows that he’s being let down by his own employees who are directly in the public eye. If I can find the e-mail address of a senior executive without spending too much time on it, I’ll pass on my concerns. Often I’ll get a response thanking me for bringing the problem to their attention, and that’s the end of it. If I don’t get a response from the executive then I know that the rot starts at the top.
And if I can’t find a reliable way to contact a senior executive, and I think it’s in the public interest, an article like this follows. And what follows the article is an e-mail containing a link to the article to every e-mail address I can find on the offenders website. One way or another the word is going to get back to someone who should care and who should take action.
OK, but what do actual customers think?
In case you think this is me just having a whinge about having my e-mails ignored, check out these statements from actual customers, which I found on the Amazon website. There are comments from three different people, but one is primarily a technical support issue which is not directly relevant to this topic. You can read the originals by clicking here, but I’ll reproduce the other two statements in case they disappear from Amazon.
Do NOT ever purchse, waste of good $$$
July 30, 2009 By Amy J. Guest (Cincinnati, OH)
I am an IT consultant and in my life time have never come across and more disreputable company. I spent the money for 3 year protection, premium level. My laptop was stolen from an hotel in Florida, Feb. 09. Police report submitted with 2 hours of theft and reported to LoJack. I had to contact them 9x over the next 2 weeks with different paperwork, police reports, etc. One thing after another. After no luck finding the laptop after 30 days, they did not refund the $$, they extended it another 120 days. After the additional 3 months, they did not refund the $$. They wanted to extend it another 120 days. I contacted customer support and no refund will ever be coming. LoJac customer service rep: “The laptop is still trying to be located.” and the ever famous, “we reserve the right to keep looking for the laptop.” They never refund the money you spent even if the laptop is never recovered. After 6 months I realize the theives took my laptop, but I willing paid LoJact to take my $110. for absolutely nothing. Do NOT recommend. DO NOT BUY, EVER.
Largely a gimmick
April 6, 2009 By S. Black (Dallas, Texas United States)
I recently had a laptop stolen December of 2008. I was ready for my peace of mind experience that supposedly came with the purchase of this software. The good news is they can track when the laptop is used unless the thief is smart enough to disable it. It will ping the lojack server when the laptop comes online. However, you need to keep in mind that LoJack is only going to request your local detective do something about it. You have to ask yourself, “If the police know the phone# that is calling in are they going to act on it?” Their thinking is, “Even if we do we cannot make a case on who exactly is using it so why put any effort forth.” As a result, I had to really push to keep LoJack communicating with the detective and push the detective to look into it. There was very little will to follow through on either party. In addition, you have to fight to get your money-back gaurantee dollars. To this date I have received no money and no piece of mind.
Those statements are reproduced verbatim and unedited. I have not even corrected for spelling.
The point I want to make is that you don’t have to silently accept neglect. You do have a voice, and there are plenty of places you can make it heard, notably in forums and as comments to blog articles like this. Just be sure of your facts, because once it’s out there there’s no retraction on the Internet. It’s out there for good, and that’s a good thing.
Before you buy a product or commit to a service do your research, and pay particular attention to customer service. Send the vendor an e-mail before you buy to gauge the speed and value of their response.
Why on earth would you want to deal with a company that will likely return the response “Your message was deleted without being read” when you need help or information?
LoJack for Laptops? Not for me thanks. If a company can’t be bothered responding to a casual inquiry, it’s reasonable to assume that they won’t be there if ever I really need them — an assumption that seems to be supported by the customer statements reproduced above.
For laptop owners there are plenty of good alternatives, and I’ll be bringing some of them to your attention in future articles.
A final bit of advice for owners of businesses that trade online…
If you are genuinely concerned about providing quality customer service, provide also some way that dissatisfied customers can escalate their concerns to a responsible executive. Without such a backup your own staff could be killing your business and you’ll never know about it until it’s too late — or until somebody publishers an article like this.
What do YOU think?
Should we all try to be more proactive in condemning bad service online, and publicly expose the culprits? Is it OK to speak up and name names?
Related articles
- Customer Service Is More Than a Contact Form
- Be Careful with Automatic Confirmation Emails
- Don’t let inside sales break the law
- Nexus One’s Lousy Customer Support Shows Google’s Weakness [Google]
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Bill,
Good article. Hope it has some positive effect. Customer service is everything.
Cheers,
Fabian Foale.
Excellent Bill. I’m in business myself, yet I am 100% in favor of publicly exposing bad customer service and any sort of deception by businesses. You do your readers a service by warning them who not to do business with, as well as recommending those with good products and policies.
I agree with Brian, but as you mentioned in your article many substandard business policies persist because predatory lawyers have made people afraid to speak up. We need more people doing what you have done and staring them down.
I always find your articles interesting, both the technical and non-technical, as you always have something worthwhile to say. Keep up the good work.
@Gareth Payne
Coincidentally just this morning I saw this snippet in a local newspaper:
“In the US, lawsuits against bloggers and other social networks and forums were estimated to cost bloggers US$17.6 million in 2007.”
But as they go on to point out, that a statement is “your honest opinion” or that it is “substantially true” is a solid defense.
I get my share of threats when people don’t like what I say, but they are empty threats, nothing more than sour grapes. I’m not in the business of putting people or companies down without very good reason and I can always substantiate my claims.
WOW, ARE YOU READING MY MIND?
I’ve just been looking around at various ways to protect my laptop from theft and Lojack for Laptops was on my shortlist to check out further. And I mean WAS on my list. Thanks for the very timely warning.
Love your work and looking forward to more on laptop security.
Thanks, Bill – I got LoJack for Laptops for my son’s laptop a few years ago, but he squirreled away everything that came with it, so it never got installed.
When he went away to college this past fall, we had to get him a new laptop from the school (University of Maryland) – you can edit that out if you need to, but feel free to leave it in – because their IT department offers absolutely NO support of any computer not purchased through them. There was an option for 4 years of LoJack for $70 through them, but that was only an online custom build purchase; we got ours on campus when we dropped him off, so it wasn’t available. I intended to order it for him when I got home, but for once procrastination paid off!
You saved us $70 and lots of headaches, no doubt. And now I know I can just toss out that old LoJack DVD when I come across it!
Hi Don. Thanks for your comment.
In all fairness I should point out two things:
1. I never made any comment on, or drew any conclusions about, the LoJack technology. I look forward to investigating it further when it’s available in my part of the world, as it certainly sounds like a very workable solution for now. I can certainly foresee a time not too far away when miniature, low drain and inexpensive GPS locators won’t even need the laptop to be powered up. One would expect that companies already in that niche would be the first on board with such developments.
2. Subsequent to the above article I received communication from senior Absolute Software representatives. As a result of those exchanges I’m confident that the company is doing everything it can to address the failures I encountered. My follow-up article “Customer Service Is More Than a Contact Form” goes into more detail.