I just picked up a two-pack of insect spray at Lowe's. The specially labelled package told me there was a coupon for $10 of my next $50 purchase, which seemed liked a good deal, plus I would save about a buck by buying the two-fer package as opposed to two single cans.
I got home and removed the plastic wrap and looked at the $10 coupon. It's good until "September 31, 2009".
If a coupon expires on a date that doesn't exist, is it good forever?
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Bad IVR is bad
Here's a quick post very closely related to my blog title!
I have a couple of Costco gift cards that I needed to check the balances on. I called the toll-free number on the back, and got a cavalcade of bad design.
They start out with everyone's favorite, "For English press 1." You really have to make that the expected default. Tell me (in Spanish) to oprima el something if necessary, but don't lock me into that language menu at the start.
Then there's this month's nomination for the most useless prompt ever "To obtain your card balance, have your account number ready and press 1." Ummm, this is the number you gave me to call for balance inquiry, and you didn't give me any other options, so what is this "menu" doing here? If there are other things I can do by calling this number, tell me what they are, otherwise this is a giant roadblock that serves no purpose. "If you like being made to jump through hoops, press 1".
Having pressed 1, it's time to enter the card number. "Please enter the 19 [!] digit card number, followed by the pound sign." The only to press the pound sign is to indicate that I'm done entering digits. Perhaps your IVR can not count all the way up to 19?
OK, now I've pressed twenty more keys. They would like to confirm the last four digits of what I entered. I'm not sure why, but I suppose a fellow could get worn out from all that button mashin'. "The last four digits you entered are 1 2 3 4. If this is correct, press the
wait for it
pound key." This is where I'm saying DOUBLE YOU TEE EFF MATE? "If incorrect, press the star key."
Ummmmmm, thousands of confirmation prompts have been written. Almost universally, the choices are 1 and 2. Us VUI designers like 1 and 2 for correct/incorrect. Also for yes/no. Pound and Star (# and *) are special.
The only thing they seem to have gotten right is a menu item that lets me check another card after hearing the balance in the first one.
CWC Gift Card Co. . . . let's talk. I can fix your IVR in about a day.
I have a couple of Costco gift cards that I needed to check the balances on. I called the toll-free number on the back, and got a cavalcade of bad design.
They start out with everyone's favorite, "For English press 1." You really have to make that the expected default. Tell me (in Spanish) to oprima el something if necessary, but don't lock me into that language menu at the start.
Then there's this month's nomination for the most useless prompt ever "To obtain your card balance, have your account number ready and press 1." Ummm, this is the number you gave me to call for balance inquiry, and you didn't give me any other options, so what is this "menu" doing here? If there are other things I can do by calling this number, tell me what they are, otherwise this is a giant roadblock that serves no purpose. "If you like being made to jump through hoops, press 1".
Having pressed 1, it's time to enter the card number. "Please enter the 19 [!] digit card number, followed by the pound sign." The only to press the pound sign is to indicate that I'm done entering digits. Perhaps your IVR can not count all the way up to 19?
OK, now I've pressed twenty more keys. They would like to confirm the last four digits of what I entered. I'm not sure why, but I suppose a fellow could get worn out from all that button mashin'. "The last four digits you entered are 1 2 3 4. If this is correct, press the
wait for it
pound key." This is where I'm saying DOUBLE YOU TEE EFF MATE? "If incorrect, press the star key."
Ummmmmm, thousands of confirmation prompts have been written. Almost universally, the choices are 1 and 2. Us VUI designers like 1 and 2 for correct/incorrect. Also for yes/no. Pound and Star (# and *) are special.
The only thing they seem to have gotten right is a menu item that lets me check another card after hearing the balance in the first one.
CWC Gift Card Co. . . . let's talk. I can fix your IVR in about a day.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Man of La Mancha indeed
Further annoyance from Borders, although they want to deny that they have anything to do with it...
A while back, one of the email I received from Borders regarding my "Rewards" card was an offer to sign up for something called "Borders Rewards Perks." Upon review of this program, which is just a way for them to send lots of unwanted commercial email, I chose NOT to sign up for this.
On August 3, I got an email from Perks, the first of several. It was an ad for restaurant.com, tigerdirect.com, shoes.com, etc etc etc. I knew I hadn't suddenly decided that I wanted such crap, but just to make sure, I clicked on the "unsubscribe" link in the email. I got a not so helpful error screen that said "exception in bootstrap". I tried the "Contact Us" link and got the same error. So I clicked reply, and sent an message directly to cs@bordersrewardsperks.com telling them that a) their links were broken and b) that I didn't ever sign up, so stop spamming me.
I got no reply. I did get another spammy email, and this time contacted Borders Customer Care. The reply didn't indicate that I'd actually been opted out from the unwanted Perks membership, but told me to contact cs@bordersrewardsperks.com -- the same email to which I'd previously replied and gotten no answer.
Then on August 12, I got yet another slice o' spam, this time they had the balls to start out "Based on your reminders, we want to let you know about these special
Food & Wine offers currently available at Borders Rewards Perks:" Ummm, I never signed up, never requested ANYthing, so how did I suddenly have "reminders"? I hit reply again, copied Borders Customer Care and said once again that they had to stop.
I did do one thing wrong - the spam was hitting my netscape.net address, which shares an inbox and email client with my aim.com address. And AOL has so "helpfully" decided that every time I hit reply, they'll put my aim.com address into the From field. Thus Borders wrote and said they couldn't find that address in their records. I wrote back taking the blame and indicating which address was the subject of my problems.
The next incoming from Borders was completely strange - "You will need to directly contact the merchant regarding this issue." Then it went on about who does or does not endorse any offers, blah blah blah, and of course gave me the useless cs@... email again.
My reply: "I'm not contacting anybody else. Read the whole message and stop copying and pasting responses. YOU set me up with this unwanted Perks crap, YOU can make it stop."
I could go on. The back and forth certainly hasn't stopped. But the emails that started hitting my inbox today are priceless. They state "Thank you for your email regarding Borders Rewards Perks. Unfortunately, your request has reached an email box that does not accept incoming mail. "
Yes, I have reached an unreachable mailbox. Robert Goulet ain't got nothing on me!
I'm still getting the runaround from both Borders and their Perks spammers. But now I know I have to keep trying, when my arms are to weary.
A while back, one of the email I received from Borders regarding my "Rewards" card was an offer to sign up for something called "Borders Rewards Perks." Upon review of this program, which is just a way for them to send lots of unwanted commercial email, I chose NOT to sign up for this.
On August 3, I got an email from Perks, the first of several. It was an ad for restaurant.com, tigerdirect.com, shoes.com, etc etc etc. I knew I hadn't suddenly decided that I wanted such crap, but just to make sure, I clicked on the "unsubscribe" link in the email. I got a not so helpful error screen that said "exception in bootstrap". I tried the "Contact Us" link and got the same error. So I clicked reply, and sent an message directly to cs@bordersrewardsperks.com telling them that a) their links were broken and b) that I didn't ever sign up, so stop spamming me.
I got no reply. I did get another spammy email, and this time contacted Borders Customer Care. The reply didn't indicate that I'd actually been opted out from the unwanted Perks membership, but told me to contact cs@bordersrewardsperks.com -- the same email to which I'd previously replied and gotten no answer.
Then on August 12, I got yet another slice o' spam, this time they had the balls to start out "Based on your reminders, we want to let you know about these special
Food & Wine offers currently available at Borders Rewards Perks:" Ummm, I never signed up, never requested ANYthing, so how did I suddenly have "reminders"? I hit reply again, copied Borders Customer Care and said once again that they had to stop.
I did do one thing wrong - the spam was hitting my netscape.net address, which shares an inbox and email client with my aim.com address. And AOL has so "helpfully" decided that every time I hit reply, they'll put my aim.com address into the From field. Thus Borders wrote and said they couldn't find that address in their records. I wrote back taking the blame and indicating which address was the subject of my problems.
The next incoming from Borders was completely strange - "You will need to directly contact the merchant regarding this issue." Then it went on about who does or does not endorse any offers, blah blah blah, and of course gave me the useless cs@... email again.
My reply: "I'm not contacting anybody else. Read the whole message and stop copying and pasting responses. YOU set me up with this unwanted Perks crap, YOU can make it stop."
I could go on. The back and forth certainly hasn't stopped. But the emails that started hitting my inbox today are priceless. They state "Thank you for your email regarding Borders Rewards Perks. Unfortunately, your request has reached an email box that does not accept incoming mail. "
Yes, I have reached an unreachable mailbox. Robert Goulet ain't got nothing on me!
I'm still getting the runaround from both Borders and their Perks spammers. But now I know I have to keep trying, when my arms are to weary.
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