A few days ago I got so frustrated with Korean Airlines’ online booking system I decided to share the horror with the rest of the world.
I admit, because of what I do I am a bit more sensitive about bad web pages. Sometimes I overreact and get cranky (you web designers know what I mean). But this is the second time I’ve ever gotten so far as to write about my bad experience on the web.
The whole thing started the previous night, when I lost my patience with their web site and called the sales line to make the order with a live person. I was surprised that the toll free number connected me to the USA (I live in Europe). The overseas call was paid by Korean Airlines so I did not care. I was connected to a nice lady, who spent about 20 minutes with me trying to find the right flight. What was very surprising to me was that she couldn’t email me the options she found, that my only options were either to buy the flight right then and there or write down all the times and flight numbers and hope I could find the paper again the next time I call the sales line. The lady was so kind and helpful I took a deep breath and wrote down all the details. Which I lost the next day, so I had to give the web a second chance.
I was buying two long distance flights for approximately three thousand dollars
The next morning I opened the Korean Airlines site, which is a narrow (760px) stripe looking a bit funny in the middle of my big monitor. Approximately 90% of the narrow space was covered with ads, menus and options I did not care about. What I needed was the flight booking form displayed using gray on gray tiny font, where the select boxes with dates are so small the data does not even fit and is partially hidden.
(This is a screenshot in actual size, the letters blending into each other is what gets displayed on the actual site)
When filling this form one has to choose the continent and then the city for the departing and return destinations. It is not possible to type in the airport code, or the date, which has to be selected from a miniature calendar. This turned out to be quite annoying when I filled out the form for the tenth time.
The next page showed the date I had selected with a price matrix displaying three previous and following days. I was flexible in the dates, so I wanted to make sure the previous or following weeks are not significantly cheaper, but I could not change the dates in the matrix, I had to go back to the home screen and keep filling the booking form again and again. Filling the stupid form from scratch every single time!
After about ten iterations I found the flight I wanted for $1200 and proceeded to selecting the flight times and other usual stuff. After 10 minutes of fine-tuning our journey to the maximum degree of perfection I realized I forgot to add my soon-to-be wife (I was booking a honeymoon) and I could not add another passenger at this point.
I had to start all over again.
At this moment I was getting really irritated, so the next obvious thing was that I made a mistake in the date. My excuse: I could not clearly see the date in the booking form, because it was half hidden in the small “select” box. When I discovered my mistake, the only option was to start all over again.
The next attempt got me almost there. I had gone through the price matrix, times, and even the inconvenient login form, this time I typed my and my girlfriend's names and proceeded to the checkout, gave my card number, billing address, expiration date, security code and all that. At the final check I realized my girlfriend will have different name after the wedding. Being so far in the process I could not believe I could not go back to change the name and my only option was to start all over again!
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I thought it will go fast this time. But after filling the destinations, dates and number of passengers, the price had changed and the flights were now $350 more expensive.
And here I have to admit I lost control and almost broke the keyboard.
I had spent almost two hours with this, did not accomplish anything and felt angry and defeated for the rest of the day.
How is it possible that airlines with billion dollar budgets give such a poor user experience when they’re booking a ticket - the most crucial part of their business? Fixing this problem by adding a back button is probably less expensive then the tickets I have bought. Changing the layout of their web, such that users can see the important information, would cost less than what KA must have paid for the phone call I made the to customer support centre?
How can a company be so ignorant and blind about how users interact with their systems?
On 25th of Novemeber I have visited the conference
WebTop100 and here is some notes and interesting quotes I have heard:
First presentation was given by
Jiri Suchy, the man who stands behind the redesign of O2 web pages.
Link
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His team tends to speak to the stakeholders and collect expectations not requirements, because expectations do not necessarily have to be implemented.
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When redesigning in the corporation one good solution is sometimes forced on behalf of another good solution.
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Give the job to good and motivated people. Give them the authority and trust that they will do a good job.
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Programmers should not design UX but need to know the reasons behind particular decisions.
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It is not possible to satisfy 100% of the users, stakeholders and your ego.
Second presentation was by
Petr Štědrý from Dobrý Web. Him and his team has redesigned a web of Sencor in just 14 days.
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Petr believes, that the problems in design needs to be communicated visually and that everybody can draw sufficiently to be able to participate on the "discussion".
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They have started the project by the design workshop, where all the stakeholders did 3 round of drawing of their vision.
Next in line was
Daniel Frouz, the owner of InetPrint, company providing not just promo materials and prints. He spoke about the redesign of their extensive portal/eshop, where they have reached some remarkable improvements in conversion rate.
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Recomendation: leave enough time for the usability testing. Which should come as soon as possible in the design phase. During the implementation it is too late.
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They started the project by setting the main goals and did a brainstorming using the mind maps.
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When cooperating with external agencies, it is important to communicate extensively.
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Various visual designs have to be done by multiple visual designers.
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They decide to provide the prices on the web, but they plan on blocking suspicious request from their competition.
I did not make much notes from the presentation of
Jiří Chromát from Seznam.cz. Not that it was not interesting, but because I do not know much about czech Pay Per Click and their system sClick.
The next presentation was given by
Petra Brodílková from Google. The only woman on the agenda (as she has presented herself). She has revealed some nice features for the online marketers, to be used in the very near future.
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Remarketing - you will be able to identify the visitors of your web pages, for whom your specified adds will be display when they browse the web. How cool is that!
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She has introduced a google optimizer. A tool which automatically creates the online marketing campaigns and while it runs the campaigns, it learns itself and optimizes along the way.
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She has mentioned an application Our Mobile Planet, which shows statistics of mobile usages. For some it might be a well known thing, but for me it was a cool new application.
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Then she has advertised the AdMob. A system for online advertisement on mobile phones. In the Czech Republic it has 1.7M users and over 100M impressions.
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Petra also spoke of the TrueView, a system which allows you to post video ads before the Youtube videos. I personally find those ads annoying and skip them, but important thing is, that the advertiser only pays, if the viewer sees the whole clip!
The next presenter came late, so after 5 minutes of waiting I left for a coffee and got sucked into the discussion with
Jiří Suchý and
Ondřej Kratochvíl about what it is like to be a UX designer in the big corporation.
The next presentation was by
Ondřej Kratochvíl, about the critical state of the UX in the Czech Republic. From my point of view this was the best speech - bold and critical.
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From Ondrej's perspective thee is 3 main problems when it come to czech web pages: Trying to be different no matter what, Putting everything into the menu, Not explaining clearly what is the company about.
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It is important to deal with UX as a whole, not just the usability testing.
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It is important to deal with UX across the all channels, not just web.
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It is important to communicate with external agencies.
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UX can not be measured, and therefore it attract lots of incapable people.
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The most important marker is the "customer satisfaction" (even more important then sales)
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Constant patching is often so expensive, that it is better and more effective to do a complete re-design.
For the next presentation of
Martin Kalda from Mather, my attention has been weakening, so even when the presentations were interesting I just could not keep my full concentration:
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Designers use the filler texts "loren ipsum", which they later replace. However they also use the filler images from the databases, which the don't! And so we have the webs full of annoying young professionals shaking hands.
- We do the webs for the companies, not for the CEOs.
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By default, companies should have the brand manual and use it!
Michal Špaček from Skype has complaint about the security of the webs. One of the sites he found so offensive, that he decided to punish the owners by hacking it (live). Unlike everyone else, I did not find this so amusing. I was thinking about the owners of the page who will have to spent their money to fix this and everyone else who has to spend our money to protect agains hackers like Michal.
At the end
Jan Havel from Actum had an interesting presentation, not just visually, about our fears and phobias when it comes to designing webs.
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What stops us from doing things properly is the fear.
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Clients do not improve the agency by micromanaging it. Give them the trust and authority.
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Agencies fight the micromanagement using the method of ugly green stain. They place something horrible on the design, for the client to complain about it, winning this battle and not complaining about anything else.
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Every self-respecting agency is counting the time and charges for extra work.
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If we make a bad decision, but quickly, it can be fixed. However, if we hesitate with the decision nothing is done and nothing can be fixed.
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It is important to see where the money is.
Investors have totally lost confidence in the leadership of the Danish windmill giant, Vestas. Earlier this week, on October 31, 2011, their stock plummeted almost 25% - the most recent, most dramatic swing in a roller-coaster ride that started in 2008.
This most recent disaster was triggered by a discreet announcement late Sunday evening that a German turbine factory, owned by Vestas, couldn’t deliver on time, which was going to severely reduce earnings for the year.
I’ve been monitoring Vestas for over a year, not as an investor, but because I am fascinated by how poorly this company handles social media. Let me be blunt: Vestas just doesn’t get it - and it has cost them millions.
A story about “Black Tuesday”
On the morning of October 26, 2010, I read the headline on the Danish business newspaper, Børsen, that Vestas was going to fire 3000 employees. At 9:45, someone told me that Vestas’ CEO, Ditlev Engel was holding a press conference at 10:00. Around 10:15, another colleague told me that a Danish windmill company was declaring bankruptcy and that there would be a statement at 11:00.
About 10:20, as Engel rambled on to the press corps (streamed live on the internet), the first remarks started to appear on Twitter: “So when is he going to tell us the company has gone bust?” Actually, another, smaller windmill company, Skycon, had gone into receivership. Although this news had been announced earlier that morning, the particulars were overshadowed by the happenings at Vestas. No interesting statements were made at 11:00.
However, looking at Vestas’ stock price that morning, there was a curious, minute-by-minute correlation between the tweets and the stock. About 10:20, when the stock was falling, but not yet in free-fall, the first social media messages appeared. And during the next 15 minutes, Vestas lost almost DKK 20 million in stock capitalization. After 11:00, when it was clear from the news updates that Skycon, not Vestas, had gone broke, Vestas stock rallied briefly. But only briefly; the company lost a bundle that day - the company’s communication punctuated by occasional tweets providing a link to the online video of Engel’s press conference.
Coincidentally, a senior VP at Vestas told me later that day that the company had a community manager responsible for their social media. But what does this person actually do? For the next 26 hours, there wasn’t a single tweet - during which time Vestas lost over 10% of its total market capitalization.
Late in the evening of October 27, 2010, Vestas finally posted a tweet. Too little, too late.
Could social media help?
If you had looked at social-media activity related to Vestas on October 26-27, 2010, it was clear that people - including Bloomberg - were looking for some kind of useful communication. But there was none.
On October 27, 2010, Vestas had roughly 450 followers. A couple of days ago, Vestas stock again plummeted, this time by almost 25%. They now have 3,600 followers on Twitter. But did Vestas tweet? No. A repeat performance from a year ago.
Finally, a tweet - at 9:20 AM on Tuesday November 1, 2011. Throughout the dismal Monday, Vestas remained silent.
So here’s my message, dear Vestas: people WANT to talk with you. The dramatic rise in your number of Twitter followers shows this. So why aren’t you engaging with them? Do you have a social-media strategy or are you just making this up as you go along? If so, consider taking a different approach. The most recent debacle reduced the value of your stock by 24.3%. The costs to prepare a professional social-media strategy and the salary for an effective community manager are far less. You do the math.
ENG:
I am proud to announce the opening of FatDUX Prague. Our offices are located just minutes from the famed Wenceslas Square in the heart of the Czech capital. Over the past few years, our sister company, ExperienceU, has grown to become one of the most respected usability testing facilities in Central Europe. Now, working hand-in-hand with FatDUX Prague, we are able to provide a full range of UX services – from strategy and design to usability and search optimisation.
To help celebrate our new company and build our local user-experience community, FatDUX Prague is subsidising 20 registrations for residents of the Czech Republic to the upcoming
EuroIA conference. The conference is possibly the most important event of its kind in Europe. We are honoured that this year, it will be held right here in Prague on September 22-24.
Rather than the normal registration fee of EUR 430, with our discount code, you will only pay EUR 150. We will take care of the rest. For details and your personal code information, please write to me directly: stepan (at) fatdux.com
CZE:
Rádi bychom oznámili oficiální otevření pražské pobočky dánské designové agentury FatDUX. Naše kanceláře se nachází na okraji historického centra Prahy. Díky spolupráci s agenturou ExperienceU, respektovanou zejména v oblasti testování použitelnosti, dodáváme celé spektrum služeb v oblasti UX, přes strategii a design po audit použitelnosti a SEO.
Abychom oslavili oficiální vznik nové pobočky a zároveň podpořili místní UX komunitu, FatDUX Praha sponzoruje registraci 20 zájemců z České republiky o nadcházející konferenci
EuroIA. Tato konference, která se řadí mezi nejvýznamnější svého druhu v Evropě, se bude konat v Praze 22 – 24. září.
Místo plné ceny 430 Euro zaplatíte pouze 150 Euro a FatDUX doplatí zbytek. Případní zájemci, neváhejte mne prosím kontaktovat na: stepan (at) fatdux.com
I don’t know when the BB-bird came into my life, but it was early – a bright, yellow canary with an incredibly friendly demeanour. His name, pronounced “bee-bee”, was related directly to my ability to say things around the age of 10 months. It entered my vocabulary about the same time as “mama”, “dada”, “bye-bye”, “night-night”, and “ford”.
BB-bird had a cage, but using the cage was at the bird’s discretion, not ours; the door was always open. BB sat on my crib, let me poke him with sticks, and even flew around outside during the summer months. But BB always returned and was an integral part of our family.
One day we returned from a short winter holiday and BB was suddenly very stand-offish. He wouldn’t sing, wouldn’t play with me, and was generally apathetic (I was about three at the time, but recognized apathy nonetheless). When spring came, I opened a window and the BB-bird flew away, never to be seen again.
A few years later, my mother confessed that the original BB-bird had died that winter weekend and she had discreetly replaced him with another bird without telling me. She said it was the only time she ever lied to me – and I believe her.
She learned a lesson and I learned a lesson – several, in fact. And now, 55 years later, the BB-bird still affects my decision-making process. Allow me to share some thoughts with you.
Lessons learned from the BB-bird
First, you can sugar-coat the truth, but you can never hide it. Truth always comes out. In my case, I was confused and upset that my friend the BB-bird no longer liked me. This was far more painful than learning the concept of death. I was genuinely relieved when my mom confessed the truth behind the BB-bird’s sudden personality change.
Today, when clients leave us unexpectedly or old friends “go off the radar” in a calculated manner, I want to know why. I want an explanation – and hopefully I shouldn’t have to ask.
This leads to my second epiphany…
There is a difference between “difficult” and “unpleasant” decisions. In truth, there are relatively few “difficult” decisions here in life – mostly, we procrastinate to avoid making the “unpleasant” decisions – or look for ways to avoid confrontation entirely (e.g. replacing a dead canary to avoid upsetting the baby).
Thanks to the BB-bird, I rarely hesitate when making unpleasant decisions. It’s not that I’m cold-hearted, I just don’t see the upside in prolonging pain. I also rip off band-aids really fast. And I always explain the reasons behind my decisions and subsequent actions.
Do you have a BB-bird in your life? You probably do. So, take a moment and see what lessons you learned.
Are CEOs out of touch with reality? I’d say a lot of you are. Although you CEOs don’t have to go to extremes to improve things, most of you do need to do something, so listen up. If you don’t want the long backstory, skip ahead to the last subhead.
About the title of this blogpost
Undercover Boss is the title of an American reality series. The premise is simple: an out-of-touch CEO puts on a disguise, takes a low-level job within his organization, and hears the truth about the company problems. After a week of play-acting, he goes back to his office and makes everything right again.
(By the way, I write “he” as I have yet to see a female CEO profiled. But I digress…)
There’s a great review of this episode by Ken Tucker at ew.com here:
http://watching-tv.ew.com/2010/02/14/undercover-boss-hooters-episode-2/
Quick recap of the “Hooters” episode
For those of you who haven’t seen the episode or read Ken’s synopsis, the “star” of this particular show was CEO Coby Brooks of Hooters.
Hooters is a chain of restaurants featuring beer and chicken wings served by buxom young women in tight t-shirts and hot-pants. FYI: “Hooters” is a slang expression for breasts. In the United States, the cute Hooters owl-logo only misleads those who are certifiably clueless (you can see it on Coby’s shirt in the photo below).
Coby Brooks (at left - duh) with two typical Hooters employees.
During the show, Coby learned (among other things), that although men love Hooters, most women feel the concept is degrading. I would have thought this was kind of a WTF “no-brainer” observation, but it certainly surprised our friend Coby as he talked on camera to random folks on the streets of Dallas, TX. (Good we got him out of his posh office and cosy private jet).
Hey, the concept is demeaning. But let’s face it,
Hooters knows tits, ass, and beer is a winning combination for roughly half the population. In the meantime, Coby is now promising to rethink the company’s image. “We’re gonna tell folks about all them Hooter gals who are now doctors and lawyers and rock stars and…”
Uh…and this proves what, Coby? Did you know that feminist Gloria Steinem was once a Playboy bunny?
Lesson #1
Coby’s advisors look more like his drinking buddies than business executives.
Dear CEO, don’t hire your buddies. Don’t hire ass-lickers. Hire folks who aren’t scared of you. Sycophants and spies will never tell you the truth. And don’t take personal offence when someone disagrees with you.
Lesson #2
Coby probably would have been a better CEO if his father hadn’t just plunked him down into his current position without either warning or training. Coby seems to have had a very strained relationship with his dad and it’s clearly been tough to fill daddy’s very large shoes.
Are you a CEO looking to turn over the reins of your business to the next generation? Think twice before giving the job to a family member. This has been the downfall of many a family-owned company. Put your idiot offspring in charge of a charitable fund or something else that’s fairly harmless, but keep him away from the executive suite.
Lesson #3
Poor Coby inherits a billion-dollar business and finds out to his incredible surprise that the folks making chicken-wing sauces at his dad’s old factory in Atlanta loved his dad, but hate the current owners (er…that’s you, Coby). Why? Because Dad walked the floor and knew all his employees by name. Coby is an “absentee landlord”. The employees feel abandoned and uncared for. Which was a theme throughout this show – also when Coby visited his restaurants. Good TV. Naïve management.
Dear CEO, go “walkabout” – an Australian expression for going into the wilderness. Get your ass out of your chair and walk the floor, greet the guests, answer the phones. Honestly, you don’t need a reality TV show to get you moving.
Lesson #4
Clients come to FatDUX precisely because we can uncover problems for them without bias – which is what all agencies should provide. The amazing thing is, the work is not always particularly difficult – although it often appears impossible to those inside the organization. That’s because it’s not enough to solve a specific problem; you have to deal with the generic cause of the problem. In service-design language, this means fixing the problem both ways. We can see patterns that are often invisible from inside an organization – the more siloed the departments and functions, the more invisible the patterns are to senior management.
Dear CEO, ask questions. Ask tough questions. Demand answers. Don’t accept “it depends” as an answer from highly paid consultants. Hell,
everything “depends” so there’s no need to dwell on the obvious.
Lesson #5
Dear CEO, you don’t want to be on
Undercover Boss. If you’re good, you’ll never be on
Undercover Boss. You’re
supposed to know what’s going on in your organization. That’s why you get the big bucks.
Folks, it’s easy to get folks to tell you the truth. Just ask. If you’re honest, open, and fair, people will tell you things. But you do need to go out and talk to people. Talk to your customers (alas, far too many companies don’t ask because they are scared of what they may find out). If you want to align your business goals with user needs, you’d better understand what these needs are. The magic word is “listen”.
Coby didn’t learn a thing he couldn’t have learned in much simpler ways.
From October 2008 to January 2010, former A.P. Møller-Maersk director, Kim Schultz, was FatDUX’s Director of Business Development. He died on Thursday after an illness that was longer than Kim had let on. Kim was 65. I lost a close personal friend, FatDUX lost a trusted advisor, and Denmark lost one of those rare, insightful businessmen who could strengthen both GDP and international relations.
I first met Kim Schultz back in the mid-nineties when I was invited to complete a whist foursome with three business executives. Although I didn’t play whist and wasn’t yet a business executive, the invitation was appealing – “beer, chili con carne, and good conversation.” Happily, conversation, not whist, was the driving force behind these get-togethers. And although I eventually became a decent whist-player, more importantly, I received business training from three of the brightest minds in Denmark. And Kim was our senior advisor in this talented group. Kim and I also shared similar hobby interests – vintage wristwatches and cars – which provided a nice change of pace when we grew tired of discussing due-diligance procedures, the economy of Latvia, or whether the “white-tail” jets parked at Keflavik Airport might be for sale.
For years, Kim was part of the top management within the A.P. Møller-Maersk organization. Most of his career was spent in air freight, including 14 years as Vice President of Maersk Air Cargo. In 2000, Kim was promoted to Managing Director of Star Air, another Maersk company, which operated an impressive fleet of 14 Boeing 747 cargo jets. After leaving A.P.Møller-Maersk in 2003, Kim joined former Maersk Air CEO Bjarne Hansen, Robert S. Arendal, and Marita Petersen to form a new Danish air-brokerage company, WingPartners.
In the fall of 2008, Kim agreed to share his time and business acumen with the FatDUX Group where he navigated us deftly through the treacherous first year of the financial crisis. Kim had an incredible ability to maintain his cool in every kind of situation – even when our idiot bank advisor proceeded to lecture him on international cargo logistics. Our debt to our dear friend Kim is enormous – for his skill, knowledge, personal charm, and unswerving support.
Some will question whether a corporate blog is the appropriate place for a piece such as this. I say, absolutely! Kim was a vital member of the FatDUX family – and just as we use social media to share our successes, it is only fitting that we share our losses, too.
On behalf of FatDUX Chairman, Søren Muus, and all the FatDUXlings worldwide, our hearts go out to Kim’s son, Mikkel, and his extended family. Ære være hans minde.
Memorial service
We have just learned there will be a memorial service for Kim on June 14 at 11 AM at Søndermarks Kirkegård og Krematorium, Roskildevej 59.
From left: Cleantech CEO Jesper Boie Rasmussen, FatDUX CEO Eric Reiss, and FatDUX Director of Business Development Kim Schultz admire Cleantech's electric Jaguar XF in 2009.
I am absolutely positive that someone was leaning on the Fast Forward button during April because it flew by. It is only now that I am able to see over the paper piles on my desk and talk about my fantastic experience that started my April 2011 off at a brisk pace. In early April, I was privilege to be asked speak at the
Polish IA Summit in Warsaw. My deepest thanks to Wieslaw Kotecki, Hubert Anyzewski and all at UseLab for putting together such a terrific program. And, a very special thanks to Magda Wolszczak- Protas who did such an incredible job of coordinating the event on top of taking good care of this clueless American visitor to Warsaw. It was an exceptional experience.
My colleagues have done such a fantastic job of representing the content of the Polish IA Summit that I will refer you to them for specific representations of what we learned over an inspiring two days.You will also find many tweets using
#iasw as your search term. The summit hash tag was the most popular tag in Poland for the first day of the Summit on April 7, 2011.
My personal epiphany from the conference was confirmation that the U.S. hegemony over IA/UX/Experience Design, or whatever you want to call what we do and where we do it, has long been over. We’re lucky here in the United States where we have been blessed for years with the thought-leadership of many of the originators of our practice. When we limit ourselves to conferences, meet ups, webinars and other information sharing venues from the continental U.S., it is easy to think that this is where all of the innovative, thought-leadership is happening. Au contraire. The viral nature of the Web has spread the good word far and wide. Our colleagues overseas are blazing many trails with innovative work and forward-thinking.
We service a global community that deserves a global perspective. Such perspective does not come from following the same superstars on Twitter or seeing the same people deliver similar PowerPoint slides at local conferences. I believe that a truly global perspective comes from the experience and intellect of our colleagues overseas. And for this you need to get on the long plane ride and go find it. Here are some international IA events for which I could find links:
German IA Summit,
Italia IA Summit and the
EuroIA.
The IA Institute site, Boxes and Arrows and other professional sites announce other events in Australia, South America, Asia and Eastern Europe. I plan to do what I can to include educational opportunities from outside the U.S. in my professional development from now on as I believe strongly that it makes me a better IA. I hope that you do also. And, in the United States, it is a tax deduction.
Polish IA Summit Recaps
Martin Belem on the Polish IA Summit. Martin has done a fantastic job of bringing forth salient points for many of the presentations. He is too modest to talk about his own presentation that illuminated an interesting path from SEO to IA in Five Lessons from an Information Architecture career.
Peter Boersma did a fantastic job of sending us on our with with his closing plenary that examined the state of IA and UX, where it came from and where it is going, in
UX: (still) the next step for IAs. He also has excellent
notes for many of the sessions from the Polish IA Summit.
Claire Rowland and Chris Brown, from Fjord, delivered a thought provoking presentation on extending our concept of design in
Designing Beyond the Glowing Rectangle: User Experience Design and Research Implications of the Internet of Things that closed out the first day’s session.
The following represents strictly my personal views, which may or may not represent the opinions of the owners and employees of The FatDUX Group. This represents the essence of an email sent earlier today to the John Hancock Insurance Company, in response to a promotional e-mail.
To Whom it May Concern:
Thank you for your “personalized” e-mail. Thanks, too, for the useless flash animation. Perhaps, as promised, my personal information could have been edited but I didn’t have the patience to wait through the advertising crap.
While I have your attention, I’d like to mention that my mother paid almost USD 9,000 a year for home health care. She did this for well over a decade. But when she turned 90 and really needed your help, John Hancock made us jump through all kinds of hoops.
My mother died before your policy finally “took effect”. You never paid out a cent. Good business model. Bad user experience. Your 100-day waiting period is quite effective. Alas, most needs for home health care arise quite unexpectedly. Ah, but you know this, of course :)
When you transferred her policy from one agent to another (the original agent retired many years ago – that’s how old the policy is), you kicked two numbers: the policy number and her social security number. Despite hours and hours on the phone (mostly listening to your Muzak), I don’t know that this situation was ever resolved – whenever I called, you were never able to find her policy. Yet you kept magnificent track of her bank account across at least two account changes.
During her memorial service (held at her home), I received a phone call from your organization (the fourth), requesting an appointment for one of your “professional advisors” to inspect the house to determine if my mother was really entitled to your help. Pardon me. I think I may have been rude to your representative – I was missing my mother’s eulogy.
I’m posting this on a user-experience blog because I think someone at John Hancock needs to sit up and take notice: you have a customer who paid over USD 100,000 to you and was kicked in the balls for the privilege. Imagine my joy to find I am still on your mailing list.
Sincerely,
Eric L. Reiss
son of the late
Louise Z. Reiss
of Pinecrest, FL
–
Eric Reiss
CEO
The FatDUX Group
Copenhagen, Denmark
http://www.fatdux.com
office: (+45) 39 29 67 77
mobile: (+45) 20 12 88 44
skype: ericreiss
twitter: @elreiss
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If you received this in error, please let us know and delete the file. FatDUX advises all recipients to virus scan all emails, and to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables daily.
- Show quoted text -
On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 12:16 AM, John Hancock South Florida Group
<XXXX@jhnetwork.com> wrote:
> Dear Eric,
>
> Every few months, I try to keep my clients and friends up-to-date with current financial issues or critical concerns. Here is the latest.
>
> Access Here for Your Information.
>
> If you want more information on this subject, just click-on the additional details box at the end.
>
> Feel free to send me a message. It’s always good hearing from clients and friends.
>
> Sincerely,
> John Hancock South Florida Group
> (305) 579-4026 (O)
> xxxxx@jhnetwork.com
> John Hancock Financial Network
> South Florida Group
> 1101 Brickell Ave. 16th Floor North Tower
> Miami, FL 33131
>
http://www.jhfnsouthfloridagroup.com
>
> If the link above does not open, try this link – or copy and paste this link into your browser.
> http://ebriefme.com/1/?d=411&r=4mcM1zuoLkqlUa2-XXXXX>
> Registered Representative/Securities and Investment Advisory Services through Signator Investors, Inc. Member FINRA, SIPC, a Registered Investment Advisor
>
> This material does not constitute tax, legal, financial or accounting advice. It was not intended or written for use and cannot be used by any taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding any IRS penalty. It was written to support the marketing of the transactions or topics it addresses. Anyone interested in these transactions or topics should seek advice based on his or her particular circumstances from independent professional advisors.
>
> The information contained in this email is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any products or services. It is for informational purposes only. Products and services mentioned in this email may not be available in all states and are only valid for distribution in the United States of America.
>
> NOTE:
> If you feel you have received this message by mistake, or if you want to be deleted from further communications from me, please click below:
> http://ebriefme.com/0/?d=411&r=4mcM1zuoLkqlUa2-XXXXX>
At the recent IA Summit in Denver, CO, the inimitable Jared Spool suggested that information architects could do their jobs better if they knew how to code. This provocative statement did indeed provoke a lot of comment. So in answer to Jared, and as a little bit of Friday fun from the team here at FatDUX Copenhagen, let me offer my own bit of code (as opposed to cipher).
0041701 1071510 0391309 0791505 0050808 1120614
2021501 1901014 0890405 0881501 1712310 1071506
1600911 1040809 0670103 1600911 0042509 0450413
0041701 0820306 2021501 0570104 0040811 0391309
1140107 1890811 1162003 1591801 1050401 1962901
0920702 0680407 1151302 1901014 0671903 1081303
0670103 0990805 0750204 0031301 0572512 0052814
0671903 0960309 0391309 1762707
BTW, Jared, we love your most recent book, Web Anatomy. Cheers from the DUXlings.