Kobo Origins: A Great Community Manager Story + Classic Big Corp. Sucks Story (Don't they always go together?)

So I recently posted the Super Early Review of the Kobo, but I left out the story of how huge of an ordeal it was to get one!

Last Friday I won a contest hosted by the wonderful people at Red Canary! Around noon I DM'd them on twitter to get the details of how I could obtain my new prize! I must have thought for some reason that Trevor Stafford was some sort of Super Octopus to still be able to run as the Red Canary community manager in addition to his already numerous community manager roles and twitter accounts (not to mention he moved to Waterloo from Toronto)...

Turns out it was someone else in Toronto (so it couldn't be as convenient as going to the AC to pick it up!), a wonderful person by the name of Heather Holmes. She worked with me back and forth via twitter, email and phone to try and get me my Kobo as soon as possible as she realized shipping it to me might take awhile. I told her I was close to Chapters Waterloo and so she called to buy one over the phone so I could pick it up in the store. Unfortunately, it turns out you can't buy stuff over the phone with your credit card! #FAIL! Ridiculousness to the max aside, we were running out of options as I didn't want to wait for shipping or drive to Toronto (and Heather didn't want me to wait either!). The next solution was to just send me gift cards online, or e-certificates. So she goes and buys those online for me, told me I'd get 4 as she couldn't just state one price (again, go Chapters, woo!). An hour later I still didn't have them so I followed up to let her know the status, and she called them to find out what was going on. She remained incredibly helpful through the whole experience and went above and beyond what I expected! She calls Chapters and they say it should arrive in the next 6 hours! She's flabbergasted, and I'm shocked as well, but not surprised. You'd think sending an electronic gift certificate would be instant these days, you know with the technology and speed of light thing that most sites take advantage of, but no, not with Chapters, sorry! She apologized and kept in contact with me many times to help get me that Kobo, and I appreciated the dedication!

Nothing arrived that night (I checked my email a lot too!) and now it was the weekend meaning the Chapters monkeys weren't at work. Long weekend too mind you, luckily I was occupied anyways! Heather emailed me Tuesday morning bright and early saying they'd be in by Wednesday morning at the latest and was quite embarrassed for Chapters, and I can't blame her! luckily I got them by 11am, all 4 of em. I did go to research the comments on buyers of e-certificates and most the comments were over a year old, but they were all extremely negative saying it took weeks to get them and ruined everyone's plans, how could they possibly take that long?

So I open my emails to figure out how to use them and it turns out I can only use them to buy from online! I can't use them at a store and they are non-refundable! I also cannot buy online and just pick up from store stock. Great, so now I still have to order the device. I go to order the black one and I get free premium 2-4 day shipping, but it says next to the device (3-5 weeks). Hmm, which will it be? Turns out it was still 3 -5 weeks, and the 2 - 4 day shipping is on top of that, what a fucking pile of shit! Glad I didn't have to pay for premium shipping! Guaranteed arrival date was July 5th, and the current day was May 25th! I was leaving for Kenora on July 6th so if I missed delivery I would have probably missed the 5 day holding period too at the depot! I told Heather about the situation and she was blown away by all of this! She was on the phone with Chapters in a heartbeat and got me some more info. Apparently you can cancel within 50 minutes of ordering online, and then you can actually transfer your e-balance on to a gift card to use in a store! So I call customer service and luckily get in on first ring, no wait time, and had a great person to talk to who asked my story, was very understanding and helped me through the whole thing. She canceled my order with only a minute to go, was a close call, and she asked if I got the order email right as I got it too so I thought I was too late. Here's a funny detail I forgot, as soon as I bought the Kobo online I got an email confirming a purchase, but saying I will get the actual order number and details in 6 hours, so I was kind of flying blind when I called, could only give my email address!

So I finally have the money on my gift card that I luckily had found in my wallet, lest I would have had to go out and buy one, then go home to transfer it, then come back. Heather is excited that it worked and gives me the phone number of my local Chapters to call and make sure they are in stock before I go over there. The online stock said 2 so I wasn't going to call, but I called anyways for some reason as I did have that number conveniently in front of me, and I'm glad I did as I discovered that there was an online stock error! The woman on the phone at Chapters gives her condolences after I tell my whole tale of how I'm trying to get this device that I won and then she goes on and explains to me why it's such a great device and why I'd love it, which I appreciate as it seems the employees are passionate about the thing, but I didn't need to hear it as I was already getting one for sure! Turns out every store in KWC+G were sold out and no one knew when they were shipping or if their store would actually get any more units. They said it would actually be faster to order online as they are still building and shipping them and those people get priority over the stores. Great! I'm back at the July 5th if I still even get that date :S They said call each morning though to double check. So I'm looking all over Southern Ontario and these things are hard to find! I could probably get one if I drove an hour and back, but I didn't want to do that! I look back online and turns out the shipping is 1-2 weeks with a white unit versus 3-5 with the black. So I decided to just keep calling around and maybe taking a trip out somewhere on the weekend to go buy one and do something else at the same time.

The next morning I call all the KWC locations again, leaving Waterloo last, and my luck they actually said they had one white Kobo in stock! I reserved it and went to pick it up. I asked if they got a new shipment in and the cashier said no. I asked why there were none yesterday and how they got this magical one unit; she said someone ordered it to the store, it arrived, but they canceled their order! What luck!!!

So I got a white one, but I think I'm ok with it as it might be cooler in the sun, looks less like an iPad, and I think it would be easier on the eyes then the black one.

Heather was finally able to give the real congrats after that long journey and she was so incredibly helpful the whole way, a very dedicated person who went above and beyond to keep me happy. I can't really complain about the situation as it was a free gift and I tried to keep a humourous take on the whole thing with Heather along the way, giving her an easy out that I could just wait if I had to, but she stuck with it and was invested.

To make a long story short, Chapters has a few (to say the least) user experience issues to deal with (Heather mentioned she'd attempt to follow up personally with their UX team), but I must admit that the Chapters phone support was very good (Heather said her person was very helpful too). The staff I spoke to when calling the stores were also very helpful and took the time to explain how it all worked (manufacturing, shipping, ordering to store, etc.) and to give me the best options for getting a Kobo. The Kobos are selling like Wii-Fits (the new age proverbial hot-cakes) and are damn hard to get!

I have to say that Heather is a great successor to Trevor as the Community Manager for Red Canary and has not only met, but exceeded my expectations of what a good community manager does.

From one community manager to another: Thanks!

Zappos DOES NOT EQUAL A Good Example of Customer Service in Social Media

You know, I'm sick and tired of constantly seeing posts about how Zappos is equivalent to great customer service! It seems like it's the only example out there for social media, but I know it's not!

Zappos sure as hell wasn't great for me in terms of Customer Experience; in fact, I do believe that my experience was far much worse than it would have been if I had never know that they were supposed to be synonymous with customer service!

Several months back I was looking for new shoes and I said hey what the hell, the local FootLocker sucks and seems to be staffed by inept kids that leave you waiting for 25 minutes listening to the worst goddamn mutherfucking music ever made while they try to find if your shoes are at another store or when they'll be in stock. It was so aggravating I said to myself, there has to be an easier way to get my shoes, I know exactly what I want, I get the same pair over and over because they are great!

I check out this Zappos thing people are wild about, although I have no idea how online shoes can be that exciting, at least if you are a guy. I check their site, it seemed nice enough, finding my shoes wasn't tough, and hey they were a good price with free shipping and free returns! Wow, these guys are good I thought, so I go to try to buy, but sorry I live in that far off mystical land of Canada that doesn't exist in the same universe as America, let alone the same continent. I'm pissed and yell FAIL. So I look for an alternative, perhaps they have a Canadian site? If they are so great they must!

Lo and Behold! They do! But hey, is this even the same company? The site looks completely different, like it's made from crap and aimed at people who aren't as important or who don't care about looks for functionality like Americans do. Funny how most sites seem to think that when they expand to Canada...

So I look for my shoes, and boy was that fun. 10 minutes later and after looking through every pair of shoes, I couldn't find my basic pair of New Balance running shoes! And WTF is this? $10 to ship on more expensive shoes then they'd be in the states? and $15 return? It even says they are shipping them from the US!!! If that is the case, why don't they just let me use their beautiful site that is fully stocked and pay for the shipping? Why do I have to pick from a lesser more expensive group and still have to pay for shipping? What kind of Bullshit are they running?!

So Anyways, I complain over Twitter making sure to mention Zappos and showing that I was unhappy (I even used a frowny!), and of course I've heard that over 200 of their employees are monitoring twitter. I expected someone to swoop down to my rescue any minute, or to at least appologize for lack of international service.

Several months later I still haven't heard a peep from them. Good customer service my fucking ass! Maybe if I was born under the American Flag I would have gotten some reception, but for a company that is synonymous with social media and great customer service, at least one fucking person could have said "Sorry, we're still working on our Canadian store", or "how can I help you pay us?". Seriously, WTF, high expectations, incredibly low results, seems pretty sad to me, and not even a reply from a Canadian Zappos employee, if they actually have any, or anyone in Canada. Perhaps I only had one tweet, but with the tools available at the time and 200 employees, someone must have saw my tweet.

I'll never use them as an example of Good customer service, just as one that is bad. Are they good because they offer free shipping and returns? Maybe that's it? Well so does well.ca and I know they are nice people who respond to you on twitter! Perhaps it's their culture? What fucking good does their culture do me if they don't help me (200 employees not helping me)? I really hate to say it, but at this point I believe Rogers (...shudder) does a better job of customer service using Social Media. Take that!

Anyways, I've been meaning to get this rant out for a long time, but seeing a recent tweet about zappos = customer service just got me riled up again.