Sloppy Products
I was trying to make a booking for an event that I am planning to attend in bangalore. I filled in my details at Ayojak.com and entered the details and hit the submit on the payment gateway, it came back with "Server too busy- response" - I did not expect that from a payment gateway- (atleast please don't say that you are busy to take a revenue!) god damn design is completely flawed, now think of it this way - you are a sales guy and some one is willing to make the payment and you say "Dude- I am busy to take the money - hang on for a while" how would the customer feel? Ofcourse if it is a product like the apple's you don't mind waiting ( not to mention that you don't have an option BUT for waiting for the I-Products- we will discuss that in a different post of Apple's demand curve ever greening). I was not very pleased to see the screen. I filled in the details the second time and hit the submit- same again ( I did not expect the server too free up some computing power for my transaction, but hey in the current virtualization and on demand world, I don't remember seeing in a while, atleast on the commercial sites, [I do frequently see that in some torrent sites and other forums that run at the mercy of user donations and we know how miserly the individual gets when it comes to giving back to forums and sites that help us in sourcing digital content and provides a platform to get our questions answered]. The fourth time around I wanted to try my debit card option and went ahead, something definitely worked-the payment gateway charged my debit card, but again the handshake between the website and my bank's payment gateway did decide not to make a hand shake( for what ever reasons best known to them), I had no option but to call the Ayojak.com's website technical support. I was frustrated but did contain it and spoke very composed to the support guy on the other end, a pleasant voice said they will revert back to me in 30 minutes and now I am foot tapping to hear back from the Ayojak.com guys about my ticket confirmation- I am sure it would be positive. The whole experience of taking the ticketing,payment platforms online is to take away the waiting and to ease the customer with asynchronous transactions - if crappy products are forming parts of your solution ecosystem, then the whole experience is lame and customers will not necessarily have the patience to try it on and on, I wish the guys are tracking the translation rate from payment gateway failure to payment realization ( I guess it would be about 70% given the fact the folks want to attend the event rather than worry about the payment gateway - but If I am taking time to write this post and folks are taking time again and again to pump in their plastic details to buy the ticket, then I remember the payment gateway and website for the wrong reasons and that is already a lot of damage done.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Customer Delight
The online experience definitely is making one go away from the touch and feel experience we have experienced from the various commerce. One business that cannot completely have a revamp is the hotel/cuisine business. You can order the food and eat home but hey most of the time you don't want to miss the experience and the ambiance/whole ecosystem experience that you get while you are at the restaurant. This weekend I was at Mainland China Hyderabad. I was truly amazed with their customer pleasing skills. My folks were not sure of the order ( I was sure of my cocktail), to add to their complexity my preferred Veg style threw them another challenge of not very well known order. The steward came to their rescue( I outsourced the menu handling skills to the rest of folks while I continued to be lost sipping my Tom Collins). As I worked through my TC, my first round of ammunition showed up, it was spicy for my 3 year old and observing our state, the steward got us a bowl of butter fried noodles and my son loved it. Now, our whole experience could have been down the drain if my son was to starve. The 80 was my Son and his bon apetite - so the rest of the 20 - who ate more than 80% of the ordered food could have had a great experience. As our hunger kept us going, we landed in main course and to my delight - there was some great smelling veggy food. I just mentioned the guys about my brother's b'day and there was a small make-shift music band with a small cake- singing happy bday and presenting a small toy of main land china ( to the b'day boy). My son was happy to see the toy and boom there appeared another toy on the table. Now is this a big deal - well if you ask me - Oh Yeah- it is a big deal - the Main Land China guys delighted every one in the family now that cannot be coincidence- they very well know the art of enchantment. Good show boys and oh yeah, brother- happy birth day.
The online experience definitely is making one go away from the touch and feel experience we have experienced from the various commerce. One business that cannot completely have a revamp is the hotel/cuisine business. You can order the food and eat home but hey most of the time you don't want to miss the experience and the ambiance/whole ecosystem experience that you get while you are at the restaurant. This weekend I was at Mainland China Hyderabad. I was truly amazed with their customer pleasing skills. My folks were not sure of the order ( I was sure of my cocktail), to add to their complexity my preferred Veg style threw them another challenge of not very well known order. The steward came to their rescue( I outsourced the menu handling skills to the rest of folks while I continued to be lost sipping my Tom Collins). As I worked through my TC, my first round of ammunition showed up, it was spicy for my 3 year old and observing our state, the steward got us a bowl of butter fried noodles and my son loved it. Now, our whole experience could have been down the drain if my son was to starve. The 80 was my Son and his bon apetite - so the rest of the 20 - who ate more than 80% of the ordered food could have had a great experience. As our hunger kept us going, we landed in main course and to my delight - there was some great smelling veggy food. I just mentioned the guys about my brother's b'day and there was a small make-shift music band with a small cake- singing happy bday and presenting a small toy of main land china ( to the b'day boy). My son was happy to see the toy and boom there appeared another toy on the table. Now is this a big deal - well if you ask me - Oh Yeah- it is a big deal - the Main Land China guys delighted every one in the family now that cannot be coincidence- they very well know the art of enchantment. Good show boys and oh yeah, brother- happy birth day.
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