Browsing around a few competitors websites I noticed some boasting about a solution that was “extremely complex and sophisticated”. Hmmm.
As a user I want to see products/solutions that are easy, simple and solve my problems. I’ll pay for things that make my life simpler. Do I really want something that is complex? I think complexity sounds like trouble – if something is complex, it will probably break or stop working for no reason….
Anyway, just thinking out loud.
For a while now I have heard of follow-me adverts online, but haven’t seen any in practice until recently. And then the damn things got annoying pretty quickly. I got cookied.
I spent some time browsing the web for a loft ladder and a few other DIY bits and bobs. I then bought a nice Youngman loft ladder (highly recommended, by the way) on Amazon marketplace.
For the next few weeks I was then stalked by loft ladder, sand paper and other ads on numerous websites. Seems like Wickes was the main culprit and a few others too.
I clicked on a few of these ads, just to get some satisfaction from knowing that my tormentors got to pay a few lousy pence for trying to stalk me 
Unless, of course, Google was kind enough not to charge them for repeated visits from the same visitor?
I then got bored of this and simply cleared out the offending cookies, but I guess that most people would have no clue how to do that.
Soon all of us will be using the latest browsers and have the tools to deal with unwanted tracking cookies, but in the mean time I can see how some less technically minded people might get somewhat irritated by random websites seemingly colluding to stalk them. Personally, after a week of seeing the Wickes loft ladder in all sorts of random places I was ready to shout some choice words at the screen…
Somehow I managed to get onto Confused.com mail list. Must have forgotten to untick some default option – dough!
OK, so this sort of semi-spam always have an unsubscribe link, right? Confused.com emails have one too, but after clicking it you need to log in (for my safety) before I can change my email preferences.
What? What sort of safety is needed? Do you seriously think some bad, ugly hacker is lurking in the shadows waiting to deprive me of your spammy emails clogging up my inbox? I would happily shake this persons hand and maybe buy them a beer too.
As the matter stands – I don’t recall creating an account on confused.com, and vaguely recall using the site to get a quote for something (probably). I don’t remember the passwords, nor do I want to. I could do a password reminder and be subjected to more emails and have to navigate their website….
Nah, they have support people that can sort it – I sent them an email. To their credit they replied within a day and promised to erase my address off their system. Here is a snippet that made me smile:
“… However, it can take up to 14 days to update our database … “
Wow…. you guys have some serious performance issues with your databases. I know databases that could do this kind of update in under a second.
Now for a contrast – vertbaudet.co.uk. Melinda bought something from them I guess and a similar default tick box must have got her. The unsubscribe experience was completely different. Click the link in the email and get right to a page saying:
“Your e-mail address has been unsubscribed”
No crap, not even a salesy banner in sight. Just a plain message that the job is done.
No prices for guessing that vertbaudet.co.uk might get a visit in the future, confused.com will only get visited as the last resort and then I’ll be paying special attention to all checkboxes.
The system British Gas has in place to submit meter readings online seems to have a very annoying bug that is getting very irritating now…
We switched gas and electricity to British Gas as their price was lowest for us, they are due to start supplying us shortly. Initially I was impressed – the online system seemed slick. There was a slight hiccup with initial login (I got an email inviting me log in, but the account wasn’t set up for another week), but other than that it looked good until it came to giving them meter readings….
First attempt: punch in the readings online, done in 5 minutes, another tick for British Gas.
It seemed too easy and it was. The next day I get an email:
Dear Mr Stylo
Thank you for submitting your meter readings online of 81307 for Gas and 5222 for Electricity for your Energy account.
Unfortunately, our system couldn’t process your readings.
We would be grateful if you could attempt to submit your meter reads again online at britishgas.co.uk/meterread. If this is the second time your meter readings have failed to be submitted online would you please contact us on 0800 048 0505* so we can take your readings over the phone.
Thank you for your help with this.
Yours sincerely
Tim Copper
Director, Online
britishgas.co.uk
Your Energy Experts
Huh?! A few remarks if I may, Mr Copper:
The email quotes the EXACT meter readings I punched in online, so your system already has my readings. British Gas is asking me to resubmit the same numbers again? Why can’t your system do it rather than sending me an email?
Is there something wrong with the numbers? Why not say so rather than just saying your system couldn’t digest them?
Anyway, I logged in again and punched in the numbers.
You guessed it – the next day the exact same email arrives again. This time I call the number, get through three levels of menus, confirm my address and security details via a voice recognition system and right at the end of this I get told that I should call during office hours between 8am and 8pm…. OK guys this super effcient online meter reading system of yours is currently costing me a lot of time, Not to mention all the time taken to write this post!
I’m dreading the call I’m going to make to British Gas tomorrow – menus, IVRs…. not happy.
Sometimes it is the small things that make the difference between good and really great customer service. The Neightfreight couriers recently delivered really outstanding service.
I got some Wickes DIY stuff delivered via Nightfreight last week. In the morning on the day an SMS arrived with an estimated delivery time slot and a number to call if it wasn’t convenient.
I called the number to ask that the parcel be left behind the wheelie bins (it was a pretty low value delivery, so low risk).
So far so good – not often do you get to talk to a person without first having to battle your way past automated menus.
Things got even better – when I got home the delivery was there behind the wheelie bins. The box was much bigger than I was expecting (stuffed 90% full of packaging material). The driver took the time to rearrange the wheelie bins is such a way that the box was safely hidden from view from the road.
Pretty good service.
I lost count of how many updates to Adobe Flash there were in the recent time…. it feels like they push out an update at least twice a week. I use a few PCs, and I really wish they could automate this.
As @chrised aptly put it on Twitter :
I think there’s an outer circle of Hell where people are forced to spend their days installing and updating Adobe products
Every single one of these updates asks me to read and agree to their T’s & C’s. I doubt anyone at Adobe actually expects people to read and re-read their legal small print a few times a week.
I’m not even going to go into what I think of the Adobe software quality – how many bugs and security holes can one piece of software hold?
I’m a bit partial to a nice whiskey and follow MasterOfMalt on Twitter….
This morning they blogged about a 105yr old whiskey going for some crazy amount of money. Took me about a minute or two to click that this was related to the date – 1st April
Nice one….
Ah, the blog is feeling neglected. Time for a little rant ….
I was reading Joe Dog’s Blog (his brilliant Siege load testing tool brought me there) and was compelled to add my 2p worth….
Long legal-sounding disclaimers at the bottom so many emails – what a waste of Internet bandwidth. Did an email disclaimer ever accomplish ANYTHING useful?
I’m sorry, if someone is careless enough to send emails to me in error, they have no right to make that my problem. I don’t have time to erase every last trace of their mistake off my system/mail server. Especially not if they try to put me under some sort of legal threat to do so! I will probably delete the email before even getting to read the stupid disclaimer, but it is bound to linger in the Trash folder for a while. Go on, sue me. Be more careful where you send your email next time if it contains ‘highly sensitive and confidential’ material.
And how about emails that tell me right at the bottom of the email that if I am ‘not authorised’ I shouldn’t read the contents…. does nobody see the problem here?!
OK, steam blown of. I now googled “email disclaimer reasons” to see if there actually is any real benefit to a disclaimer… doesn’t appear to be the case. Please let me know if you know otherwise.
The search did however throw up The Email Disclaimer Awards 2001 by the Register …. good fun.
P.S. If you are one of those unfortunate people forced by your employer to keep sending meaningless rubbish with every single email you write…. I feel deeply sorry for you
On Sunday 10 October I ran the Poznan Marathon. I was very impressed. I think it is the biggest marathon in Poland with around 5,000 runners registered.
The day was very well organised, the route was nice and there was a lot of support. I quite enjoyed the many bands – playing everything from blues to hard rock. Nothing better to get you past the last few miles than a bit of heavy metal
In the end I managed to finish in 3:55, a bit slower than I was hoping for but still my best ever time for a marathon.
Feeling good after a 42km jog....
Happy to report that my fitness effort is still on track. Managed the Windsor Half Marathon in 1:47. I was hoping for 1:45, but Windsor is quite a hilly course and the weather wasn’t all that great, so still feeling quite happy with the result.
Next step is trying to get a decent time in the Poznan Marathon next Sunday. I’m hoping to get under 4hr, maybe try for 3:45.
Doing running training only is nice, but can get a bit boring. To vary the training a bit I have started doing British Military Fitness once a week and would highly recommend it! Doing exercise with a group of people is quite fun and means I push myself a bit more than I can on my own.
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