Travelling, and not Arriving

Web2.0 vs Customer-less company? (yet another rant)

The more I deal with companies, the more I realize that the difference from modern, web-oriented, companies and the older ones is abysmal. Is not a technological difference though, but an opposite approach to customers.

Some real examples (happened to me just last Friday and Saturday):

• Someone stole my eBay identity on Friday; somehow he guessed the password, changed it and created some auctions using my username. He changed the password at 4:43 pm; eBay recognized the fraud at 4:54pm, blocked the account, canceled the auctions and sent me instruction to reactivate my account at 5:24pm. In every step I was in contact with an eBay employee who explained me what to do. I still think that eBay should pay more attention to the design of its website but, hey, they are pretty efficient in resolving fraud problems!
• I finally managed to buy an UMTS modem here in Germany. I really wanted a Huawei E220 because it works on Mac and Windows (and probably even Linux) and it is (no matter what they tell you) not Sim-locked, so I can use both my italian and german sim card (and both my laptop). I visited nearly all eplus shops in Düsseldorf several times in the past three weeks, and never managed to get one: sometimes they were sold out (and no, nobody knows when the new stock arrives), sometimes they didn’t want to sell it without a contract subscription. When I finally found a shop which accepted to sell me the modem, the clerk insisted to tell me that it was locked to eplus sims (liar!)
• I tried to buy a ticket for France 2007. Unfortunately the good matches are already sold out, but you can still find some medium-budget ticket; after countless pages, several attempts (because no, you can’t know in the “order form” if the ticket is available, you must try to book it first), you discover (nearly at the end of the booking procedure) that the only delivery method is “snail mail” (or pony express, maybe?) and it costs 27 euro to have your ticket delivered!

So, the difference from most traditional companies and those which are on the rise now is not technological; some companies cares about their customer, some other act like their customers are worth nothing: inefficiencies, delays, ridiculous costs and even lies are part of the game.

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I cannot believe that someone guessed your password and 11 minutes after ebay guessed that the one changing it was not the owner of the account. It’s too strange to be true. It’s more probable that someone got into ebay system, and stolen their user’s account… otherwise how did they notice the fraud?