I’m sure that in California this story uses a Shark, but in Toronto, there’s an old joke that if you come across a bear in the woods, you don’t have to out-run the bear, just your friend. As Homer (Simpson) says, “it’s funny ’cause it’s true”.
So I’m finally ready to start using my ipad on the road–away from all the places I get wi-fi. I get the card from a Rogers store, plug it in, and go through the sequence to sign up for a plan.
There’s a glitch.
I call the number on the back of the card and Rogers starts passing me around like a considerably less-than-hot potato. That’s par for the course, of course–big companies have conditioned us to repeat our story and credentials over and over.
I would have just put them on speaker while subjugating myself to their process, but their music made me want to get hit in head with a part blunt, part spiky medieval weapon.
Of course each time it got worse.
They finally explained that I’d need to speak to Apple and gave me the right number. Again, I was told I’d need to wait, but before I got the gasoline and matches out to burn myself to death, they piped in Bob Dylan.
Something else came on that I didn’t like next, but at least it wasn’t the canned aspirational porn Rogers had subjected me to.
Both Rogers and Apple subscribe to a music service ostensibly designed to soothe the ire of a customer with a problem. Except one uses music I’m sure is part of the formula for RAGE from “28 Days Later” and the brilliant strategy of the other is to, simply, not do that.
All companies have problems. We accept that. But as a business owner or someone who cares about the brand they work for, how can you exploit the crummy reality of this fact?
How can your brand suck less than all of the services and products your prospects will be frustrated by today?
PS: Let me give you a tip–it’s not a greeter or a service person harassing them.
