Three great user experiences and a couple that sucks

During the last two weeks I’ve had quite a lot of interactions with different companies — common for all of them, I’m paying for their product, or I had been willing to pay if they could offer me the product I wanted.

These interactions and experiences got me thinking about the product, the experience and the customer service I received, and the interconnection.

Organic Basics

I never thought that purchasing underwear and socks online would impress me.. but it did. These folks have a mission, a solid product of high quality, and a well thought out user journey / purchase flow.

The fashion industry is dirty — but it can be better. We constantly search for better innovation, we have a visionary use of sustainable materials — and a continued focus on ethical production.

Their mission is simple and they use 50% of their website space explaining what they focus on. Filtering products, choosing size and color, and checking out is easy.

On top of this they have chosen a delivery partner who happen to know their shit and fits with the mission of Organic Basics.

DAO

Adapting to the trend of online shopping, DAO has pivoted their business from delivering newspapers at night to making sure that my package is delivered to my doorstep while I sleep, without even having to buzz my doorbell.

From the newspaper routes, DAO is in possession of keys to a lot of buildings in Copenhagen, which means they can deliver packages to the right receiver, without disturbing anyone. Add a simple text message into the mix stating that your package is waiting for you on your doorstep, and you have the perfect experience. All I wanted from DAO was for my package from Organic Basics to be delivered as fast as possible, to my home, and that’s what they did.

The value that DAO added in to this chain definitely rubs off on Organic Basics.

Zapier

One of the more tech-related experiences lately was with Zapier. Essentially Zapier connects to thousands of different online services’ APIs to make it easy for you to connect them in a visual interface without having to know code.

As with anything tech or code related, stuff breaks, doesn’t run, and becomes stuck, so I reached out to support.

Do not underestimate the value it brings to a product like this when you submit a support ticket and you receive a response within 1 hour. Not only a response, but a super qualified response from a support employee who actually knows what she/he is talking about. A detailed half page email describing the issue and potential solutions and offering to ping you when the integration you’re looking for is pushed live in the future.

The best part is, I’m not even a paying customer. I’m currently on a free plan, but this definitely increased my willingness to pay.

The shitty ones

Telenor

I recently moved into a new apartment and we needed to get some wifi up and running. Telenor’s website told me that I could get their 1000Mbit connection on my address. I sign up, bike 30 mins to pick up the router at the nearest post office, set it up, and nothing works.

After 12 phone calls, a 1.5 hour visit by a technician, and several emails, I’m informed that they will not be able to deliver anyway, and I now have to send back the router myself.

The worst part about this experience is that I, all throughout this shitshow, felt that I was the one who knew the most about the technical setup and what worked and what didn’t. Not once did I experience that someone was willing to go the extra mile to get me as a customer and to get my wifi up and running.

Some quick wins for Telenor could be; deliver the router to my door with DAO, improve the response time on support tickets, don’t show false positive information on their website about their ability to deliver, and have strong technical problem solving staff on the phone.

Bye bye Telenor — being cheaper than the competitor doesn’t help when you have bad customer service.

YouSee

Let’s try one of their competitors. In Denmark, TDC appears to have the monopoly when it comes to the physical infrastructure of phone wires and cable networks. YouSee is the consumer facing brand for TDC, so maybe these folks can help me get off my sketchy phone-tethered 4G temporary solution?

I signed up over the phone, was ensured that they could deliver to my address, and now a week has passed and I haven’t heard from them. Has the router been shipped? Is the setup of the connection on time? Where do I pay? When will I have the product I would like to pay for?

I’ll update when news come in.

So, what am I trying to say with these anecdotes?

Your customer service and the user experience is a part of the product you are charging for. Remember that.

You can even get away with a product that isn’t fully compatible, doesn’t live up to all of the users expectations, or is a bit too expensive, if you take your customer seriously and provide a proper user experience, expectation management and customer service.

Comments? Feel free to question, challenge or add to my writeup.