ED HAYES

I first came to the Chicago Bagel Authority (CBA) because of a Groupon.  I loved the place!  The food was great, and the staff was friendly.  I was left with an extremely positive perception of the CBA.

Saturday, I returned with a few friends of mine.  I was excited to show them what the CBA was all about.  Although, when I tried to use the second and last Groupon I had purchased, I was unable to use it. I was told I could not use a Groupon on the weekend. Concerned, I looked at the terms and conditions of the Groupon and could not find wording which indicated the Groupon could not be used on the weekend, or wording that would allow the terms to be changed post-purchase.

I asked to speak to a manager and was told he was not in. I then asked to speak to the manager-on-duty; I was told there was not one and that every employee was a manager of the co-op.

My positive perception of the CBA quickly changed.  The customer behind me in line also came to use his Groupon.  He decided to leave; not paying for the food he had ordered.  Trying not to ruin my fiends experience I decided to stay and paid cash.

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H&R Block is really frustrating me; do they want me as a customer, or not?

I started doing my tax return with H&R Block online last week.  Upon visiting the site, I clicked on the “Start Now” under the FREE edition.  As returning user, I entered my username and password and clicked log-in.  Suddenly, I was thrown into the Premium service, without warning.   Thirty minutes went by as I tried to search the FAQ, support, and rest of the internet for a way to switch back to the free edition.

Giving up, I called their support phone number.  The gentlemen I spoke to asked for my e-mail address and birth date to verify my account. He verified that I was in a  premium account, but was unable to tell me how I got to the premium section without paying or how to get back to a free account, making sure I did not have to pay later.  It sounded like he was a complete novice.  I must have spent 20 minutes on the phone with H&R Block cycling between representative confusion and hold music.

Frustrated, I asked for the gentleman’s supervisor.  He requested my Social Security Number in order to verify my account.  Why would I be asked for my Social Security Number when requesting a supervisor?  And why now, not before.   That made absolutely no sense to me.  I refused to divulge the information as it served no purpose, and I had already been verified.

I was about to be late to a Fit-Core class at my gym, so I thanked the gentlemen and hung up.

Now, a week later, I am trying once again to start working on my tax return.  I login, and see this message:

H&R Block Online 2010 Screen Capture

What am I supposed to do? Was this proof-read at all?

• The explanation makes no sense to me
• There appears to be internal-use-only jargon and/or industry acronyms within the explanation
• What is this newsletter they are describing?
• What are the implications, other than price, for switching?
• Will my tax data be deleted either way?
• There is a space before a period within the explanation

I think it’s time to file with TurboTax Free edition.

**UPDATE**

Upon publishing this post, an automated Tweet went out on twitter, and I quickly got a response from H&R Block. I responded with my phone number a and the best time to call which they acknowledged.  Promptly, at the time I specified, I got a call back from H&R Block!  Within ten minutes H&R Block had apologized and solved my problem!

I would have liked to thank H&R Block for their quick response, but it is hard to do that when I had to go through all of this just to solve a problem that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.  Furthermore:  their initial line of support should have been able to solve this just as quick!

For quite some time now, I have been a deal hunter.  I’m cheap.  I love deals.  And thus, Aldi, a value oriented grocery store, has become a staple in my life.  Aldi’s strategy is quite simple; offer a low variate of store brand products at a small no frills store.

If you want a cart, you have to deposit a quarter to borrow  it (you get the quarter back when you return the cart). Want a bag?  It will cost you $0.15.

With all this attention to cost cutting, you would think they would also skimp on customer service. That is not case. I recently communicated with Aldi about a change in their Bran Flakes recipe, and I have been amazed at the level of service I have received.

The Bran Flakes I used to buy from Aldi were outstanding. And at $1.59 a box, you couldn’t find a better deal, even if your life depended on it.  However, the manufacturer of the cereal recently changed the recipe they use to produce the product, and I was not impressed with the change.  I still eat the Bran Flakes, but I don’t enjoy them as much as I used to.

I thought I would express my dissatisfaction with the recipe change to Aldi via their website.

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The other day I was at CostCo and realized they were scanning a barcode, that was affixed to the cash register, during each and every transaction.  I inquired into what the purpose was.  The cashier told me the barcode was scanned to verify they checked the bottom of the cart to make sure all products was scanned.

It turns out CostCo has a major problem; items in the bottom of the cart are frequently not scanned before  customers leave the store. The cashier told me that they repeatedly discuss this problem in team meetings.  I would agree that this problem could be very costly, and that it would be a significantly larger problem at CostCo compared to most other stores since there are so many large heavy items for sale at CostCo.

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Last Saturday I was trying to print a simple postage label for a package I wanted to ship.  All I wanted was a shipping label.  I thought it would take me five minutes at USPS.com, but it turns out a pot-roast cooks in less time that it takes to print a shipping label!  After using their sites, I have come to the conclusion that the United States Postal Service (USPS) and United Parcel Service (UPS) go through very little, if any, user acceptance testing.  FedEx isn’t much better; I did get a label in 10 minutes, but their rates are significantly higher than I was willing to pay.  Here are the pains I felt while navigating though the websites of the three major United States shippers.

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While navigating my way around the Internet, I come across glaring errors all the time; calculation errors, typos, horrible formatting, etcetera.  Errors are more common that I could imagine.  These errors dilute my trust in a company’s brand and make me think twice before doing business with them.  It is so incredibly vital to review everything before publishing content to the Internet; you never know who could be looking at it.  Below are two examples.

Example 1: The Grocery Game

The Grocery Game is a service that informs their customers on how to combine coupons and promotions, at a variety of grocery stores, in order to get the best deal possible.  They distribute updates on a weekly basis to paying customers.  Here is a screen shot from an E-mail they recently sent me encouraging me to sign up.

Since when does $2 divided by 3 equal $0.55?  I would think their E-mail marketing would go through a more vigorous editorial review then their product.  If their marketing is inaccurate, how accurate is their service I would pay for? Or if this is a screen shot of the actual service, I now know that I would be paying for something that was not correct.  After seeing this, I could never trust the company.

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