Here are a few articles regarding recent technology providers service failures:
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/10/10/t-mobile-we-probably-lost-all-your-sidekick-data/
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/12/t-mobile-considering-additional-measures-to-compensate-sidekic/
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/12/t-mobile-offers-sidekick-users-olive-branch-100/
These address a failure in which T-Mobile somehow managed to wipe the data from tons if not all of its Sidekick Handsets. In what one of the blog postings declare as “one of the biggest disasters in the history of cloud computing”. The data loss was due to a server failure and to date very little has been accomplished as far as recovering the data. The other postings explain how T-mobile attempts to make things right with its customers. That is they have allowed free service for a month and given those effected a $100 gift card.
Apple is having technical issues also with a bug in Snow Leopard causing data loss discussed in the following post:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/12/apple-aware-of-snow-leopard-that-bug-kills-data-is-working-on-a/
They are content with just letting the customers know they are attempting to correct the problem and at least no compensation is addressed in this blog posting.
I think the critical and common issue in these articles is that when dealing with technological services, failures will happen, issues will arise and customers will be slighted in these instances. In these cases it is extremely interesting to me to see what companies do. I think that far too often companies take apples approach which is telling the customer, “hey this is what happens when you are dealing with technology and we are working on correcting it, we are sorry”
It seems to be accepted and somewhat of an industry standard that the consumer has to bite the bullet when it comes to technology, nothing like the food service industry where the customer is always right and if they put a tomato on your cheeseburger they will give you a whole new one.
I applaud companies who at least make noticeable efforts to try to compensate their customers for the trouble any technical failures (or any issues that are caused by their product or service) have caused them. In my opinion it shows some foresight on their part because I believe in twenty years or so, technology companies will no longer be given the “slack” they currently are buy their customers when it comes to failures or problems. Research into the outrage over T-mobiles sidekick failure likely supports my assertion of such a trend.
Can you think of a technology company with great customer service?
How about a tech service company? (Cable, Cell, Internet ect.)
If your tweets or youtube videos were all of a sudden erased how would you feel, would you want or expect compensation even though it is free?
