Alsop's Small Thoughts

Enterprising Enterprise

I've been crowing to people about how we're using Enterprise Rental Car as our "corporate" rental car service. We're using it because it's cheap, but we've had the remarkable experience of getting great service as well. So I was pleased to discover in Fortune magazine that the company has actually managed to sneak into first place among rental car companies. This REALLY pleases me because of how bad Hertz's customer service and logistics have become. Hertz has pissed me off so many times with bad pricing and bad service that, now that I have an alternative, I'll never go back.

The thought I've had recently as we have started using less expensive travel services -- in addition to Enterprise for rental cards, either JetBlue or Southwest for air travel or Marriott Courtyard for hotels -- is that customer service is NOT a function of price. Instead, getting great customer service from a large company is matter of training and attitude. And right now I'm getting much better service from organizations less focused on showing off and taking my money than on providing a good service at a reasonable price.

Strategy shift... or drift?

I just can't help wondering exactly how Microsoft decided that it's good strategy for a software company to get into hardware. Software is a different business than hardware. Microsoft used to be a company that insisted on doing software, that celebrated software, that focused on programmers and software users as its customers.

Xbox was born out of Microsoft's frustration with the existing console makers' inability to provide better platforms for software. Microsoft believed that it could make a better game machine -- better for programmers and better for game players. After two models of the Xbox have reached the market and the company has expended billions of dollars, the results are not conclusive: Microsoft certainly figured out that online play would be critical. But the fundamental playability of the Xbox isn't that distinct from the Playstation 3 (or even the Playstation Portable).

If Microsoft does plan to introduce a music playing device, what is it that the company brings to this party? Just being pissed off that Apple has a lock on the market? Or is it really about making a better platform for music consumers or programmers? The consistent report on Microsoft devices (ie smart phones) is that the user interface still carries a Windows mentality that requires more clicking and navigation than most consumers find comfortable. Can you believe, really believe, that Microsoft might actually make a more useable music player than Apple?

The question that keeps rolling around in my head is whether Microsoft is experiencing precisely the kind of strategy drift that IBM experienced in the early 1980s: Is it acting in the interests of its executives (drift) or the interest of its customers (shift)? Strategy drift kills companies, even ones that have a monopoly like business.

Great question!

My friend, Dave Tommela, who always gets great stuff off the internet, forwarded this to me and I thought it was worth publishing in time for our Independence Day. I'm really tired of pressing #1 to indicate that I speak the official language of our country....

Sprinting to the worst customer service

Silly me! I thought I would get the answer to one of my questions at Sprint's web site! The question? It turns out that Telecom New Zealand has an EV-DO network. I'm headed to New Zealand at the end of this month (to give a speech at this event). So I wanted to know if my EV-DO-enabled Sprint Treo 700p and my EV-DO-enabled Sprint Mobile Broadband PC card for my computer would work in New Zealand and what the roaming charges would be. Seems like information that Sprint would anticipate their subscribers would want.

First I go to www.sprintpcs.com, which has been merged with www.sprint.com (what happened to all that marketing effort that went into establishing a separate Sprint PCS brand). No search box! Indeed, no "Support" button as on even the smallest and least well funded Web site! I tried the "Contact Us" button but that only demonstrated that Sprint only wants people to get in touch to buy something, not to get help with something they already paid for. After searching and realizing that I had to log in as a Sprint customer, I found a customer support page. Still no search button; instead, a knowledge-database kind of application that only answers questions that Sprint has been able to pre-answer. Their answer to the topic of "international roaming"? Yes, there are certain countries where you can roam internationally. That's it.

But magical: I see that there is a link to "Email Customer Support". (Warning: Only customers can actually get to the form in question. If you haven't logged in as a valid customer, you get redirected to a sales page.) Oh, wonder of wonders: I can actually ask the question I wanted to ask 20 minutes ago. So I do and click on the Send button. Just minutes later, I got the following response:

From: "Executive Referrals" <ExecutiveReferrals@sprint.com>
Date: July 3, 2006 8:40:50 AM PDT
To: Stewart Alsop
Subject: RE: ID # : 20060703103203

This folder is no longer being monitored for new e-mail. Please forward your e-mail request to executive.offices@mail.sprint.com.

Okay, so how much faith do YOU put into getting an answer to the forwarded email sent to the generic "executive offices"? (Go ahead and push the button if you would like to find out.) Just imagine first of all that Sprint puts an email customer support link and THEN decides not to monitor it anymore, even though it doesn't bother removing the link from its active pages! Is that a finger in the face of the customer or what?

Can you then imagine that this mighty customer-oriented organization has a staff of people in their executive offices just waiting to answer your email accurately? Do the executives in those very same executive offices know how they have been made to look like a joke?

This is what I get in return for paying $138 a month for my phone, mobile broadband, and advanced high speed data services. At least, United and Hertz and Starwood make the effort to look like they are interested in providing better service to customers who pay more!