Social media for customer service

In the last few years, people have taken their frustrations dealing with customer service reps to social media. Companies, in turn, are reacting quite quickly to complaints and reaching out to customers. While I'm not sure I'm a fan of jumping on social media before giving companies a chance to fix the problem, it seems to be an amazingly effective tool.

Last month I returned my cable modem to avoid the $3.95 monthly lease fee that is now being charged and replaced the cable modem with the same model that I bought off eBay for $23. I had to goto a Time Warner Cable store to do this and got a receipt for the return. Like all the paper I collect, I scanned in the receipt and stored it in Paperless. When I received my next bill, I saw that I was still being charged for the lease (it is billed one month in advance), so I contacted customer service via the web chat and tweeted about it. I got a direct message asking if they could help, but I had already gotten it "resolved" via the standard channel. I thought my tweet complaining was legitimate as I shouldn't have had to contact customer service after waiting at the store and returning the modem. Problem solved, or so I thought.

I just got my latest bill; it had a $3.95 credit on it, but the cable modem lease fee was still being charged. OK, so now I've gone through the official channel twice to fix this issue. I tweeted again and this time corresponded with their social media folks who said they escalated the issue. Awesome service on a Saturday by the social media folks, but this kind of issue shouldn't have required me to do this.

So the moral seems to be, if a company wrongs you, they are much better at fixing the problem if you complain in public. I'm not saying that this is the way to go, but if the front line folks aren't capable of doing their jobs correctly, then I'm not going to waste my time and will just use Twitter as my complaint board. While I'd like to say that companies will do a better job at fixing things the first time, social media probably isn't going to change that.

I have my fingers crossed that I'll not only get credited the $3.95 for the charge for the cable modem this month, but the recurring charge will be taken off my bill. However, given the track record, I suspect that I'll either get the recurring charge taken off or the credit, but not both. If that is the case, I'll be taking to Twitter again next month and possibly doing a chargeback on my credit card; I have very little patience for things not done right the first or second time. Yes, it is only $3.95, but it is the principal that matters to me.

Review: Une Bobine

As some that read this blog know, I'm still in the pursuit of a good stand for my iPhones. While I do most of my iOS development using the simulator, there are times when I need to test on an actual device, a stand comes in handy. I've backed a number of Kickstarter projects for stands, but have generally not been pleased. The last project I backed was the Une Bobine. This "stand" is a flexible iPhone cable wrapped in a metal coil that retains it shape.

When I first saw this, I thought it was a great way to be able to position the iPhone and have it connected to my computer. When it arrived, I was quite pleased with the workmanship and the utility. It allows my iPhone to sit at a decent height and makes it easy to access all the controls.

It is a unique design where the only thing that holds up the iPhone is the connector at the bottom. This, however, is what I consider its design flaw. The bottom connector wasn't designed to take stress. The Une Bobine could put a significant amount of stress on the internal parts of the iPhone dock connector. At this point, I'm not too concerned with this as I use it with my test iPhones and if the connector happens to break, I can take it apart and not worry about it.

Pros

• Unique design.
• Very flexible.

Cons

• Connector could cause extra stress on the dock connector.
• Only works with the dock connector (doesn't work with the iPhone 5 except with some wacky plastic that they now sell).
• A bit expensive.

Summary

While this "stand" is going to work for me for development purposes, I'm not sure I'd buy it again. If the bottom connector somehow cradled the phone to reduce stress and possibly allowed the use of the Lightning connector, I might reconsider. I'm still in the pursuit of a decent cradle and having seen some of my co-workers cradles, I'm going to investigate much simpler stands that are already on the market so that I can read reviews before making a purchase.

Review: Logitech Squeezebox Radio

A number of years ago, I installed a whole house audio system and used the Squeezebox series of devices as audio sources. When we moved into a rental six months ago, we pretty much stopped listening to music in the house as it just wasn't convenient. I had seen the Squeezebox Radio come across on Slickdeals for an open box, but I didn't act on it in time. About a month ago, I saw on Slickdeals that Office Depot was closing out the boxes, so I acted quickly and purchased the last one at the local Office Depot.

I setup the radio for my wife and she took to it almost immediately. I thought is was interesting enough that I bought a second one (I had to goto another Office Depot) to use as a clock. Unfortunately, this one had a problem with WiFi. I asked my wife if I should just return it or find another one. She said to get as many as I could as it was cool; I didn't need any additional encouragement, so I found another Office Depot with 2 more units (a poster on Office Depot was nice enough to post a link to an inventory checker).

We now have 3 radios connected to our Squeezebox server that has all our music on it; I already had a Mac mini running the server from before we moved, so setup was a breeze. The interface on the boxes is easy to use and produces decent music (it has a mono speaker). We're listening to more music and we have one as a clock where we can listen to soothing sounds to put us to sleep.

In our house, sometimes my wife is slow to adopt technology, but in this case, it took no time for her to embrace it. My 5 year old son also has learned to use it and find his music. I purchased batteries for 2 of the units so that they didn't have to be plugged in; this is huge as my son can take one in the mornings and listen to music so we can sleep a little longer.

The only odd part of the radio is that its alarm clock functionality is controlled by the server. In order to reduce power usage, my server turns off at night and turns on in the morning. When the server is off, the alarm clock won't work. I could, however, point the radio to the My Squeezebox service and set alarms there, but it would make things harder for my son in the morning. (The radio can point to a local server or the My Squeezebox service; this can make things confusing as alarms could be in both places, but the alarms only work when the radio is pointed to the right place.)

Pros

• Easy to setup.
• Portable.
• Easy to use.
• Decent sound quality.
• Can play local music, Pandora or Slacker.

Cons

• No longer available. (There is a replacement, but Logitech seems to be moving away from the local Squeezebox Server.)
• Alarms don't work when the server is turned off.
• Mono speaker.

Summary

The Logitech Squeezebox Radio is a great product for us as music is a part of our daily lives. For anyone that already has a Squeezebox setup, it is a worthwhile addition if you can still find the radios for a decent price. I might have gone overboard getting 3 of them, but they are integrating well into our life and making it more tolerable to live in a rental. Once we do find our perfect house, I'll put in a whole house audio and while the radios will have less utility, we'll still have a use for them.

UPS Sensitivity

In a post I wrote yesterday, I commented that the new display I got kept causing my UPS to click on and off. I got so fed up with it yesterday that I unplugged the display. The problem still happened, so I unfairly blamed the display. After considering getting a new UPS idea, I came across a [video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS4d-UNkE8o) which explains how to change the sensitivity on my APC BE750G UPS. I made the change and so far, so good. I even turned on my printer which normally caused the behavior and haven't heard it clicking.

I'm not sure what changed to cause this new behavior, but I'm please that I may have found a solution.