I was forced to replace a laptop and began the process of re-loading apps and data from my backup files. In the process I checked into my FedExKinkos Office Online account to update it, and make sure it would load to the new laptop. I haven’t used it in a couple of years and was afraid the account might be inactive.

“I’m Trying to Think, But Nothin’ Happens” – Curly, The Three Stooges, circa 1939

I logged in with my username and password, but did not get access. Yep, I bet it was archived as Inactive. Well, let’s make sure.  I kept the username and clicked the Forgot My Password button. Then I checked my email (same as my username) and got a new 32 digit password.  I copy/pasted it and was still not given access.  So far, I’m paying my nickels, but I’m not getting candy.  I reminded myself that I’m doing this work so I can save time by submitting orders online to pick up at my friendly FedExKinkos shop, but the site won’t let me in.

I called the customer service number and voice-responded 7 times, plus two repeats because the site was ‘sorry, I didn’t hear you’.  Finally, after a cursed “representative!” and the delight that FedExKinkos was recording for quality purposes, ‘Sharon’  of customer service came on just to quickly transfer me to ‘Eunice’ in Tech support (I am online, am I not?).  I would have understood if ‘Eunice’ were actually ‘Peggy’, because she was quite unable to help. The service rep manual must say at Page One, “If at first you don’t know what to do, ask questions”. Eunice asked for 5 non-event things, ending with my mailing address. I am online, am I not?  Having no more to give, she told me someone would be contacting me within 48 hours by phone. Just to make sure I did not miss this event, I gave ‘Peggy’ (sorry) ‘Eunice’, a cell number.

My Outcome

Whether or not a Peggy calls me back is not material at this point.  I’ve invested all the time I care to, to do business online and save time with FedExKinkos.  At the time of their merger, I wondered how long it would be before FedEx ditched the Kinkos name and streamlined the uber-slacker, college town customer service to successfully mate the “Make It / Print It” with the world-beater “Pack It / Ship It” hyperbusiness.  The jury has returned a verdict: The slackers won with a technical. They are still to be found in the print shops, and have feature-creeped their way into the online world. Every visit to a FEK store reminds me why after a foggy, forgetful period I keep trying to get online instead.  And every online visit reminds me of exactly what I’m trying to escape altogether.

When we visited our daughter in Tampa, I looked online ahead of our trip to see what attendance would cost at a Y near her home. Many Y’s have reciprocal agreements that allow a discount for out-of-town members to use their facilities. The Tampa Y’s suburban location grants 10 visits free, then charges $5 per visit. I arrived a early to see what I would need to do to obtain a guest pass for 5 day’s use.

I was advised by phone that I would need my proof of local membership and a photo ID, which I presented to the staffer at the Tampa location. She made copies of my identification, and asked me to fill out a single sheet form with my identification, local address, local phone, cell phone, name and location of my hometown Y.  She then took that form from me and entered all the  information into their system.  She then gave me a printed business card- sized orange paper ticket with “Three Day Pass’ printed on both sides, saying this would suffice for my 5-day stay. I had told her I would like to attend for 5 days that week, and she assured me that after 3 days I could get another orange card.

The front of the card displayed my hand printed name, the registering staffer’s initials, the hand lettered branch two-character ID code, and the handwritten issue date. The back stated that the pass was good at any Tampa Metropolitan Area YMCA…for 3 days only.  The ticket had 3 check boxes for initials to be entered each day when I arrived. Then she directed my attention to the reception desk just feet away and told me how to check in each morning, and that if I wished I could exchange a picture ID for a clothing locker key at that time.

Thanking her, I proceeded 6 feet to reception where a staffer accepted my orange ticket and asked if I was in their system. I expected that my registration would allow me to proceed once the orange ticket was initialed. In spite of the proximity, because of a steady stream of people entering and checking in at this desk, this worker had no idea I had just stood 6 feet away and registered.

The first woman at back at the Registration Desk was assisting another registration, but was aware of my attempt to clear the next hurdle.  She called out to her co-worker that she had just put me into the system. Noticing my attendant did not hear her, I repeated the message, but her attention was now riveted to her monitor as she began to insist that my record was not available in the system. Tag, you’re it, you have a problem, very sorry for your problem.

The first lady and I smiled at each other as we tried again to snatch her attention away from her electronic gatekeeper over the hubbub of members arriving that morning. This miniature transactional event was indeed resolved and of itself was not much an annoyance as compared to what 3 people thought of the process behind it.  The first worker was annoyed at the second, the second annoyed at being made look foolish, and I was annoyed at a process and training that made us all feel like embarrassed children.

I have seen this effect before, and it strikes me that it’s mainly the result of training that emphasizes an authority of a system over the authority granted to staff.  But process woes abound if you are not in the system, you (the customer, our main source of revenue, paycheck and future earnings) are out of luck, and we are hopelessly out of control.

Training that empowers staff with authority and knowledge to control a digital system, using it as a tool of their work, the procedures are not prohibitive, but part of a support process that can be repaired and corrected to better serve both customers and staff to their benefit.  Process woes kick in with debilitating subliminal barriers: ” the system’ is an ongoing problem, and we don’t have much success with these kinds of problems because it’s complicated software that only some off-site tech can solve, and God knows how long that would take.  It’s therefore out of our control, your problem and not ours”.  This thinking must be counteracted regardless of any staffer’s familiarity with technology.

The YMCA is not a large, profit-driven organization, but it is remarkably customer-driven.  If it lacks funds for technology with a better user interface, correction and modification capabilities, this is understandable.  But no organization, well funded or not, can long hope to function by placing its staff in a pitiable position of ignorance, lack of control, and devising necessary, but time consuming work-arounds that annoy the customer and system users.

Human nature, through frustration, will be to quickly jump from handy work-around to ad hoc, off-stream manual processes that relegate expensive system tools to the work of filing cabinets and typewriting tasks.  If this Y location were tech heavy or not, the staff would reduce all registration and log in processes to paper-based tasks, knowing that each entry is someone else’s problem, and the initial concern is to create entry logs.

If the first woman had asked for the photo id and proof of local Y membership I had been instructed to produce, used it as her input source ( or scanned it into the system- which in effect she did – but manually- when she copied it for a file) all the information, except for a local address and phone number, and the number of days of my intended stay would be a verbal request to be entered via keyboard.  She could have then printed the orange ticket (at the paper-saving size) that had a bar code on the back that I would scan daily until the system recognized the limit of my stay.  This imaginary system would have a photo to flash on screen if my identity were visually necessary for entry.

I’m biased by the system my home ‘Y” uses, which actually does all I mentioned above.  I realize it is better-funded that the Tampa Y.  But what if Tampa wanted to keep costs down and do it all manually, retaining the gate keeper function it desired?

I enter with the required documents, hand them to a worker who completes a paper form using my information and questions to complete it.  She is located about 15 feet away from the ‘gatekeeper’ who is busy checking in members. She places her completed form and my ID elements together on the copier.  She makes two copies and passes one to the ‘gatekeeper’ who checks entering members, and files her copy under ‘GUESTS’ in a vertical file for that day.

The gatekeeper, checking my photo ID against the name on the form, initials a box on the back of her copy in a printed calendar matrix representing the day of my arrival and waves me on.  She puts that copy in a vertical file that she has easy access to, but into tomorrow’s date slot.  At the end of the day she alphabetizes by last name for tomorrow’s stream o members.  When I arrive tomorrow I go directly to her and give her my picture ID.  After a few seconds (what 10, 15 ?) he retrieves my copy, initials the proper date and files it in the next day’s slot and returns my photo ID.

The process papers are collected weekly and compiled in ink in a bound log and put on a shelf for future reference.  This is how pre-digital systems actually worked in an earlier, less sophisticated era.  Should mistakes be made or realized, they could be erased and re-entered, because all the staff used pencils and only the compilation log was done in pen.

Simple?  Realistically so.   Fast?  Not according to how we would expect to be treated today at a gatekeeper area.  But it could be ‘fast enough’ with trained staff manipulating paper, and perhaps faster that retrieving a misplaced data file in a query system of multiple qualifying steps.   Storable?  Yes, but soon the paper heap would be formidable.   Cheap?  There are always ways to make cheaper information tools from existing, proven elements like pencils and paper.   Desirable?   Probably not anymore desirable than forced public transportation at this point, but it can be done without a false productivity facade of effectiveness that a confusingly designed digital system, combined with faulty training provides many organizations today.

Perception being a very subjective thing, how’s an organization to learn to gain control of a customer environment, much less customer experience?  I suggest reducing the touch point components into identifiable elements, (analysis) identifiying potential individual impact, (refinement) and making sure a whole new combo is created that works well together (synthesis).

My Recent Example

I purchased a Japanese motorcycle today. I owned a Harley, but didn’t fit the bogus-bandit lifestyle of overweight stockbrokers and lawyers in black wrap-around shades, belly-bulging behind black sleeveless T-shirts and flame-emblazoned bandanas. Yes, another story entirely. Harley has sold a brilliant aspirational wet dream to Boomers.  And it seems the heavier the riders get, the heavier the Harleys get.  Try that in any other sex-based marketing campaign. What, motorcycles are not sex-based? Sure they are – do bikini babes ‘drape the shape’ over  Camrys?  Nah.

Anyway, I did my research and landed on a model that fit my needs, then went shopping. This particular model was a Honda CB900, a ‘naked bike’, and known as a Hornet 919 in Europe, which although discontinued as of model year 2007, still had a strong cult following. In fact, strong enough to still command a hefty price, two years out and wherever it could be found.  Most Honda dealers only got these in dribs and drabs, and did not want to take floor space by actually ordering  them. So, they were not keen to sell if it wasn’t on the floor already. As I moved toward private sales, I forgot about the used bike market at off-brand dealers.

The customer service expectation for motorcycles are (apart from Harley and maybe Honda) that walking into many multi-brand brand motorcycle shop remains the same experience you might expect from the 1960′s – underpaid guys in t-shirts who work there to feed their personal bike Joneses. At one older dealer in Houston, the guy actually did not leave his spot behind the dirty glass counter, nor utter a word but glowered at me as I scouted the floor for a 919. I think he grunted when I left.

Enter the more enlightened dealer.

Frustrated, I went online and began filling out email requests to all local dealers( a new phenomena?), disregarding the Honda shops I had already visited. I got an immediate response from a multi-brand dealer on the other side of town. They had 2 bikes of the Honda model I was looking for and wanted to set up ‘an appointment’ to meet with me to show them.  I answered their emailed response on my iPhone and set up a meeting on a Saturday afternoon as I returned from a day at Galveston Island (hey, it’s on the drive home, honey). The salesman met me at the door.

My wife was there because of our Galveston trip, but more importantly to keep me from doing something stupid. This was her first time to see the bike. We saw a new 2007 and a used 2007, both exactly the same except for mileage, warranty and wear.  The used bike was in my price range, but just barely.

Being a avid passenger, she right away noticed that the twin exhaust pipes swept up into large exposed chrome bulges on either side of the seat she would occupy. I offered weakly that the pipes were shielded, but she said that I could put my legs near them but she would not. In this very subjective case user experience, not non-user experience was highly influential.  I was disappointed, but since we often ride together, there was no denying usability testing over bike lust. The salesman had been kept both quiet and his distance, but  admitted that this was a problem, and that he had an alternate used bike that eliminated the barbecue effect. The bike was used, but not worn out or damaged and well, actually looked good to both of us.

My wife climbed aboard to test the passenger pillion, announced it safe, and that it looked better than the 919. And she was right. Not only right, but with a lower price than the Honda, I could invest in an even-comfier after-market Corbin seat for both of us using the price difference (yes, I’m an older rider. ‘Seat comfort’ is high on Maslow’s pyramid; go check it our yourself) The salesman intelligently let us think through the new option and saw he had a sale.  We told him we’d call Tuesday of the following week to arrange a test ride.

Early Tuesday, I woke to an early morning voicemail from the salesman that he thought there might be a problem with the bike and needed additional time to get a mechanic to check it out and to perform a test ride himself before I spent time driving to his side of town.  In Houston this travel time fact o’ life is very important, so he got props for the phone notice – early as it was.  I called back, and he had also sent me an email before he left home. Yep, the date/time stamp verified his story. Within an hour he called again to say the bike checked out fine and I could visit at my convenience. I needed to drive over as early in the day as possible to return in time for a conference call, so he agreed to meet me on his lunch hour.

He accomplished a test drive by riding along with me to show me a sample of both highway and neighborhood traffic. During the ride I discovered the clutch lever engaged at the far end of the stroke – too far for my taste. He fixed it.  I also saw a missing bolt on the rear fender.  He replaced it.  The bike was a true pleasure to ride and a great change -  from the potato-potato V-Twin sound to the sewing-machine-on-steroids a Four Inline makes. It’s about switching from NASCAR to Formula One.  Sold.

OK, if my combined perceptions opened the door to a sale, how would this have been different for someone else?  What if he was selling to the tattooed crowd? Would his level of service have been different? Maybe, but he remembered my mentioning how far away I lived, noted that one of my iPhone emails (it had that ‘From my iPhone’ in the signature line) and heard me note the missing bolt when I first saw the bike.  He not only recalled these comments, but made sure they were not going to be a problem for a sale.  The shop was clean, organized, and the other sales guys were not either falling all over each other grab a sale, or clumped together making bets on which bike each customer would walk over to first.

My perceptions were built slowly and carefully and managed to eliminate whatever problem I felt that could possibly block a sale. Good selling work, but better management of my expectations of value.  There is much work to be accomplished by the competition.