Category: Rant

So I am responding to a comment by my good friend Mike Wagner over the whole Bad Customer Service debacle foisted on Tim Jackson by GM Saturn when something catches my attention. Could it be? Yes … it is … unbelievable!
In one breath I am voicing my disapproval of Saturn, their brand and customer engagement strategy (employing zombies to deliver messages to their customers) … and in the next I am SPRUIKING their wares. Sure enough … there in my sidebar was an ad for the Saturn Vue (see it below).

Unbelievable!
So what ever you do, don’t click on the Google Ads in my sidebar.
OK … I promise I will try to let this one go now (or perhaps it is time to pass the baton to Angryman).
S.

The brand contract with car manufacturers and drivers is a complicated one. The cars are sold through emotional engagement, but are maintained and serviced according to pure mechanics and legal terms. MasiGuy’s complaints are complicated — but in a world talking about "lovemarks", it seems there ain’t room enough for love in the Saturn world.

So following on from yesterday’s post, I filled in the Saturn website contact us form … and got the following response (did ANYONE really read my comment? Did they check the MasiGuy’s post? And, finally, is Linda T related to Mr T (and is she going to pity me as a fool?)?

Dear Gavin,

Thank you for taking time to send us an email. We are very excited about
some of the new products we will be offering to our customers over the next
few years which provide alternative fuel options.

We appreciate your interest and have documented your comments. If we can be
of further assistance, please feel free to contact us again. You can send
another email or if you would prefer to speak with someone, our phone number
is (800) 553-6000, option 3.

Sincerely,

Linda T.

Saturn Customer Assistance Center
SR: 1-22625549
SIV-21-DGXZJ

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My good friend, Tim (MasiGuy) Jackson has been doing it tough in his argument with General Motors Saturn. Those of you who frequent his blog will know him as a fun, articulate and FAIR bloke who is known for his honesty, energy and generosity. He also is the Marketing Manager for Masi Bikes, so he has a fairly good understanding of marketing, customer satisfaction and how to build deep brand experiences with consumers.

So he knows when he is at the WRONG end of the GM Saturn customer experience.

Now, the thing is, cars are NOT like other products. Apart from the purchase of a house, they are the single most expensive purchase that many of us are likely to make in our lifetimes. We invest not just our money, but our emotions and our sense of identity in these large lumps of metal … we spend hours and hours customising, caring, cleaning and driving around in our cars. They are essential ingredients in most family holidays, and the car is deeply entwined with our sense of freedom, escape and happiness — what would a roadtrip be without a car?

We also ENTRUST our cars with our own AND our family’s safety … we place our most valued people in our most valuable item. Car makers, especially those with "family cars" in their range, know this, understand it, and promote their car’s reliability, safety ratings and protection features.

Tim’s car features in many of his posts — he has a daily drive feature which includes photos from his once-beloved GM Saturn. You can often spy the very cute MasiDaughter taking a ride in the backseat — the Saturn VUE is a family car after all. But recently, the GM Saturn VUE has been featuring for entirely the wrong reasons — poor reliability, poor support, abysmal customer service AND downright dangerous mech/tech failures — all the reasons that you purchase a family car.

Tim has repeatedly contacted, talked to and blogged about his experience. He has even posted an open letter to Saturn.

It appears that there has been a HIGHLY unsatisfactory conclusion to Tim’s saga … but it wasn’t Tim who let us all know. The MasiWife has commandeered the blog to spill the beans on the frustration and bitterness that the Saturn Saga has wreaked on their family during the Christmas/New Year holiday period. Take a look … it is a sad indictment on the state of automotive customer service.

I wanted to get some background on Saturn (we don’t have GM Saturn brands here in Australia), so I did a bit of searching. It seems that they are making a big push into the ALTERNATIVE CAR category … And found this interesting PodTech video (featuring GM’s Clay Okabayashi) entitled "Following the Consumer" — it is embedded below. It is another example of where STRATEGY FAILS to connect with the WAY that the organisation carries on its day-to-day business. It is one thing to talk about the "ball being in the consumer’s court", but then turning your back on those very same consumers.

If GM is serious about delivering a competitive alternative car, it needs to address its poor customer service experience. Buying a car is not just about shipping the product, but a much LONGER commitment to the car buyer and the community. (Perhaps the first step is creating a blog to field some of the questions and to answer and engage with their long term communities — perhaps it would help avoid a car version of Dell Hell. As Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell say, "At the time, Dell did not have a corporate blog and no way to respond to the online conversations".

So what can we do?

1. Blog it up — take a look at Tim’s site … and then contribute your view. Use the Technorati tags GM Saturn, GM Saturn Vue, MasiGuy, Bad Customer Service
2. Drop by Tim’s blog and leave a message of support
3. Send a message via the Saturn website
4. Add your other ideas to the commentary here.

As the MasiWife says:

Masiguy is the most compassionate, most understanding customer service guy out there. He makes a compelling case. If they will screw him over, people, you don’t stand a chance! Don’t believe the hype. The product is crap. The service is crap.

Add your voice to the protest.

S.

When I began seriously studying English in high school, I fell in love with the word onamatapoeia. It was a word that you could roll around your mouth … and its meaning … well I am sure you know.

My interest in more hardcore learning had been stimulated by a friend of our family … a woman who appeared to my young eyes, to be a cosmopolitan person of the world. Her house was filled to the brim with books on art and Chinese culture — sections of rooms were petitioned off with silk scrolls and her furniture was black lacquered wood. There were statues of buddha, Turkish rugs on the floor and the pervasive smell of cigar smoke. And when she stepped out onto the streets of my beachside suburb, she did so in patent leather high heels and jackets trimmed with faux fur.

She looked out of place in these bright, sun-drenched streets … and yet she was also part of them. You see, she and her family had been living in the neighbourhood for years — everyone knew her and loved her. She was fun and wielded her wicked sense of humour as if it was a sharp cane to beat the mediocre and mundane. In Australian parlance, she was known as "a character".

Each Friday I would arrive home from school to find her and my Nanna sharing a bottle of champagne or wine. They would be laughing and telling stories, trying on new clothes and prancing around our living room like queens. Sometimes, for a treat, we would order Chinese takeaway food and laugh into the night.

It is the sound of her laughing that I remember most … and her smiling eyes, but it is another sound that I am hearing now, as I write. You see, the world is a quieter place with her recent passing. I found out last night that she had died and been quickly buried. I was saddened to realise that I had missed a chance to say goodbye or "thanks" or to celebrate her life with others who loved her.

But most of all, I am sad to know that one story has drawn to an end, and that part of my own — a small part of my own life story — has also been lost. I guess that is the way of the world. But in writing this small remembrance of a wonderful woman, perhaps she will live, not just for me, but in the imaginations of whoever chances to read this.

Her name was Ona.

Lynette has more clever thinking bouncing around Flickr … and I was drawn first of all to this one featuring Rupert Murdoch, but then found this other that captured my imagination a little more ruthlessly. The two quotes are conceptually related, and Lynette nails it with the explanation:

There used to be all this talk of the “digital divide” and it was between the haves & the have-nots in terms of what they could afford. But I think there is an even bigger gulf in mindset between the generations. It’s the difference between “digital natives” and “digital immigrants”.

Even those of us who are immersed or engaged with the Interweb on a daily basis are only first wave immigrants. We walk around with our online passports claiming early adopter status for Amazon, Yahoo, Google et al; we write blogs, MySpace pages and update our LinkedIn profiles. We think we have seen it all and know where it will go.

But the very fact that we know the NAMES of these devices and sites tells us that we are wrong — because our tired old twentieth century brains are built for obsolescence. The WAYS of thinking we have wired into our brains through the mishmash of culture, genetics and repeat patterning have ensured both our success and our future failure. Sure, we have been able to smash through barriers to innovation in the business and political worlds while opening new markets; we have seen the opening of China, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the death (but not trial) of Pinochet, the end of Apartheid … we had many of the right thinkers and participants just at the right time. But then, humankind always has done — we are always "of our time".

And this is precisely why people over 30 have a degree of difficulty grasping the fundamentals of digital identities — because, dear (old) friends, our time is past and passing. We are not of the present because our victories are already in the past. There may, of course, be other successes — perhaps grander than those of web 1.0 still due to us, and we may all be able to still have the times of our lives — but innovation for us now must focus around the application of knowledge and learning — even if that knowledge and learning points back to the foundations of postmodernism.

The fragmented postmodern identity that we have known and loved in its forlorn, empowered and schizophrenic manifestations is slowly, but surely, ceding its energy to the coming generation. Many will not mourn its passing while others will insist on its primacy — citing the role of history, the importance of "this" or "that" and the continual reassertion of the dominant paradigm.

Me? I think there may just be something in the Nintendo Brain Game … and opt for continuous learning. The sheer fact that I tried to iignore blogging, social media and Web 2.0 for years rings warning bells for me — but I am not yet ready to give in. They used to say that life begins at 40 … and while that may be uncomfortably close, I could easily have a Second Life who is 20. And while I may be virtually young again, I doubt I will again share in the reckless intelligence that made my 20s so much fun.

S.

OK … this is hilarious. Perhaps there is potential here for next year’s Movember.

Really, this one is only for the brave.

But it IS funny.

AND there is a video.

Thanks to Ariel.

Normally I like the rants on this site to be my own … but I have to now admit my amatuer status when it comes to ranting. I duff my hat to Angryman and his site, youpissedmeoffyoubastard.

You may have already seen this site, but if not, it is contains fantastic diatribes on all manner of topics.

One of my personal favourites is this post. Got to love the sheer power of invective.

There has been a great and spirited debate going on today over at Paul Coleman’s blog. It all centres around the video below that has received almost 1.5 million views on YouTube. I don’t want to discuss the merits or otherwise of the video … there is plenty of that in the comments to Paul’s original post — but what this video DOES do is introduce us to the YouTube audience. It shows us the WAY that the members of this audience ACT upon and engage with the technology, and the way that it has been invited into the lives of millions of people. What is the future of the web? Or web 2.0? It is people … and here they all are.

Sometimes you just need to release a little tension … and this afternoon, Shouty Katie shared this site with me. You all may have seen it before, but for me, it was just what was needed. My personal favourite is this one:

#177- "I like it. It makes me want to come. I mean, to the event! It makes me want to come to the event!"

PS … just for the record, this is NOT a photo of Paul’s notepad — there is no "damnit" anywhere on the page.

S.

OK … you know I am not a fan of market research. Here is the REAL reason. (Via Emergence Marketing.)