No One is Minding the Data

In the Boston Globe this morning is a short article on the struggles at Staples to meet it's revenue goals.  While still profitable, Staples - the company that invented office supply superstores - is closing unprofitable outlets and will be cutting costs via management layoffs.   

The piece reminded me of my recent (disappointing) experience with Staples.  It was last month, when Mass was having a "tax free" weekend.  I decided that it was time to buy the new Google Nexus 7 tablet that I had been thinking about.  Truth be told, I first went to the Google website, where they offered free shipping.  But when I went to check-out, they wanted to charge me the normal sales tax.  There was no recognition of my state's "no tax" holiday and no option to avoid paying tax, so I cancelled the transaction and went to my normal go-to store for electronics - Staples.

The online site Staples.com did have a message that assured me that they recognized tax fee holiday, so I could order the product tax-free and go to my local store to pick it up to avoid delivery charges.  OK, I thought, let's book it.  But,  then I was leery because the Staples product description for the Nexus did not specifically say that it was the NEW version that had been released in July.  I spent another 15 minutes trying to compare the Google specs to the Staples specs.  Finally, confident that my online shopping cart the right product, I went to check out. .....Hmmn, for some reason the Staples rewards number they showed on the website for me was different than the number I have on the card in my wallet.  When I tried to check to see if any of my many previous purchases were getting rewards points, I was unable to get a simple report of purchase history.  In effect, the message was: we do not have any history for you. Which means: None of your purchases have been counted.  Frankly, I was pretty annoyed to think that I had been showing them my rewards card at the cash register for years, and the data was going into an effing  black hole.    Annoyed as hell, I decided to cancel the transaction.

Now, I was perplexed.  My two first choices for Online shopping were a huge disappointment.  

For giggles, I decided to see what old-line Sears.com had to offer.  I was surprised to find myself  rapidly taken to the correct product description and the same price as offered by Google and Staples.  They had a banner indication that this would be a tax free purchase.  They had a nice little summary of my reward points.  I was impressed that the website of this ancient company was easier to navigate than the Internet 2.0 companies.  I decided to buy the product for pick-up at the local Sears to save delivery charges.  Bink Bink, easy peasy.    A few days later, I got an e-mail confirming that my order was being shipped to the local store, and I would be notified when to pick it up in a following e-mail.  Then, the next night I got a call form an automated robot telling me that "the computer you ordered is no longer stocked." And then some gobbledigook that I could call the store and get something different.  They had cancelled my order!  
It was a perfectly awful bit of customer service: a garbled hodgepodge of a message,  The offered no valid reason  - they did not even give me a number to call.  Goodbye.  

After all this, I started wondering why I needed a Nexus 7 anyhow.  In the end, I decided I really didn't need one after all.  So the bottom line is: No one got any money from me.  Worse for them, I am so annoyed at these three companies that I will not shop online with any of them again.  (I may still go to the local brick and o mortar Staples for their loss-leader paper rebate deals.)

If my experience is typical, the future of e-commerce is in trouble.  It is clear that even in 2013, corporate management is clueless about the importance of accurate, integrated and up-to-date data to support the whiz-bang technology.  

Google didn't know about states' tax free programs. Staples had fuzzy product descriptions and they can't seem to integrate the rewards program to the sales operations.  And, Sears has wasted a lot of money building a web-site that works like butter,  then sending me a confirmation of shipment and then cancelling my order and annoying me with a crap automated customer service voice messaging system that must have been a leftover prototype from 1977.  

None of these companies followed-up, despite the fact that I filled-out opinion surveys and feedback emails to each of these stores.  I was never responded to - in any way, not even a canned apology letter.  This is why I think they must be clueless.  Rule 1, Try not to piss-off the customer.

The VP's of these outfits probably need to try to use their own online websites.  They might be in for an annoying experience.

Memory and Vision

Recently, I decided to do something about my PC, which was running like a turtle. It took forever to open new applications or to save data. I read somewhere that you can speed things up by adding a RAM card. Simply put, the more RAM memory, the faster the computer processes the data. My old Dell had only .5 GB.

I went to Staples. For $44, I was able to buy a 1 GB memory card which I was able to install in my computer. Presto, now my PC runs like a jackrabbit.

It occurred to me: Wouldn't it be great if we could just go down to the Mall and buy a snap-in, add-on memory upgrade for our human brains?

As we age, most of us lose our keys and glasses periodically, but these are not the dreaded signs of senility. The experts say that you don't need to start worrying when someone misplaces the keys; you worry when they don't know what the keys are for.

As I grow older I tend to be sensitive to memory issues. While I often have flashbacks that are vivid and detailed, I find that large chunks of memories have seemingly disappeared. Sometimes it is just a temporary lapse of memory, like when you are looking for your keys and suddenly you wonder "What the heck am I looking for?"

Not long ago, I read a new book by Nora Ephron titled "I Remember Nothing." If you have forgotten who Nora Ephron is, she wrote the screenplays to the movies "When Harry met Sally" and "Sleepless in Seattle."

She admits that she can't remember the names of people she meets at parties, and can't even recall the names of her favorite movie stars without Googling them on her Smartphone. She frequently gets lost.

This may sound like familiar complaints to aging baby boomers. It is inspirational to read her reflections which are often, admittedly, blurry. It shows that a mentally competent writer can forget important people and things, just like the rest of us.

My most annoying item of forgetfulness is reading glasses.  I am always losing them.  I cant read the computer screen, caller-id readout, or read the daily newspaper without magnifiers.  Recently, I decided to solve my vision problem. 
BJ's,  one of the warehouse outlets nearby was offering a free trial membership, and while perusing the vast aisles, we noticed a display of 4 pairs of eyeglasses (readers)  for less than $20.  Clearly this was the solution to the problem. The plan: put one pair by the PC, one in the bedroom nightstand, one on the kitchen counter and one in my coat so wherever I went there would always be a pair of glasses to read small print. 
This worked great for a few days.  Last night, searching for a pair of glasses, I noticed that there were five pair on my bureau. 

Where the heck did the other pair come from?