Ryan Powell’s Blog

Not only am I impressed with UPS who provide a superb service enabling you to track a package from the time they receive an instruction to collect it through to the point where it’s delivered to you, but I am really chuffed with the approach taken to Customer Experience by Aerobed.

Last year I decided to pay a sizeable chunk of change £70 for a new airbed.  My reasoning being that I didn’t want to spend ages inflating the darned thing every time I wanted to use it and I was prepared to pay for quality.  After some diligent research, I bought an Aerobed Active double bed (brown).  It inflates in 60 seconds and deflates in around 15, so it’s the ultimate in convenience.  And it’s comfy too!

Cut to last month.  A friend of mine, who had been staying in my spare room on the odd weekend, found the thing had sprung some kind of a leak and started deflating itself during the night.

Despite our best efforts, (have you ever tried getting a double mattress into a bath of water to see where air bubbles are escaping from?),  we just couldn’t find a leak.

After checking their website, I decided to contact Aerobed via the only means available - email.  Within a day or so I received a replacement valve, which unfortunately still didn’t remedy the issue.  So further emails were exchanged and although I’d stupidly thrown out the receipt, (as it was more than 1 year old), a copy of the credit card statement was sufficient as a proof of purchase to show the mattress was still within its 2 year guarantee.

So then I received instructions to “cut around the air release valve at the footend of the bed and send it” along with some other details to their office.  I was told “once we receive the valve we will send a replacement bed via UPS.”  The worrying line in the email read “We suggest that you obtain proof of postage.”  At this point, the customer experience sceptic in me was fearful I would totally ruin the bed and then see the firm claim they promised no such thing.

However, I sent those things off last Thursday.  They arrived Friday. Monday I received my first email from UPS with the tracking information and a mere 30 minutes ago (Tuesday pm) I took delivery of a fab new bed.

Well done Aerobed! That’s how it’s supposed to be done.  This is an inspirational example of good customer experience that I shall take with me into my new role in the Virgin Media Customer Experience team that I am joining in January 2010! Ace.

I am heading off to Australia at Christmastime this year and the preparation for this trip sparked a couple of thoughts.

Firstly, we will be in the air on Christmas Day itself, which is less than ideal.  But then, if you saw how much cheaper the flights were you would surely understand.  I was wondering whether or not the in-flight entertainment and food/drink will differ in any way.  I wouldn’t imagine so, because if the airline made any effort to respect a Christian festival, then surely they would be obliged to respect all other religious events too, right?

 Does anyone have any insight to share on this?

The second thought concerns the process for getting  a visa to enter Australia.  I learned first of all that you can do the whole thing online, there’s no need to find a travel agent (sorry folks) and wait in a queue to fill in forms etc.  I set about looking online for an ETA visa only to learn that instead, as a British Citizen I could use the eVisitor online process.Well, imagine how pleased I was when just 5 minutes later, after following a simple online process, I was told my part in proceedings was complete and to sit back and wait for an email.  Imagine my utter pleasure a few hours later to receive the email (admittedly automated) telling me that “The department wishes to advise that a decision has been made on this application and you have been granted an eVisitor.”

Brilliant, efficient, easy to use… need I go on?

Well, I had a great time in HK. My feet hardly touched the ground during my entire 11-day stay. I’ve been slow to blog of late as I’m busy sifting through all the photos and choosing the best ones for my Flickr page.  I’ll put the more complete galleries on my site in the World Photos gallery.

There were several occasions during my trip where I got to experience outstanding customer service in Hong Kong.  Essentially, shop staff went out of their way to help.  Over here you might take their assistance as intrusive.  I have to admit it took me a couple of days to adjust.

Picture this: I managed to fry my mobile phone whilst plugging it in to charge one day and I dropped my iPod, which then refused to work anymore - the hard disk died.  So after that double-whammy I visited a local mall to see about replacing both of them just before I returned to the UK.

I don’t have a lot of time in which to write this post so I’ll cut to the chase.  Every single item I intended to buy in the electronics store I visited was taken out of its packaging so I could play with it before parting with my money.  That included switching the phone on and demonstrating that all contents were present and correct in the three boxes (I made and impulse purchase of a very nifty iPod Shuffle too!)

Awesome experience, helpful and friendly staff who could so easily have given me the Tottenham Court Road box-shifting treatment…