Service Review: GeeksMobile

It’s infuriating to live in a culture that is so dependent on technologies that I cannot repair.

Computers, cars, and homes…staples of our society, and I can’t fix any of them.

Remember Middle-Aged Man from the SNL sketch? He’d be disgusted with me.

And my ignorance always leads to frustration when I need to consult repair people.

• Can this person really fix my problem?
• Is this person over-charging me?
• Could I do this myself with 10 minutes of web research?

I’ve written before about avoiding the “bad idea” that strikes us all from time to time- the idea that we can tackle a project that we really should leave to an expert…usually resulting in calamity (see here and here and here) and wasted resources.

So heeding my own advice, I called GeeksMobile to help me out with some home computer repairs.

As far as I can tell, GeeksMobile is a middle-man company that connects customers with local tech people across the country.

So it’s a pretty streamlined business model. I imagine that they have a centralized call center, and all of the actual repair work is contracted out through local providers.

They charge the customer more than they pay the tech, and voila- profit!

Anyway, I called on a Thursday and had a pleasant conversation where I scheduled a home visit for the upcoming Monday at 11am. I even talked to their onsite tech to explain my problem and get an estimate of 90 minutes for the job.

At 10:30 on Monday, someone called and said, “GeeksMobile, I’m looking for Rick,” or something like that.

I explained that I WAS a GeeksMobile customer, but that I was not Rick. The caller mumbled a quick apology and promptly hung up on me.

As I pieced together later, that was an agent desperately trying to track down a local tech for my 11am appointment.

At 11:25 (well past our appointment time), that same person called me back to cancel. He stated without much apology: “We just can’t find a tech who is available.” As if that explained anything.

I mean, the whole idea of scheduling an appointment in advance is to make sure that a tech is available. I had even stayed home from work for the day.

But alright. Things happen.

A bit later, they unexpectedly called me back to ask if a 1:30 appointment that day would work.

At 1:45, they called back and cancelled that appointment, too.

They rep offered me a 10% discount if I could re-schedule for the next day.

Finally, on Tuesday morning a tech arrived. Despite what GeeksMobile told me, he had never heard about the 10% discount I was supposed to receive.

But otherwise, the tech did a great job and was a pleasure to work with. (Thanks, Ron!).

Unfortunately, the 90-minute estimate that headquarters had provided was off by 3 hours. And what they charge for 90 minutes is far less than what they charge for 4.5 hours.

So the bill was far higher than I had expected, and I called HQ to voice my concern.

The GeeksMobile rep said he’d call me back within the hour.

He didn’t call.

The next morning, I called him at 11am, but hung up after being on hold for five minutes.

I left another message for him later that afternoon, finally speaking to him 24 hours after he was originally supposed to call me back.

* * * * * * *

All in all, dealing with the actual GeeksMobile team was extremely frustrating. Cancelled appointments, confusion, under-estimates, un-returned c alls, etc.

Comically, when they called me a week later with their follow-up survey, two of the three questions were about the tech, not their in-house team (which is where all the problems occurred).

• ”Was the tech on time?” (Just a bit late, but he did call ahead)
• ”Did the tech fix your issue?” (Yup; he was great)
• ”Would you recommend our services to others?” (Hmmmm…)

Would I recommend them?

My tech was terrific. But the GeeksMobile team was very difficult to deal with. I explained my ambivalence to the interviewer, and he brusquely said, “Alright, I’ll make a note of that, and thank you for your time today,” leaving me with no confidence that he had actually written down a word I had said.

(He also missed a key opportunity to apologize, offer to let me speak to a manager, proffer a coupon for future services, or do something to redeem my experience.)

So not only was their survey misguided in focusing on the tech and not their in-house team (and even worse, it confounded the two in the final question), but there was not a dedicated place for me to rate or comment on the in-house team.

Yes, I needed an expert, as I could not have made these repairs.

But wow, I wish their customer service was as competent as the tech they contracted.

This experience: 2 Magnets

The Bad Idea Strikes Again!!!

Regular readers are familiar with the bad idea. The bad idea occurs when really smart people decide to tackle a project outside of their area of expertise and eschew the help of experts.

I get the bad idea about home repair projects. “I’ll do it myself and save money!”

But then I end up paying even more money to the plumbers, electricians, and carpenters who need to fix my destruction before they can even mend the original problem.

But I’m in good company.

This morning I was perusing the gamut of news & opinion websites that I read when I came across a reader survey. (Yeah, we’re total suckers for surveys.)

Mind you, this website is run by a bunch of really, really bright folks. Whether you agree with their politics or not, it would be hard to argue that they aren’t a very well informed, brainy bunch.

But their expertise is politics & current events, not survey design.

Example #1

Example #1 is a question about whether or not readers would be willing to pay a fee for advanced content.

 

The answer categories range from “Definitely” to “Definitely Not.” But note the middle option: “I’d need to see more details.”

Two issues here. First, the answer categories are not consistent. Four of them assess direction and degree, while the other (“I need more details”) makes a statement.

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Political Junkie Sidebar

This question is very reminiscent of the misleading exit polls of the 2004 presidential election. The media went wild over the fact that, when asked which single issue mattered most in choosing their presidential candidate, 22% said “Moral Values.”

It edged out the economy/jobs (20%) and terrorism (19%). Suddenly we were inundated with stories about “value voters.”

But the issue wasn’t that clear cut, as the answer categories are simply not consistent with each other. Several are broad issues (e.g., “Health Care” or “Education”), one is a specific issue (“Iraq,”), and one offers an ambiguous concept called “Moral Values.”

Thus, the question inadvertently compares apples to oranges. “Moral values” probably received many votes simply because it is a different animal from all of the other issues-based options.

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Back to Example #1. Another issue with this question is that people naturally seek options that they believe will make them most attractive to others (often referred to as “desirability bias").

In this case, there’s obviously one answer category that will make you look smarter than the others. The survey hosts may regret this question when the results come back, as I suspect very few people mark anything other than “I need more details.”

Example #2

In the second example, we have answer categories that are not mutually exclusive. For example, if I have performed any of these actions a single time, there are TWO answer categories that fit my situation: either “once” or “one to three times.”

 

Same thing if I’ve performed one of these actions three times- I have two answer categories that accurately describe my state.  

With so few options, maybe a simple checkbox like this would have been sufficient.  

• Never
• One time
• Two times
• Three or more times

Have any examples of the bad idea that can be shared in a public forum? We'd love to hear 'em!

Nobody Needs to Get Hurt! (Part 2)

An earlier post discussed the bad idea that strikes us all from time to time.

Roughly summarized, the bad idea is: “I don’t need no stinking expert; I’ll do it myself!”

A while back we were working with a bank executive to design an internal survey for (1) measuring employee morale and (2) collecting on-the-ground insights on how to streamline their byzantine commercial lending process.

Let me be clear that this is an extremely smart and successful professional who has forgotten more about banking than most of us will ever know.

But after a few revisions of the survey, he decided to try his hand at “this question-writing stuff,” which, I submit to you, was a BAD IDEA on his part.

The result:

Do you have confidence that we have a timely and reliable process and the right people in the right roles in order to fully meet our client’s [sic] needs?

Oy!

If I answer “Strongly Agree,” am I indicating that:

• We have timely processes?
• We have reliable processes?
• We have the right people?
• We have the right people in the right roles?
• We can fully meet our clients’ needs (as opposed to partially meeting them)?
• Some of the above?
• All of the above?

[Research geeks will also note that the question asks the respondent if they “have confidence,” which deftly pairs clumsy conceptualization with ambiguous operationalization.]The boys after an expert redeemed my blunder.

Look, experts are experts for a reason. They have used their skills countless times, thought about them, revised them, talked to other experts about new ways to improve them even further, learned to fail, learned to succeed, etc.

Remember:

Luke Skywalker couldn’t lift that X-wing out of the swamp. But Yoda, the expert, certainly could.

So my client attempting to write his own question was every bit as ridiculous as me trying to cut my kids’ hair… and with equally bad results.

So please business professionals: I’ll put down the shears, you step away from the survey, and nobody needs to get hurt.

Deal? 

Nobody Needs to Get Hurt!

That’s me with my boys, Xavier and Isaiah.

If you look closely, you’ll note that we have somewhat different hair textures. Consequently, we have very different hair care needs.

So we take them to barbershops where there are experts who know exactly how to cut and edge their hair.

But the other night my wife and I had the BAD IDEA.

You’ve been there. You want to lower your expenses. You want to brag, “Look, I saved money and did it myself!”

And before you know it, you’re holding a pair of shears, hair clippings and slivers of ear and scalp playing in the breeze, wondering why your normally adorable children now look like scabies victims who just survived some sort of paramilitary attack. 

[After picture intentionally, mercifully omitted.]

Clearly, the BAD IDEA led us astray.

There’s a reason we pay the experts (i.e., the barbers), and there’s a reason why there are so many successful barbershops in town. It’s a valuable skill. You can’t just pick up a pair of shears and do this well.

But sometimes we all lose sight and want to think that we’re experts in some other area. And driven by a desire to either save money or show that we’re self-sufficient, we’ll attempt to do things that we really shouldn’t.  

Often, calamity ensues. Even Especially in the research world.

You want a real-world example? Stay tuned…