Handling failure is critical to service uptake
One of my rules in business has always been to grasp problems head on and solve them, ideally turning customer frustration to delight. For deep software engagements this can lead to a much stronger relationship than a purely successful deployment. Clearly you don’t go in intending to fail, but if something does go wrong, take the time to make it better than right. While this is far from being original thought, it’s interesting to see how different companies handle failure.
I happened to post on twitter that I was having trouble streaming an AlwaysOn video via Blip.tv. Shortly afterwards I received an e-mail from someone at Blip offering to help solve the problem. Unsurprisingly the problem, which was probably in the last mile, had solved itself by then anyway and I was able to watch the suggested test video - a 7 minute eposide of Captain Blasto. The streaming was perfect, which is more than can be said for the acting, and I was happy to post back on Twitter and here about the incident.
On the other hand, I’ve been trying to book some tickets for the Edinburgh International Festival (aka the Official Festival for us locals). Two nights in a row the website declared that my cards were declined which was nonsense. I e-mailed in the problem and received a polite, somewhat-apologetic message to the effect that no one else had complained and that tickets were being sold, and that there might be an issue with the address, I could try the box office. In other words a nicely worded brush off. I tried the site again and it still was failing, so booked via the phone. The chap on the phone was very helpful, but that’s not really the point. Someone should have taken the pain of understanding what was going wrong.
So I’m delighted at Blip but reserved about the reliability of Hub Tickets.
