Walt-O-Matic

I went to the Apple Store today with a friend that was looking at buying a MacMini and another friend that was picking up a copy of Snow Leopard, which sells for $29. That is, unless you’d like a copy for $25.

Apple’s policy toward operating systems has historically been a good one. There is no home, business, professional, expert, business, yadda-yadda-yadda flavors. There is no upgrade or full version. There is no pricing tier. Everything is one low price, you can upgrade or install fresh at any time.

And, if you buy a machine at the Apple Store it comes with the latest-and-greatest software, and if a new product on it comes out within 30-days, simply come back and pick up your updated version for either free or a very steeply discounted price. This is how it’s been at the Tyson’s Store for years. It shines of Apple customer service.

We went to the new Apple Store in Reston, VA and had the most disturbing news presented by Apple blue-shirt, John.

Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing at this time if what he told us is fact, fiction, or fallacy. So don’t take what you read here as gospel, but rather use it as guideline for formulating solid questions when you deal with Apple for the next few months.

#1) Apple had on display a Mac Box Set (OS X Snow Leopard, iLife ‘09, and iWork ‘09) for $169. My friend having iLife ‘08 and iWork ‘08 asked, “is it worth the cost to upgrade?” The Apple guy looked at us and said straight faced, “honestly, no… the features are minimal, just get Snow Leopard.” Now, I appreciate his honesty and opinion, and that alone commanded enough respect for me to retain trust in Apple — much like Macy’s sending people to Gimbel’s. However, I suspect we got lucky and that was not the Apple corporate line. Nor would pointing out you can get it for much less at about $114.

#2) We noticed the word “upgrade” all over the box and asked, “do you have to have Leopard installed to install this?” The answer, surprisingly, was yes. This was an upgrade and not a regular OS X disc like Apple historically has done. We were told that the real OS wasn’t coming out until December. Yes, December. When asked about machine recovery, he confessed they had a special version in the back they could use under dire emergencies. This begs the question if $29 is an upgrade price, with the ‘full’ OS will be the normal $120 later.

Update 31-Aug-2009: An Apple employee in BestBuy also confirmed what’s out now is an upgrade path. Although according to him, if you buy a new machine (with Leopard on it) you get the Snow Leopard update for free, which sounds like the Steve Jobs’s Apple policy we’re used to.

#3) When we asked about the MacMini, we were told that it had Leopard on it and that if we wanted Snow Leopard, we’d have to buy that for an additional $29. However, the electronic Apple Store online was selling MacMini’s with Snow Leopard already installed, without the extra cost. I probed deeply about this. Did the machines really have Leopard, and not Snow Leopard? Yes, the excuse was that they hadn’t moved inventory with the old OS on it. I asked if one simply got the upgrade for free like Tyson’s always used to do. Again, no. When I pointed out that buying online was the-cost-of-Snow-Leopard cheaper, I was met by an indifferent shrug.

All three of these things were very non-Apple.

Again, I don’t know if it was the sales person, the store in general, or Apple taking a page from the Microsoft book of marketing. But suffice it to say there was an abrupt halt on major purchases today.

Customers expect two things from a business, common sense and consistency. Price is often a very distance third.

A Side Note: Customer service plays a big role, and I have another Apple story which illustrates going above and beyond. In BestBuy, when we went to go get a copy of Snow Leopard, they were out of stock. However, while browsing another part of the store, the Apple employee came up and handed over a copy of Snow Leopard. Apparently, a FedEx shipment had just arrived, so he pulled one out of the box, and then hunted down our party in the whole store, on the off chance we hadn’t left yet. That’s service. You know that BestBuy’s floor staff would not have done that.

The other night I had a shining example of impressive customer service by a manager at Mahalo Cove that’s worth sharing.

While my friend and I were eating dinner, we ran into a slight problem. We need to leave immediately go pick up his child, but our waitress had disappeared.

Rather than waiting for her to return, I simply got up and walked over to the manager to explain that we needed to head out to pick up a child. What I expected was for him to simply track down the waitress or print our bill and bring it over.

Nope. He went that extra-step, entering the realm of incredible customer service. He looked at me and said, “Go on ahead get the child, come back and pay when you can. It’ll be alright.”

I was floored. He didn’t know me from Adam, and was willing to put the cost of the meal at flight risk in order to do the right thing. That impressed me as a customer-first mentality, and that makes it worth sharing. I’ll certainly be going back, and bringing friends as well.

The story doesn’t quite end as you expect, either. I explained that we were happy to pay now, if they could just locate the meal ticket. He scrolled through each order, found ours, reassigned a waitress standing there to process us, instructing her that we needed to leave to pick up a child, and she processed us about as fast as we could put down a card.

And yes, a nice tip for all was left.

In reading the reviews on Google, I’d have to concur with the assessments there. The indoor smoke can be unbearable, the food is average, and the service and atmosphere is simply great.

Walt gives Mahalo Cove a thumbs up!

Ever wonder how a well-intentioned policy turns into a horrible nightmare for the very people it was designed to serve? I found the perfect example.

Let’s take the case of Apple’s technical WWDC ‘09 conference in San Francisco. Brilliant talks. Amazing speakers. Fantastic audio and video. It’s good stuff.

Now Apple is a company that is on the forefront of user experience, they pioneer usability and design, and their big presentation this year is on efficient resource and queue management. You’d think this innovative thinking would hold over into how they actual manage crowd control, but you’d be wrong. Apple has totally missed the mark. I know, it seems impossible.

There’s an absolutely stupid policy that’s being enforced, and while the best of intentions are there, the policy isn’t helping anyone. It actually makes things worse. Follow this.

You’ve figured out your course tracks for the day, bunkered down to do some work on your laptop, and are watching a series of presentations being held in that room with your development buddy. It finishes, and so you tell him “Can you watch my stuff, I’m going to hit the restroom before the next presentation.” He says ’sure’ and you leave. After all, being a convention center, the restrooms leave little to be desired in terms of personal space.

On the way out, you’d tell the Apple guy at the door “be right back” and empty handed you walk across the hall to the restroom, return in minute, and reclaim your equipment-occupied seat. At least that was how it was at the start of the conference. All was fine. Things ran like clockwork.

Mid-conference someone revised the policy. Instead, if you leave, you now have to go wait in line to return.

Why did Apple do this? I asked. Two reasons.

First, by only letting people out and not back in, this is supposed to make things easier for the presenters to set up.

Second, it’s supposed to establish an order of fairness for those people coming into line.

On the surface it appears to make sense, but what this policy really does is prevent grown adults from being able to go to the restroom. Instead, you’re standing there with a full bladder and Apple’s staff is literally telling you that you’ve got three options:
a) Hold it until the session starts.
b) Abandon your equipment (as you might not have a buddy to watch it), and then wait in line to see if it’s there when you get back.
c) Go get your equipment and hold it while you do your business, and potentially miss the session (although you already had a seat).

Let’s examine this.

1) Does the policy improve seating fairness?
No. There’s equipment, and most likely a person, reserving the seat until you return. No one standing in line is going to benefit whether you reclaim it now or later. And, realistically, every talk that has been “filled to capacity and people were turned away” had plenty of chairs mid-row, plus people are willing to stand.

2) Does this improve the line?
No. It actually makes them longer, meaning Apple has more to manage. And, as the lines wrap all over the halls, it makes them more cramped, confusing, and uncomfortable.

3) Does it make conference attendees happier?
No. It’s annoying, bordering on rude, telling someone they have to return to their seat and wait for the presentation to start in order to relieve themselves. It’s a frequent conversation topic to overhear, Apple is putting a lot of people off.

4) Does it make Apple look corporately smart?
No. In fact, even its own employees are mocking the policy behind Apple’s back, all the while blindly enforcing it (most of the time), at the door. Even their own realize how ludicrous it is. This makes Apple look bad in a very self-aware Dilbert way. Of course there’s an insulting double set of standards, as the guy managing the gate preventing people from using the restroom calls on his buddy to take his place while he goes to take a piss.

5) Does it make the presentations go smoother for the presenters?
No. In fact, worse. Now one has to wait for the presentation to start, interrupting the speaker, and by going in and out letting more light in the room. It causes distractions. Plus I’ve seen one attendee fall over a chair during a presentation, and two people trip during a presentation, all trying to temporarily exit.

6) Does it make viewing the presentation go smoother for the attendees?
No. Being seated in the middle, one now has to navigate over other people who are trying to watch the presentation. I’ve had my equipment kicked as well as my foot stepped on by someone telling me “whew, now I can go.”

7) Is it safer?
No. There is now less room to get out, where before the row was empty. Plus, there are power cords, laptops, cases, drinks and other obstacles to navigate, crush, and trip on.

8) Does it provide accurate metrics for seating?
No. In re-entering you get counted a second time. This messes up Apple’s counts and artificially makes room seem more full, turning away people who could be viewing.

9) Does it make it easier for the presenters to set up?
No. The presenters are up on stage, a good distance from the audience. No one is trying to interact with the presenters before the talk.

So, what starts as a “good idea” ends up impacting far more people than it should. Compare this to a simple first-come first-serve policy, which would allow everyone to get settled before a talk begins. If seats are full, stand; if you don’t want to stand, sit; if you don’t want to sit, find another session; if you don’t want that to happen, get there on time or before, just like everyone else does. It’s acceptable to leave a session during Q&A in order to find a good seat at the next session.

Unfortunately, as with most failed policies, the solution usually is to add more policies (rather than correcting the root problem). Kudos to Apple for not going this extra step. The slippery slope would be to kick everyone out in order to have them stand in line again; that however would be truly idiotic, especially given the equipment people carry and set up to attend these things.

Anyone who’s been to an Apple Store, especially the one in Tysons Corner, VA, knows that Apple is experiencing some serious growth pains. Yes, as predicted, more and more people are starting to adopt Apple hardware and software and the cost/benefit factor becomes more apparent. The hardware is not that much more expensive, and if you take in to account all the stuff you get and all the stuff you don’t need to buy, it’s actually a pretty sweet deal for the total cost of ownership. Vista didn’t win any favors, Windows 7 is invoking similar fear, and Apple’s forth coming Snow Leopard looks like it’s going to be dealing a death blow. Meanwhile the number of ways to run Windows applications on a Mac, even the graphically intensive ones, are climbing — that a Mac won’t run Windows software is just not true.

Where Apple dropped the ball was the in-store support. If you walked into the store, all appointments were filled. Even if you registered in advance, you couldn’t be seen before hand. And turns were taken in the ordered registered — which meant if you had the identical problem as the person at the counter, and someone required 45 minutes of training in front of you, you had to wait. In short, it was awful and you had resort to gaming the system to get seen when scheduled.

As it turned out, my iPhone started wonking out on me when it came to WiFi. My connections would drop, and with the last firmware update, my WiFi connection would drop seconds after being established. Manually cycling WiFi, power cycling, rebooting, and even firmware reloading did not solve the problem. All I could use was Edge, even when someone next to me could see the network access point at full strength on their iPhone.

I loathed the idea of going in to the Apple Store with a real hardware problem, which would require seeing a Genius, especially a shopping day or so before Christmas Eve.

Unbeknownst to me, Apple had made substantial improvements in customer service, the likes of which exceeded all my hopes and expectations. Check this out!

The moment I crossed the store threshold, I was greeted with “Welcome to the Apple Store, is there anything I can help you with?”

“Uh, no, I’m here for a Genius Bar appointment, and I’m an hour ahead of schedule.”

“No problem sir, I’ll register you’re in-store, so head on over to the bar now, and we’ll see if they can take you early.”

Huh? Normally the Genius Bar has a crowd around it with very frustrated people, and four to six gurus working madly. However, as I looked over there were only two, and tons of empty stools, and zero crowd waiting. Meanwhile, the store looked busier than I have ever seen it.

I go over and take a seat. Again, I’m greeted, they ask my name, and they say they see me as appointment number 9. Usually that means that I can expect an hour and a half wait.

However, I’m watching as the two people there are taking cases, and the moment they require some hardware restore or check, they start the automated job and immediately start taking the next person. They’re working concurrently, and they are cranking through the list.

Less than five minutes later, it’s my turn.

“What seems to be the problem?”

As I’m describing it, I notice he’s typing. So I pause and ask what he’s doing.

He tells me, “I’m setting up an order in the computer to replace your phone with a new one. I’m going to flash the firmware, and if that solves it, I’ll press cancel and give you your phone back. If it doesn’t, I’ll hit submit. Either way, you’ll have a working phone in five minutes or less.”

My mouth drops.

“While I do this, do you mind if I take another customer?”

“Uh, no, of course not.” And he calls the next person in line. I’m shocked. I’m impressed. I’m please. And everyone at the Genius Bar starts socializing with one another. It’s turning into a little party.

As he’s talking to the other customer, he’s pulled out a box, moved the SIM card from my phone into the new one, and pushes the new phone and the paper work my direction. I sign it, and he says to me, “You’re all set. And 15 minutes before your appointment was supposed to start.”

That couldn’t be right, I was there an hour early. Looks like they bumped me up in line a few times when “Last call for Mr. Noshow” was hollered out.

I did get to talk with the Genius, and he stated that Apple now allowed them to take people early, as well as work concurrently, and group similar cases together. It was clear that this removed all congestion and put them ahead of the game.

For as I was talking with him, a floor person came over and said “I have a woman on hold, she was wondering if you could do a walk-in.” The Genius spread his arms and said, “absolutely, I have nothing but real-estate” and gestured at the empty bar.

The service was friendly, prompt, and I’d give it six stars on a five star scale.

Walt gives the new Apple policies and procedures at the Genius Bar two thumbs up!

This morning I received an email from “Bank of America” asking me to click on the link included to verify some information that’s been changed with my banking details.

Well, given that I was addressed as “Dear Reliable Customer,” and that I don’t have an account with Bank of America, I was pretty sure this was a phishing attack. Viewing the raw form of the message, which exposes the HTML, further confirmed that the email was not from Bank of America, nor was the link for verification destined for Bank of America’s servers.

Normally, I put such stuff in my spam folders, but this one impressed me. It was good. Very good. The email actually used what look like an old banner from Bank of America’s site to produce quite an authentic branded email. It did so by making an image tag to a real Bank of America server.

As such, I felt it was worth the time to gather all the server information I could and pass it along to Bank of America, with the hopes that either their technicians or lawyers would be able to have a field day with the sender.

Not only did I get a nice reply back from Bank of America, but I have to say they really have their act together!

Check out this simple 7-point list they passed on that concisely helps customers identify when they might be defrauded by a scammer.

Source: Bank of America’s email

The main goal of a phishing email is to get you to a site where you will provide your personal information. With these basic, but powerful, clues, you can easily recognize the threat and ensure the safety of your identity and finances.

1. Does the email ask you to go to a website and verify personal information? We won’t ask you to verify your personal information in response to an email.
2. What is the tone of the mail? Most phish emails convey a sense of urgency by threatening discontinued service or information loss if you don’t take immediate action.
3. What is the quality of the email? Many phish emails have misspellings, bad grammar, or poor punctuation.
4. Are the links in the email valid? Deceptive links in phishing emails look like they are to a valid site, but deliver you to a fraudulent one. Many times you can see if the link is legitimate by just moving your mouse over the link.
5. Is the email personalized with your name and applicable account information? Many phish emails use generic salutations and generic information (e.g. “Dear Customer” or “Dear Account Holder”) instead of your name.
6. What is the sender’s email address? Many phish emails come from an email address not from the company represented in the email.
7. When in doubt, type it out. If you suspect an email to be phishing, don’t click on any links in the email. Type the valid address directly into your web browser.

Wonderful advice. And it applies to more than just banking emails.

Thank you, Bank of America. It’s something simple I can pass along to friends and family.

It’s memorial day, and BestBuy had sent me some coupons. Not amazing coupons, but 10% off this or that, should I happen to be in their store this weekend.

So, I’m hanging out around the house and come to the conclusion that having a second digital camera would be a really good idea. And shortly later, I’m standing in BestBuy in Sterling, VA.

Mind you, I’ve already decided upon the camera I want. It’s oh so niiiiiice. And, Noah, our helpful sales person, quickly has it in my hands, so I can grope the box with anticipation.

He’s also, it appears, is the master of up-sales, because I’m now also holding the fastest 8GB card they’ve got, a really slick HD card reader, a nice carrying case, and I’ve just signed up for the 4 year warranty plan …with accidental coverage as well. Single handedly, he’s more than doubled the amount I was planning on spending on an impulse buy. It’s not cheap, either.

And you know what? I’m happy. I’m genuine, truly, on top of the world, happy.

We pay in full, and not on credit, mind you. And Noah packs everything in to a big, convenient, transparent plastic carrying bag with handles that’s labeled BestBuy on the side; and just so I know I got everything, he packs my warranty information and receipt against the side so I, and the world, can see it.

It was at this point I made my fatal flaw: I went to leave the store.

Despite having just come from the registers with everything I was carrying dangling visible by my side, as I attempted to leave the store, I was detained to have my receipt and purchases examined. Not peered at. I mean, hands going through your stuff, as in it’s-not-in-your-possession-any-more kind of examination.

Understand what this feels like to the honest, repeat customer. It conveys you, personally, are doing something illegal or untrustworthy.

Understand what message this conveys from a store to its patrons. It says we don’t want you to shop here.

Yes, a lot of people are willing to bend to the hassle of an over zealous or bored employee. That doesn’t mean I am, or should. Store policy and personal whim isn’t the law. I have no contract with BestBuy, as I do with Costco or Sams, in which I happily comply to go over purchases as previously agreed.

The moment the sale is concluded, it’s my legal property. And BestBuy knows this. That’s why when they ask to rifle through my personal belongings when I leave, I can say “no thanks” and keep on walking. Legally.

I simply don’t trust store personnel to be properly trained that they are not the police, and they don’t have the same rights and authority as sworn officers of the law. That said, no one touched me today. But today’s exit was still more intrusive than I prefer.

It was also clear they didn’t think I was a shoplifter, they just wanted to assert whatever authority they thought they had. No big burly man asked me to step aside or go visit the back room; that, incidentally, would have been just fine if they suspected something. This wasn’t even a security guard. It was a regular employee and the greeter.

And so after they were done searching and returned my bag, without leaving the store, I went straight to customer service to return everything.

It was pretty evident, the store did not want me leaving with any purchases today. While my transaction had just been validated by going through my possessions, without my consent, somehow the situation appeared to require further escalation after my change of direction to remain in the store. Looking back, security folks were arriving at the exit.

Mind you, I had neither resisted nor engaged in any verbal exchange back there. It was now turning into a show, and I wasn’t even party to it. Four to five people where watching me talking with customer service from where I’d been stopped.

I got my full refund, and with the smile and friendly service that the camera was sold to me with. It’s clear where the problem area was, because it wasn’t on sales and it isn’t on returns. And, from my brief discussion with customer service, it was quite clear I wasn’t the first to go through this.

Not only did BestBuy lose this sale, but it also gives pause to future purchases I’d make.

It’s a story I’ll be sharing frequently this holiday weekend and coming week.

And, the weekly business purchases that I do for our office will most likely be done online or at the local Staples now, even if that means driving a little further.

BestBuy didn’t prevent theft, it lost business. More than just the camera.

Checking the receipts at the exit is bad policy, and it doesn’t stop theft. I understand BestBuy’s motive for this behavior, but it’s hurting them in the longer run. Far trivial solutions exist which would be far more effective and not cut into profitability or produce lost sales. Short term thinking and the illusion of security is a negative.

But it’s worse than that. I learned something BestBuy didn’t want me to know.

With my return receipt in hand, back at home, I signed on to Amazon and started looking up the products. Mind you, I had purchased the camera and equipment with coupons, so I was using that as my base price.

Even so, through Amazon, the camera was still 83% cheaper. Carrying case, 74% cheaper. Memory, 54% cheaper. And at those prices, I don’t need the extra warranty.

BestBuy had been so convenient that it just hadn’t been worth the second thought to go comparison shop.

Now, since they made me look at my relationship with their store good and hard, since this incident will remain in the forethought of my mind for quite a while, BestBuy has turned itself into SecondBuy.

BestBuy Taught Me A Lesson: Look Elsewhere.

It’s not just cheaper. It’s much cheaper.

In trying to repair a Windows laptop which was acting really slow and appeared to be riddled with problems, I discovered it was running Norton / Symantec Anti-Virus.

Ugh.

It’s been shown with benchmarks that this software kills PC performance. And, in other tests, AVG, which costs less, catches more, without being a resource hog.

So, I go to uninstall Symantec, which can be a chore unto itself. But this time I was greeted with a new source of irritation.

I got a dialog box which said “Please enter the uninstall password”. Great. Just great.

So, given that this OEM laptop had paid support by Dell, I figured I’d ask.

The answer I got back was “I wasn’t aware there was a password to uninstall.”

While Dell was dodging the support question, I found this very helpful article:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/05/hack-to-removeuninstall-symantec-norton-antivirus-sav-client-without-password/

In it, it said change the value of this registry key, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\INTEL\LANDesk\VirusProtect6\CurrentVersion\Administrator Only\Security\, from 1 to 0 with RegEdit.

I tried it. It worked. No problems. Problem solved.

So, I tell the Dell Support person the point is moot, I got past it, and shared the link with him so that future customers with the same problem could have the problem solved. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? Learn something, and share — that way others don’t waste time down the path you traveled?

Dell’s tone instantly changed, they didn’t seem happy I got past it. And, then he tells me that Dell support doesn’t give passwords, or tell how to override them, even for OEM installed stuff; they would not be sharing the information, no matter how useful.

So, did they know about the password and just feed me a line? I was certainly left with that impression.

Incidentally, I’ve been told by an IT person, the next time I encounter the password box, enter: symantec

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Coastal Flats has an enjoyable sense of humor.

I walked up to the hostess desk, and they recognized me immediately. Jokingly, I was asked, “What name shall we put you under as, Walt?”

I attempted to make up a name that would require horrific use of Unicode, if not make it look like a terrorist convention was occurring.

I got a smile as they handed me the pager.

But as I passed by their computer, I noticed they planned to turn the joke at my expense. Here’s how I was paged…. and, boy, did the staffer who seated us look confused.

When it comes to describing the DMV, Dane Cook’s description perhaps does the most justice.

That said, I went in to renew my license today. It was my third try.

The first time I went to the DMV in Sterling, and it had a line of people wrapped around the building, despite the website saying it was a 21 minute wait. So I threw in the towel.

Yesterday, I took off work to go visit, only to discover that they were closed on President’s day. Something about the empty parking lot should have clued me in.

Today, I went to the one in Leesburg, VA, and was quite surprised to find the parking lot was pretty sparse.

It seems the advice of the day is wait until the day after a federal holiday, then go to the DMV. Your co-workers will be putting in face-time immediately after a holiday, and that’s enough to thin things out in the morning.

As I got there, there was a lady in a leopard coat trying to pull her huge SUV out of a parking space, but was having problems turning the steering wheel one handed while she talked on the cell phone. This just cements what’s wrong with drivers these days.

As I entered the building, a kid walked out cursing he hated the place.

But my experience was much different. I have to give the DMV credit where credit is due, and don’t think saying that doesn’t leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

I was second in line at the Information center, and with two windows open was seen immediately. I got my number, and no sooner than it was literally in my hand, several windows down immediately called it. The information person walked me to the correct window.

All I said was “I’m here to renew my license and possibly get a vision test,” and instantly I had a form in front of me, highlighted fields, was handed a pen, and I filled in out in 30 seconds. The vision test was immediate and consisted of reading 12 characters and detecting blinking LEDs. Done. Passed. Finished.

I handed over a crisp $20 bill, got a receipt, and was told I’d have my picture taken in a moment. I barely had time to take my coat off. The picture was digital, and therefore quick. The license was printed and handed to me, and I was out before I knew it.

I then looked down at my license, jumped in the air, and clicked my heels. Why?

The renewal date for my license is 2013. And we all know the world ends on Dec 21st, 2012.

I’m beginning to wonder if my second calling in life should be more formal: that of business consultant in the field of customer service.

It seems that wherever I go I notice two things. 1) Businesses complaining about profitability. 2) Customer service incidents that drive customers away.

Tonight’s story has me as passenger, while my friend tries to fill up his tire with air after going to the nearest gas station. In this case, Sunoco in Ashburn Village scored in the location category, and by its car wash station, it had a coin operated compressed air station.

My friend plunked in 75 cents to start the machine, to which an LED turned on indicating that not only was the machine suddenly out of service, but that it had swallowed his money as well.

Naturally, he drove around to the cashier to ask for his money back.

And here begins the lesson, Sunoco.

The correct response should have been to service the machine, activate it remotely, or hand back the 75 cents with profuse apologies. Any of those remedies would have been perfect and cost Sunoco nothing.

Instead, this happened.

The cashier retorted that it wasn’t the company’s problem, that he needed to call the service number on the machine. Thus, Sunoco effectively took my friend for 75 cents.

Now, to you or me, perhaps 75 cents isn’t worth a quibble over. And, discounting the inconvenience of having to drudge up more quarters, there’s a significant point that’s about to be made.

By not doing any of the good customer service solutions previously mentioned, it creates the impression that 75 cents is too great a sum of money for Sunoco to part with. And, by not placing an Out of Order sign on the machine, it perhaps further conveys maligned intent to steal from others.

The point to be made is one of lasting customer impressions. Because while Sunoco may have made 75 cents that evening, my friend refused to fill up there. And, as other people were in the car, we couldn’t believe how shitty Sunoco treated him. Do you think we’ll be filling up there? How many times will it be that much harder to simply use the Shell station up the street about a minute and a half away? And, how many people do you think this story will be told to?

While it might not make a huge dent in Sunoco’s pockets, and there certainly is no organized boycott, it serves as a good example of lost revenues. Especially when after filling up, we usually go inside and grab snacks and drinks. And, of course, that didn’t happen either.

What really struck home was as we were thinking about it, having filled up and gotten free air at the Shell station, that Sunoco tried to deny the air pump was actually theirs. The service number provided isn’t for customer refunds, it’s for getting the device fixed.

We’ll let you make the decision. Is this a Sunoco air pump? Do you see any Sunoco stickers on it? Oh, more than one? Thought so.