Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

TripIt's Questionable Billing Practices Tarnish Travel App

I've been a big fan of TripIt for years, logging more than 292,000 miles of trips through the travel service that organizes travel plans into useful itineraries easily accessible via mobile devices. My enthusiasm for them was greatly diminished though recently due to their billing practices and clear lack of understanding why what they're doing is wrong.

Some time ago, I received a free trial of TripIt Pro which activates many of TripIt's bonus features like real-time flight status alerts (which often proved to be inaccurate, and less reliable than far cheaper programs like FlightTrack Pro) and updates on when flight fares drop and you can receive refunds (the one time TripIt kept alerting me to refunds was for the wrong flight, so it didn't apply to me).

A friend and colleague received the free trial at the same time, and alerted me several weeks ago that he was billed for the service once the trial ran out. He received no notice from TripIt, and only discovered it through Mint, which was tracking his finances. I find it problematic when Mint brings up fees like this. Mint had alerted me to some suspect fees from Citibank, and I was able to call the bank and get the fees waived given that the bank never alerted me to them. Citibank's customer service was far better than TripIt's, which I contacted once I discovered TripIt had charged me $49 in February 2011. Note that TripIt never sent me an alert that I would be billed or that I was billed. It was there for me to check on my own when going through my account on TripIt.

For those who use TripIt, you know you get A LOT of alerts from them. They're always telling you about upcoming trips, who's in your area, and why you should upgrade. They have no problem sending lots of messages to users. The only reason that I can fathom that they wouldn't alert people that they have been billed is dishonesty. They have yet to offer any other plausible reason for this.

I tweeted them on January 6 about the error and got no response.

I also posted on Facebook on January 9:

Warning to Tripit Pro users: Tripit will not inform you when your account is up for renewal and thus when you will be charged. When you discover you've been charged and ask for a refund, they will not give it to you. These are completely dishonest billing practices, and I highly advise against signing up for TripIt until things change.

Another user commented that I should contact the credit card company for a refund. I responded:

This is a bigger deal than asking for refunds. My problem is that TripIt does not notify users when you'll be charged or when you were charged. Either TripIt wasn't aware of this and should change it, or it's doing this intentionally. With all the notifications TRipIt sends users, this would be a logical one for them to include.

TripIt responded with a generic message:

We’re always willing to review a policy or procedure based on user feedback and this post has been passed on to management. Please note that billing information, including next billing date and amount, are available to all users at anytime in the Billing Information area of their profile...

I responded in turn:

I'm glad it's been passed on to management. I've received a lot of communication from TripIt but none even suggesting that it would be in customers' best interests to notify them when they will be charged. This is tone deaf customer service, and it's why I canceled my premium account and am exploring alternatives to TripIt's free services.

TripIt still never addressed the issue beyond 'passing the post on to management.'

TripIt clearly doesn't get the benefit of alerting users to charges, nor do they bother explaning why they don't alert people. Further proof comes from TripIt's Catina, who responded to a separate email I sent through their site:

Thanks for contacting us. Reviewing your TripIt Pro account based on your email address XXX, we see that you were billed on 2/11/11 for $49 transaction id is XXX . Your next scheduled renewal is 2/12/12. If you feel you were billed after that date, it could be that you have another account with a different email address that's not associated to XXX. We can only pull account information by an email address. At the time of sign up you entered your credit card information and agreed to the terms of service (which stated that if you did not cancel prior to the conclusion of the trail period that your membership would continue and your card would be charged).

You can view your transaction history and print receipts for each transaction, on our web site (www.tripit.com), in the 'Your purchase history' section of the billing history page of your TripIt account. To access this area (after signing in) go to User Name > Settings > Billing info (you can find a direct link in our help page item: http://help.tripit.com/entries/393497)

To avoid the auto renewal, you can cancel your TripIt Pro subscription and keep your Pro benefits for the full term paid please see the instructions in our help page on this topic: http://help.tripit.com/entries/89464. If you wish to close your account, sign in to TripIt and click on your user name and then Settings > Close Account (http://www.tripit.com/account/delete). Be sure to select the 'do not contact' option if you don't want to receive any TripIt initiated emails in the future. Please note, if you are a paid TripIt Pro member and cancel your TripIt account no refunds will be provided.

So in other words, it's the "terms of service defense." But that still doesn't answer why they were charging users without alerting them. I explained this to them, and Catina said, "You stated, 'I was billed twice.'" I never said that, so the next exchange was all about clarifying something that Catina invented.

It was then that I posted on Facebook and got another form response from TripIt:

We saw your Facebook posting and wanted to inform you, your transaction history can be viewed on our web site (www.tripit.com), in the 'Your purchase history' section of the billing history page of your TripIt account. To access this area (after signing in) go to User Name > Settings > Billing info (you can find a direct link in our help page item: http://help.tripit.com/entries/393497)

I responded to Catina:

That still doesn't help as you never notified me a payment was due or then
processed. I will continue to post this on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere
until you change your policy. A refund is still requested as well. If you
were being charged for a service, wouldn't you want to know about it? I'd
actually be fine forgoing my refund if you change your policy.

Catina never responded, nor did anyone else from TripIt through this line.

I did take one more measure. I know someone who works with TripIt, so I reached out to her partially to let her know that I was going to raise the issue further, and partially to see if I'd get any better a response. She responded:

I checked with our team, and the intention behind auto-renewal is to prevent travelers from having a service lapse in the middle of traveling. The last thing we'd want to happen is for a traveler not be alerted that their plane is early/late (for example), when they're expecting to hear from us. However, we do provide a 2-week grace period following the charge, so cancellations can be made during that time.

Please know that your voice has been heard, and we're taking into consideration the suggestions you've made.

Again, my voice has been heard. Management received my request. Great. I responded to her:

My problem isn’t the auto-renewal at all. I understand that makes sense for some services.

Can you explain why they wouldn’t notify users that their auto-renewal is coming up, and that their auto-renewal was just processed? How does one even know when the grace period is if they’re never notified?

I heard nothing more from her or anyone at TripIt.

For a service built on notifications, and one that I thought was designed with the consumer in mind, I have been seeking alternatives. FlightTrack Pro, as mentioned, works well for notifications with a one-time $10 charge. Kayak's My Trips further organizes trips in a similar way that TripIt does and is proving to work well.

I'd like to keep using TripIt but can't if this is how they treat their users. Fortunately the alternatives keep getting better.

How The North Face's Customer Service Ensures Happy Faced Shoppers

I haven't posted much about customer service in awhile, but The North Face's service has been so repeatedly astounding that I've got to spread the word.

Full disclosure: The North Face is not nor has ever been a client anywhere I've worked (to my knowledge), nor have they resorted to any form of blogger outreach or influencer marketing to this blogger in particular. They have, however, taught me a few things that are worth sharing. Here's why The North Face is as good as it gets:

1) After a couple years of traveling around with a North Face backpack that I bought from eBags due to its great reviews, the zipper on the main pocket started getting stuck, and in time it got so bad that I couldn't use it. I figured I'd check to see if they could fix it. I wrote them through their website, "I have a North Face Surge backpack and one of the zippers is now busted. Can I get this fixed at a North Face store or do I have to send in the backpack? I have a store near me (the SoHo store in Manhattan) and can return it in person. I purchased the bag March 2009 via eBags. Thanks. - David". I sent this late on Saturday and by the time I woke up Monday, I got a response via email.

2) The North Face first shocked me with the response: "Thank you for contacting The North Face. We're sorry to hear that one of the zippers has broken on your Surge backpack.  Our bags have a lifetime warranty, and we will repair that zipper for you free of charge.  Please fill out the warranty return form and send the pack to the address at the top of the form.  The Soho store can also send this on your behalf." I had no clue about this warranty when I ordered the bag. Guess which bags I'll be ordering in the future?

3) I stopped by the store and they quickly processed the bag, giving me an easy way to track it.

4) A couple weeks later, I was surprised to get a FedEx from them. It turns out that The North Face wanted to replace my bag, but the exact item wasn't available. Instead of sending me the next best thing, they sent a gift card for the value of the equivalent new backpack - over $100 (and about the price I paid for it in March 2009). The card was redeemable in-store or online. Remember, this was all for something that broke after a lot of normal wear and tear, probably due to my own fault, and I was expecting to pay to fix it in the first place. (See the image below. The big red icon is the envelope for the gift card.)

 
5) I went to shop the North Face site. I appreciated how it tapped into Facebook so I can see products that were especially 'liked.' This isn't anything that special, but not enough retailers are doing this. I liked a product I planned on buying and it instantly showed up on Facebook.

6) I saw some weird size on a ski mask I was checking out - LXL. Fortunately, they had live chat late on Sunday night and explained it was extra long, which is great for a big headed guy like me.

Soon enough, I'll have my ninja balaclava and Etip windstopper gloves. Thanks Jessica, Judy, Amanda, and everyone else at The North Face who helped along the way.

 

 

Surprising Consumer Relations via a Zanzibari Sugar Packet

When I was in Zanzibar in February, I noticed that a packet of sugar had an email address on it. The sugar was from Zanzibar Tea Packers and also had a postal address and phone number. At the time, I wondered what the purpose was, and what would happen if one emailed them. As I was going through my miscellany that I collected during the trip, I decided to find out and was pleasantly surprised to receive a response.

On Saturday, May 14, I wrote them:

Dear Zanzibar Tea Packers,

I was in Zanzibar and had your sugar. It was delicious.

Thanks,

David

Here's the note I just received back this morning (Wednesday, May 18). 

Dear Sir,

Thank you very much for your compliments.

Hope you enjoyed your stay in Zanzibar.

Feel free to pay us a visit next time you are in Zanzibar, so you can see our full range of products.

Thanks and regards,

Mary.

Very sweet.

The Must-Read Report on Social Customer Relationship Management

I just heard from Jeremiah Owyang, the Web Strategist blogger at Altimeter Group, that he's got a new report out on social CRM which he wrote with R "Ray" Wang. This is more of a preview than a review because while I had a bit of time to read it, I have not gone through it in depth.

I can say that helping marketers with social CRM is an increasingly important part of my job at 360i, and I know a lot of my colleagues will appreciate Altimeter's take on it. I'm sure I'll have more to say about it soon, but it's good enough that I am excited to read it, so that alone makes it worth sharing here. And the report's totally free on Slideshare, embedded below. You can also find the charts and images on Flickr.

Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management

View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang.

In Search of Your Booker Moment

Cory Booker image by Getty Images via Daylife

Have you shoveled any of your consumers' driveways lately? Just about everyone but Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker can put their hands down.

Booker, a savvy enough marketer that he can get some positive ink for Newark, is not a bad role model for marketers. As Mashable reported yesterday, New Jersey radio show host Ravie Rave (with all of about 250 followers) tweeted that her 65-year-old father needed help shoveling snow, and Booker promptly responded. Booker asked where her dad lived and then tweeted, "Please @BigSixxRaven don't worry bout ur dad. Just talked 2 him & I'll get 2 his Driveway by noon. I've got salt, shovels & great volunteers." The story went on to make headlines on CNN and elsewhere.

Newark's mayor has engaged in bigger publicity stunts than that, but this is one that may well stick around as part of his brand. It's the kind of thing people will remember - he's the mayor who showed up with a shovel when someone's dad was snowed in. Even before this made headlines, he already had over a million followers to witness his conversation with Rave.

What Booker instinctively grasps is that in social media, people need to know what's in it for them. That may seem obvious, but it's not true of all forms of media. When you see an ad on television, do you really care if the marketer's doing anything for you, or do you just happen to pay closer attention if the ad's really funny or relevant? When you see an ad in a magazine for tomato sauce or over-the-counter medication, do you care if there's something in it for you, or do you just turn the page? Social media has a higher threshold to cross, and to break through, that value proposition has to be abundantly clear.

When a marketer hits a homerun like Booker did, it can become part of the brand's mythology. A number of brands have had these ‘Booker moments' with social media:

·  Comcast, once symbolized by the technician who fell asleep on a customer's couch, became known among Twitter users and others as a company redefining how customer service works through social media.

·  When Coca-Cola got started on Facebook, it built on the work done by super-fans Dusty and Michael who organically created a presence for the brand, setting the ultimate example of a brand working with consumers rather than fighting them for control.

·  Jeep was one of the first marketers to harness Flickr, and it still does, making fan photos a centerpiece of its community.

These aren't all exact moments, but they're key milestones in how brands have changed the way they relate to consumers. For large brands, from Coke to Cory Booker, this becomes part of the brand lore. For smaller brands, like FreshBooks or New York's Roger Smith Hotel, social media helps define the brand entirely. In each scenario, these brands are thinking about game changing ways to make an impact by providing value for their target audiences.

Brands can fall into a trap doing this if they're not careful. If the value proposition lives and dies by giving away free stuff through social media to boost reach or add bodies mailing lists, then the brand just triggers a Pavlovian response where consumers are trained to expect handouts. But when the value is part of something, part of a brand identity and mission, then it starts to matter. When Dell started blogging after a period where consumers felt neglected and its brand was hurting, many wondered if it was really coming around. But when Dell started IdeaStorm to solicit customer feedback and act on it, this became a signal of Dell's revival and part of its identity.

Marketers should look for Booker moments as opportunities. At times it might feel like a ploy, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It reminds me of a passage I recently came across, oddly enough, in Robert Wright's The Evolution of God where he discusses how tolerance of others developed in Western religion: "What starts as a tactical ploy... can for various reasons evolve into a truer, more philosophical appreciation of tolerance... Having a pragmatic, selfish reason to coexist with people can be (even if it isn't) the first step toward thinking about them in a nonselfish way." For our purposes, selfishly trying to meaningfully connect with and provide value for consumers can make such relationship building a cornerstone of how brands operate.

That's why I'm not too concerned over how calculating or sincere Booker was when he shoveled that driveway. If appreciates what he did, he will seek to build on it, and either way he can still inspire others.

Related articles by Zemanta

• If You Tweet, He Will Come: Mayor Cory Booker Shovels Snow for a NJ Resident (mashable.com)
• Cory Booker Is The Best Mayor (buzzfeed.com)
• Mayor Shovels Snow For Elderly Resident (eyeonannapolis.net)
• Newark Mayor Cory Booker bans Conan O'Brien from airport (inquisitr.com)

20 Reasons the Luxor Sucks

Instead of a lengthy introduction, scan the slides, which should speak for themselves. I'll share more in a postscript.

20 Reasons The Luxor Sucks

View more presentations from David Berkowitz. (tags: travel hotel)

Opt-Out Hell as Microsoft Loses Momentum

This is a true story.

The mission: unsubscribe from a newsletter

How it should work: one click and you're off the list

How it really worked: try to unsubscribe... which requires signing in... but then I can't remember the ID so I try recovering it, but that doesn't work, so I have a lengthy exchange with one customer service team... who refers me to another customer service team... who then deals with a third team that's finally able to remove me from the list

The good news: I'm no longer a subscription to Microsoft Momentum, a newsletter I've tried to get off before but never tried so aggressively to do. And Microsoft customer support was very responsive, even if it often took a few emails for them to get what I was talking about. 

The bad news: other users will have to go through this very exercise.

Below I'm including the text of the exchanges. There's a lot here, all in the extended entry. You can click to

LinkedIn Connects

My questions for LinkedIn have all been answered, but it's worth taking a moment to appreciate how LinkedIn went about it:

* I received three emails from someone in customer service, the first two from a standard customer service address, and the third from his own email. While he could have been a little more gracious and understanding, he did come around and explain what was going on.

* Then I received an email from LinkedIn's Community Evangelist Mario Sundar, who I had met previously but who got in touch with me only from reading my blog and Twitter feed (which, right now, mainly publishes links to my blog since I'm still not sure how I want to use Twitter). He wrote me on his own, and then commented on this blog, and he also introduced me to someone who heads up LinkedIn's customer service team.

* At the end of the workday Tuesday, I received a surprising call from the customer service chief who called to make sure everything was alright, and she admitted LinkedIn could update the verbiage on the site.

Throughout it all, some comments on the blog and one from a friend via IM helped add more color to my questions and then raise another question.

I've been writing letters to companies literally since I was old enough to write, and they were either one-sided or a very flat exchange (I write once, they write back once, case closed). This is something much more interactive, or Web-like if you will. It really is breaking down the barriers between companies and customers; it's really feeling more like people dealing with people.

LinkedIn Links to Recent Contacts and Redefines "Recent" in the Process

On Friday, I wondered what happened to a favorite LinkedIn feature for viewing recent users. I received two subsequent emails from customer service, only to find out I was wrong about the feature because of LinkedIn's questionable grammar. The semantic web's a long way off if we can't master our native languages' semantics first.

Here's the first of the two responses:

I do apologize for not being familiar with this feature. I did some research and no one that I talked to was familiar with this feature either. So, I have escalated this to a higher level for you. I am sure we will get to the bottom of this for you. Thank you for being a valued Linkedin Member.

While I didn't feel that valued, I received one more email that answered enough of my questions for the time being:

I found the answer to your dilemma. The old “Other Contacts” browser (which is still available for users who don’t have Javascript enabled) allowed you to “view recent users first”.  It displayed the LinkedIn members in your “Other Contacts” sorted by when they joined LinkedIn, not when they last logged on. To get to the old contacts browser without actually disabling Javascript on your browser, you can use this link:  http://www.linkedin.com/otherContactsNojs

The specific view you’re talking about is this: http://www.linkedin.com/otherContactsNojs?membersOnly=membersOnly&context=2&sortAction=mid&reset=reset 

I hope this helps. I do apologize for not being familiar with this right away. For the confusion I have given you 5 InMails to use. They do expire in 90 days so don’t let them go to waste. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

This gets into the semantic confusion. The entire time, I thought "recent users" meant "people who used LinkedIn recently." Yet LinkedIn actually meant "newest users," which is still helpful, but nowhere nearly as useful for me. If my contacts were on LinkedIn recently, as I thought LinkedIn implied, then it meant I was reaching out to someone already recently engaged with the site. Yet these were the newest contacts, so I was performing a different service instead, often becoming one of the first people to connect with them and helping them build their networks.

The end result is the same, and I still like being able to sort by newest contacts as one more way to slice and dice the list rather than just alphabetically. I'd love for LinkedIn to amend its privacy policy and allow sorting by recent users additionally, but I'd imagine given the frequency to which LinkedIn is used as a job hunting site, the backlash would be greater than the appreciation by a few of its power users. Granted, if people are actively job hunting, they're probably suddenly ramping up connections, especially to recruiters, and that will in turn be displayed to others in that person's network. It's hard to take advantage of a site like that and use it in complete stealth; a much better practice is to use it consistently, whether that's daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on your role, profession, and temperament for networking.

Two postscripts:

1) A blog reader wondered if LinkedIn still has the feature where you can view who's viewed your profile (at least in some vague sense, such as a location or employer) and how many times your profile came up in search results. I saw it about a week ago but don't see it anymore. Do you still see it? I've also asked my new best friend in customer service for more dirt.

2) If we have met or been in contact to some degree, I welcome connecting.

 

 

LinkedIn: The Customer is Delusional

It's fun being called delusional by customer service. Today, LinkedIn is trying to make me feel like I'm in that Jodie Foster movie Flightplan where she claims her daughter was kidnapped while on an airplane and everyone else thinks she's nuts. The movie wasn't supposed to be very good (it scored 38% on the Tomatometer), and I'm not sure this blog post will be any better, but I can at least empathize with Foster's character based on the previews.

Several days ago I sent LinkedIn this message:

What happened to the feature under My Contacts/Other Contacts where you can sort contacts based on if they've been on LinkedIn recently? This is very helpful, as I have thousands of contacts, and it's important to be able to prioritize recent users. I'd invite many more contacts to my network if you reinstated this feature.

Here's the response I received back:

Hi David,

Thank you for contacting Linkedin Customer Support. The function that your speaking of has never been a feature on Linkedin. It would be against our own privacy agreement. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact us. Thank you for using Linkedin.

Thanks,

[Name omitted]
Customer Support Representative

So, either LinkedIn's customer is delusional (I guess I'm more of a user than a customer since I don't buy anything from them), or their customer service rep - one with 450+ contacts, no less - isn't familiar with his own site. Better yet, the outcome may be that they have customer service personnel who don't know their own company (and, come on, there aren't THAT many features on LinkedIn), AND they may have been violating their own privacy policy for many months, if not a couple years.

Have you ever used that feature I so miss (that perhaps violated others' privacy)? I'll be happy to share your feedback with my new friends in their customer service group.