A parable about service design

So I wrote this message and attached it to the support tickets for a product which broke.

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I write this in sympathy for the person who is trying to fix WD support & service and needs ammunition for making the argument that changes are necessary. I hope this serves you well. I invite you to contact me at miniver@gmail.com if you would like further help.

WD failed me at every turn, in the simplest imaginable customer service situation. The service reps did not fail me; every one of the many I have worked with in this misadventure has been professional, friendly, and eager to help. Your systems failed them, and thus failed me, in numerous ways.

Over two months ago, I bought a double hard drive from WD; one of the two drives failed in its first day of operation. I contacted Support, did as they directed. After numerous chats, emails, and phone calls I still do not have a working product.

You sold me a product which did not work. When a service rep hears this, they should say, “Golly, we are so sorry. I will have a replacement in your hands tomorrow. We will throw a shipping sticker in the box so you can put the broken thing in the box and ship it back to us.”

This was a choice WD made. You not empower the service reps to just do the right thing.

For the benefit of whatever numbskull will tell you that this reflects an extravagant level of service for a little ^$250 product, allow me to spell out the foolishness of penny pinching. When one goes to a restaurant, one cannot see into the kitchen; if one finds dirty silverware on the table, one suspects an unsanitary kitchen. Less responsive customer service and tech support suggests a lack of pride and diligence. I have no real ability to judge the quality of the hard drive itself, but I can see whether you strive to make the device which holds my precious data reliable enough that a bad one constitutes an emergency which you correct as swiftly and easily as possible. If you cannot afford to do this, it means that your drives break all the time. If you do treat it as an emergency and treat me well, it reflects a commitment to the product which would lead me to recommend your product.

Instead, I was told that first I must ship the broken drive back to you, then on receipt you would replace it.

This was a choice WD made. You did not empower the service reps to just do the right thing.

I asked whether to return the entire unit, or to pull the failed drive and only return that. The rep told me to return only the failed part. That would turn out to be the wrong advice. Following this incorrect advice would later present a significant problem.

This was a set of choices WD made. You did not empower the service reps to just do the right thing.

The rep gave me a URL linking to a widget for printing a shipping sticker … which asked whether I wanted to send it the fast expensive way or the slow inexpensive way. You expected me to pay for the cost of correcting your failure. Insulting.

This was a choice WD made. You did not empower the service rep to just do the right thing.

So I wasted my time and your money on a second conversation with a rep, explaining that I refused to pay for the shipping, for the obvious reasons. The rep apologized and said they could not give me a paid shipping label.

This was a choice WD made. You did not empower the service rep to just do the right thing.

The rep passed me along to another person. I had to wait to have that conversation, with no visibility into when it would happen.

This was a choice WD made. You did not empower the service rep to do the right thing.

So then I sent the drive back. And waited. And waited.

This was a choice WD made. You did not empower receiving to give me immediate confirmation.

Eventually the next phase in my adventure began. I was contacted and told that I would not simply receive a replacement drive because I should have sent the entire unit.

This was a choice WD made. You gave me the wrong instructions. And you did not empower your people to just correct for the failure on their end.

I then had a series of exchanges with various people on your service team: phone calls, chats, email messages. I encountered people who thought I had not returned the drive, people who thought I asked you to send the broken drive back to me, people who informed me again that I should have sent the entire unit. There are now four separate “service incidents” on your clumsy service website, making it to retrace my steps. (Reference numbers 200824-000594, 201024-000608, 201027-001294, and 201105-001104 if you care to dig.)

This was a choice WD made. You did not create systems which clarified my communication with service reps.

I repeatedly asked to have a replacement drive sent to me. Reps kept telling me that they could not do this.

This was a choice WD made. You did not empower the service reps to just do the right thing.

Eventually, I started yelling angrily at reps on phone calls. I confess that this was strategic, a ploy to get my problem addressed. But it was also easy, because I was angry.

This was a choice WD made. You did not empower the service reps to just do the right thing.

Finally, I had a call in which I managed to get myself passed to someone actually empowered to send me a working drive. The conversation required wrangling and stubbornness and yelling, because it started with the rep telling me that they could not correct my problem.

This was a choice WD made. You did not empower the service reps to just do the right thing.

At the time of this writing, I have been assured that both my broken drive and a working one are winging their way toward me. I have received a mailing label so that I can return the broken one to you, because you think you need it, so this belated completion of customer service comes with an additional chore which I must perform.

These are choices WD made. You did not empower the service reps to just do the right thing.

I am the kind of person who buys a little baby RAID array, is stubborn enough to get this sorted out, and is stubborn enough to write you this letter. How many people do you imagine that I will tell to never buy a product from WD?

I write this because service design is part of my profession, and I have sympathy for the person in your organization who I imagine must have lost countless fights trying enable your service organization to live up to their sacred duty to your customers, and who needs customer stories to tell. I wish them luck, because you have obviously made their job impossible so far.

These are choices WD made. You did not empower the service manager to just do the right thing.