I don’t know how many times I’ve sent an email to the Customer Service of an online retailer or service provider and received a templated customer service email response that does not answer my question.

Just today I emailed a major general merchant about an item I purchased that arrived damaged. I informed them of the damage and asked if they could send a replacement immediately (before receiving my return) because I need the item for a date-sensitive reason. Of course, they replied with their return policy and no answer to my question at all.

Now, I realize that the templating of emails saves a ton of money in regards to costs, but someone should be reviewing these emails before they are sent out to ensure that the templated reply answers the question. If it does not, it wastes time for both the customer and the company (having to answer yet another email when I reply with the same question) and wastes money for the company. Surely, it would cost less to answer the question correctly the first time.

It makes me not even want to use email as a method to deal with CS, which is a real shame because it is much more convenient than using the phone.

I saw a magazine ad for HP’s new touch-screen computer the other day, and it got me wondering how soon we’ll start to see these types of PCs in every home (or, perhaps every home for people who read this blog and are probably early adopters to some extent).

Do you think you will want one soon? I’d like one in my car.

I came across this page on bukowski.net, a site dedicated to the work of Charles Bukowski. The developers use the javascript “history.back()” function on the “Return” link, but because I hadn’t come from the index page, this did not take me there (it should take you back here).

Do you consider user paths from external links when you test your site?

Why do online newspapers and other publications insist on breaking up their articles into multiple pages? Is it some relic of the old dial-up days? A way to generate more ad revenue (via more impressions)?

Either way, it is very annoying from a reader’s perspective. At the very least, they should offer the ability to view the entire article (though it is often available that way by using the “print” button).

Check out how this Boston Herald article breaks up the two “pages” — what a waste!

(BTW, if you’re interested in the hilarious incident described in the article, video is here.)

I used a second-hand, first-generation iPod for some time, then upgraded to the sleek, think video iPod a little over a year ago.

Although the new one is better in many ways, most notably being far thinner and lighter, I’ve always preferred the old “click” wheel over the newer smooth scrolling wheel.

• Although the new “smooth” wheel makes the click-wheel seem klunky, the physical feedback that the clicks gave me made it far easier to scroll to the correct selection. With the new wheel, I commonly go too far with my scrolling and end up with the wrong selection.
• In the winter, when I was wearing gloves, I was unable to use the smooth wheel; I never had this problem with the original. This might seem to be a minor issue, but for me it was major as I typically use my iPod in the car, and during the winter I commonly wore gloves in the car.

Everyone seems to love the iPod design — am I the only one who has gripes? Post thoughts below.

I received an email the other day announcing the redesign of bloomingdales.com, so I figured I would give the new site a little review.

Did you ever notice how big some liquid laundry detergent bottles are getting? I’m all for buying stuff like that in bulk to save cash, but if I can barely carry the container, I think I’ll pay a few extra cents for the smaller size.

What other examples of this phenomenon can you think of?

I’ve been a Wachovia checking customer (before that First Union) for about 10 years, and I’ve always been content with it. I never had anything great to say, but there were a lot of ATMs available, some decent online features, and in general it met my checking account needs.

Recently, however, I’ve had a number of poor CS-related experiences and am in the process of looking for another bank. I do 100% of my banking online and at ATMs, so I am looking for the bank with the best (and cheapest) online features, as well as a competitive fee policy for ATM use.

If you are an online banker like me and think you have a good provider, post a comment below. I’m considering major banks like Commerce and PNC as well as online-only banks like ING. Any suggestions are welcome!

In Jakob Nielsen’s recent Alertbox, he talks about how annoying it can be to have to select something (in this case, state) from a dropdown menu while moving through a form. I agree — it forces the user to stop what they are doing and focus on the finicky dropdown menu. Personally, I like to tab through the fields, and, although it is possible to get through the dropdown without picking up the mouse, I often find myself having to do so to correct an error.

I do, however, think that Jake is being short-sighted with his recommendation to offer a text box that asks users to enter the two-digit state code instead. With all the advances we’ve made in AJAXy auto-fill form technology, why not use something similar to the USAIR airport code field generator that I mentioned back in August? There are only so 50 states, so a simple table of all the possible entries would be somewhat easy to build, and this way the user has instant confirmation that they are typing the correct state.

The auto-fill would be even more effective if it provided the entire state name; the one thing Jake fails to mention is the fact that users probably don’t know every state code (if, say, they are mailing something to a friend or family member elsewhere). It would be rather easy for someone to think MA was the state abbreviation for Maine, for example, if they were from New Mexico and didn’t think of Massachusetts (especially with the pathetic state of geography knowledge in this country).

I used to think it was a great idea to force the cursor into the Search field upon page load, but with the advent of the Firefox search toolbar (or Google Toolbar in IE), I more commonly encounter situations where this annoys me.

For a site like Google, where searching is the only option, this still makes sense. Does it for sites that aren’t totally search-based?

I got a letter in the mail today from the IRS encouraging me to e-file my taxes. Although it would be easier to e-file, I have steadfastly refused to do this over the past few years because they charge for this service. Why should I pay to make their lives easier? (Surely it is a cost savings for them when people e-file.)

But wait! Myth number one about e-file, according to this letter, is that 96 million taxpayers are eligible to use this service for free. Wait again! What about the other 200 million?

This reminds me of the Ticketmaster “TicketFast” program, where they charge you $1.50 to print your tickets immediately, but don’t charge at all to mail them to you. How is it better for Ticketmaster to mail the tickets? They have to be printed out, put in an envelope and mailed. The other way, they don’t have to do anything.

Instead of trying to convince me to spend money to save them some, shouldn’t the government be improving their service? How about creating a TaxCut / TurboTax clone and putting it on the IRS site and allowing people to use it for free? I don’t know much about the IRS, but it seems like this would be the best way to get tax information in a standardized format that would really cut costs.

I have to wonder if Chevy knows that everyone hates their “This is our Country” ads and continues to run them because there is no such thing as bad publicity, or if they really don’t know how poorly received they are.