Miles’ Blog » 2005 » November

Next Tuesday (6th Dec) evening, the web industry of Canberra are all grabbing a beer in the one pub. Thanks to organiser, Nathanael Boehm, the inaugural Port 80 meeting for Canberra sure looks like it’ll be a hit.

If you are in Canberra, please come along! The meeting is at:

The Library, King O’Malley’s
131 City Walk, Garema Place
Canberra City

…on Tuesday 6th December, starting at 6pm. Bring your colleagues, friends and random strangers - the more the merrier.

I’m very lucky to be going on behalf of the Port 80 committee, to do a quick intro to Port 80 and to show our support. I hope to see all of you there!

Photo: F-14 at Pearce RAAF Air Show, Nov 05.

Dear offshore call centre client,

I don’t mean to sound gruff, but outsourcing your important client and prospect contact work to a company who is based overseas, uses staff who don’t have a good understanding of the target market (and its language) and uses very laggy VOIP or dodgy international calls is just plain rude.

To me, you’re saying you don’t mind my inconvenience of having to pronounce myself three times, nor do you mind my waiting for long 4-6 second pauses between sentences. In fact, the argumentative tone taken by a few recent callers to my home, makes me think you want me to actively boycott your products and/or services.

Companies like yours (read: Optus, National Australia Bank, ANZ and Coles Myer, amongst others*) are showing us Australians how much you respect trying to provide jobs and local economy considerations when you are happy to oursource it to countries paying their staff a pittance compared to ours.

* List of companies found here.

I’m all for a global economy, and as a business owner, I appreciate the idea of profits, but there’s profit and then there’s profit at other peoples expense. To me, offshore call centres fit the latter and you are profiting at Australia’s expense.

Photo: Davis running through bubbles in our backyard.

Guess what I picked up on Wednesday? :)

I don’t know if the MP3 stereo, the heated seating, the electronic windows, the zippy little steering wheel or the flower in the vase is my favourite feature.

Three days of driving, and the brand new Beetle has to be washed, that’ll teach me for buying black. Now I am thinking how we’re going to ‘bamify’ it…anyone have suggestions?

Photo: My new Volkswagen Beetle.

You should start taking the ‘usability rules’ that we set ourselves when building websites, and apply them in an offline setting. I do, and I love it.

For example, a ‘hybrid online/offline’ challenge is our state gas supplier, Alinta Gas, who have this nifty contact page, which quickly guides you to the correct number for residential customers (13 13 58), business customers (13 13 58) and privacy department (13 13 58). Are you getting the theme here yet?

Anyway, the funniest part is when you call 13 13 58, and you get an IVR system which asks “Press 1 if you are a residential customer, press 2 if you are a business customer…”.

I’m thinking they either need separate numbers to distinguish business units, or have a big bold statement throughout their site saying “Call us on 13 13 58″.

Is it just me that thinks it’s strange?

Oh, and another quick offline usability issue is ordering the vegetarian burger on the menu at Fast Eddys, aptly called a ‘No Meat Burger’. Every time I order one I get asked ‘Would you like Bacon with that?’.

Go on, tell me your offline usability funnies…

Photo: Late afternoon verandah, Bassendean.