Commentary

Why Such a Long Wait?

On a recent visit to North Conway, New Hampshire, I walked into the area’s hottest restaurant, Bellini’s, at 8 o’clock on a Saturday night expecting to be seated for dinner. Silly me. Lacking a reservation, the hostess said, I was looking at a two-hour wait. Considering that North Conway has the population of, well, North Conway, I was a bit taken aback.
“Why such a long wait?” I asked.
“Because this restaurant is family owned and family run,” said the young lady. “And the Bellini family’s not that large.”

Disappointed, yet understanding the capacity constraint that old man Bellini had put on his restaurant, I left to find another place to eat dinner. It wasn’t Bellini’s, but it wasn’t bad.

[Segue]

Writing this I’m listening to Muzak coming from my speakerphone. Most of it is unrecognizable elevator music, but occasionally I can make out some movie themes. Goldfinger. Superman. Some martial music. And every once in a while a woman’s voice tells me, “All sales agents are assisting other customers. Please hold for the next available agent.”

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I have been on hold for one hour and fifteen minutes, and it’s my second attempt at ordering DSL service from UranusCan [name changed to protect the guilty]. On my first attempt, yesterday afternoon, I held for over two hours before having to leave my office for the evening. This morning I called bright and early and was treated to six hours of elevator music (this time the play list included the theme from Star Wars) before the connection died.

It is probable that, unlike Bellini’s, UranusCan is not a family owned and family run business. The capacity constraint, therefore, isn’t likely to be that they have run out of brothers and aunts and cousins to answer their phones. The constraint probably has more to do with the capability of whoever is in charge of the phone answering aspect of their business.

The ironic part of the story is that UranusCan’s marketing efforts to the consumer stress speed: Consider their recent ads on the Web:

“If you had UranusCan DSL this would load 50x faster.”
“Get a free printer and scanner when you sign up TODAY.”
“The faster way to the Net.”
“Serious speed. Serious savings.”

Now, I’m a committed buyer. Not only do I want DSL service, I’ve considered all my choices and I have picked UranusCan to be my provider. Only that I’m waiting by the phone, Visa card burning a hole in my hand, eager to get on with my purchase. I’m on the two-yard line, ball in hand, leaning toward the end zone, and I can’t get in.

With all this waiting time on my hands, I’m able to do some cipherin’: Let’s assume UranusCan has 200 telephone agents asking customers for their name, address, credit card, and whatever other information. Maybe they explain some subtleties about DSL. Could it take all of five minutes? That translates to 12 customers per hour per agent, or 2,400 customers per hour for the entire phone team. During my six hours on hold, 14,400 customers were served. At $600 per year, that’s $8,640,000 in annual sales--all in less than one business day!

Which brings up this question: Even with such lousy service, is UranusCan stock a buy? I mean, 2,400 customers per hour isn’t chickenfeed. Or chicken cacciatore, for that matter.

Almost totally frustrated, I called UranusCan once more, and this time got through to place my order. Now I’m wondering what’ll happen the first time I try calling customer service.

Electronic marketing still has a few bugs.

Perhaps Bellini had the right idea.

- Michael Kubin is co-CEO of Evaliant, formerly Leading Web Advertisers, one of the web's leading sources for online ad data. He may be reached at mkubin@evaliant.net.

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