Bad User Experience is Costly
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I just got through with a very aggravating experience trying to book a rental car from Hertz.
I’m joining a few fellow Beechcraft Bonanza pilots in Florida in a few weeks to practice formation flying. Every year we practice taking off, flying, and landing in close formation, in preparation for our trip to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the annual AirVenture airshow. Over 100 Bonanzas meet up in Rockford, IL, just prior to the show, and we fly to AirVenture in formation so that we can camp together for the week. (Yes, we camp!)
So, I needed a car for this upcoming weekend flying adventure and I’m a Gold member at Hertz. I happened to get a flash deal in my e-mail, so I thought now’s as good a time as any to book. I clicked on the link, filled out the airport name and dates, then clicked on next where I was told to log in or proceed as guest.
I logged in. And all of the information I had just meticulously entered is now gone. Sigh. Ok, I re-enter all of the information and click “Next.” I just rolled over to a new credit card from my provider as the old one expired last month, so I was asked by Hertz to update my profile with the new card. I clicked on the link to edit my profile, updated my card, then went back to my reservation. Guess what…. Everything but the city name had been reset. Ok, re-enter everything, click “Next” and eureka, I have all of the right information. I choose a car, options, click next and there is an error again. “Arrival information missing”
But I don’t have an arrival. I’m not flying Delta. Maybe they have another option I can choose. (Why do I HAVE to choose in the first place?) There is no option for “not applicable”, and there are over 100+ airlines to choose from. (Interesting. Does “Air China” really fly into Lake City, Florida?) I tried “Cirrus Airlines” since I know Cirrus is an aircraft manufacturer and someone probably put that in there for private pilots to use. Nope. (I later found out there is indeed a Cirrus Airlines in Germany.)
I break down and pull up a chat with customer support. I have to enter all of my information, including my Gold card number and the reason why I’m contacting customer support in the little form to start a chat. Forget the fact that I’m logged in to my Gold account. Why can’t they pre-fill all of this information? It’s a full two minutes before I’m connected with an agent. What happens next is one of my biggest pet peeves, and not just Hertz. I read is “Hi, my name is , How can I help you today?” Ugh. Really? My response “Do I really need to type that whole question in again?” Silence for 30 seconds while she may or may not be reading the reason I typed in for the chat in the first place.
“So, you are flying in on a private plane?”
“Yes, and I can’t confirm my reservation since I don’t have a way to specify arrival information.”
Silence for 30 seconds.
“In the list of Airline or Train service, choose Private Plane Flights. Then enter your tail number and that should work.”
Huh, what do you know, sandwiched right there between Porter Airlines and Qantas Airways. I make the choice, then enter my ‘N-number’ and guess what. I evidently don’t know my own airplane’s call sign.
“Now it won’t take my n-number”
Silence.
I finally typed in “1” and it worked! Why, I will never know. I wrapped up my conversation with the chat agent and pleaded with her to have the technology team hire some usability experts, pronto.
My initial recommendation (with deferral to a true usability expert) would be to pull up the Private Plane option into a checkbox or something more obvious to the end-user. I mean, you are either flying in on the airlines, or your not! Why bury it like a needle in the haystack? If the local office uses FlightAware to track flights (commercial or private), then getting the end-user’s aircraft N-number would also be helpful.
The Problem as I see it:
It’s obvious to me that the development team is too close to the customer interface. It’s also obvious to me that the development team has no personal experience working in this environment. It’s not part of their culture. They don’t know any better. And why is Hertz skimping on Usability and regression testing before they release their software to the world?
Thoughts to keep in mind:
1) Development teams from other cultures do not have a clear understanding of the expectations of our culture. The reverse is also true. When utilizing an off-shore team, make sure a strong on-shore team member with business use case experience is providing direction to the team. When writing software for another culture, make sure you employ a strong subject matter expert from that culture.
2) It is very easy to get talked into using a less than ideal solution by programmers. They will say they can easily fix the problem by “adding to an existing drop-down box.” They don’t truly understand how the business user will interpret the interface. This is where a good usability expert comes in.
3) Test. Test. Test. These problems were obviously not tested before release to the general public. The software developers are using the general public as their test bed. This creates a bad experience with end-users. If they are not the types of end-users you want, then you should specifically exclude those segments you don’t want to serve. Otherwise, for companies like Hertz, most of their business is conducted online!
All of this leads to poor Net Promoter Scores, customers taking their business elsewhere, and ultimately less revenues and reduced company valuation. I sure wish Uber was serving Lake City, Florida.
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