Vote with your wallet...and your words...and your actions

It's been a while since I've posted. Life goes on. Or life used to go on. Now I am looking for any possible way to #resist what's happening in this country. In fact, it is hard to know where to start a post in today's atmosphere of threat, fear, insanity. Add your own words of horror and disbelief. But I started this blog because I believe in the political power of the purse, and I still do today. In fact exercising your economic power by voting with your wallet is more important now than ever before.

Voting with your wallet can often be as simple as crossing the street to shop at Y instead of X (while communicating with X to let them know why). Doing good with hardly any effort at all.

Voting with your wallet can sometimes result in a minor inconvenience: "I can do without this anyway," or "I don't buy that very often anyway." Feeling good about doing good by making an insignificant sacrifice (but don't forget the communication piece).

Now here's where the challenge gets a bit more real. Vote with your wallet and stop using one of your "absolute go-to" items or vendors. That's what I did today.  I'm no longer using Amazon. Why? Because they are advertising on Breitbart and other sites I consider unacceptable, hate-mongering, fake-news-purveying lie-spewers. Not only is this a significant inconvenience for me, but it also harms my favorite charity, since I use Smile.amazon and support Pawsitively Cats in the process. So I'll need to spend a bit of extra money when I make my annual donation to the kitties, in addition to having to find multiple places to purchase all that 'stuff.'

But hey - there is an upside as well. Since I no longer have the convenience of logging on to Amazon and finding pretty much everything, I'm making a commitment to try and re-source locally. Hoping to do some good for my community at the same time I make a statement for the condition of this poor, benighted country.

Oh yeah - don't forget the other important piece of voting with your wallet: Letting your vendor/customer know what you are doing and why. So here is the email I sent to Amazon this morning.

Although I am undoubtedly not your largest customer, you can see from my record that I am a regular Amazon shopper. No more...not until you stop advertising with hate-mongers like Breitbart. 
Mr. Bezos made an eloquent statement to his employees about diversity and inclusion. Now he needs to back it up by pulling his name from those who so obviously oppose those values.
I look forward to the time when I can return to doing business with Amazon, but until then I am your sad-to-go-ex-customer,

Stephanie Bader

Vote with your wallet!

Indiana learns about Vote With Your Wallet

Thank you Indiana for getting me off my fat behind to write a new post.

I'm sure all of you (at least all of you who read my blog) know by now that Indiana has passed...and the Gov. Pence has signed into law...the right to discriminate on religious grounds. It's called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. And while it doesn't specifically say "it's ok to not serve queers," it didn't take long for those who intend to use the law precisely as grounds to discriminate to start speaking out, as illustrated by the restaurant-owning caller to an Indiana radio show who was joyous in his new ability to post a sign saying, "Jesus says no gays allowed." It is obvious from this example that some portion of Indiana's bigots now feel free to act on the nastiness that lives inside their heads, and intend to use the law specifically to discriminate against members of the LGBT community. 

But wait, you say - there is a federal RFRA, and there are 30 states that have similar laws on the books. Yep, that's true. The federal law was designed to protect religious minorities. And in fact, in many cases the law has been used to protect those rights (in Minnesota it was invoked to allow the Amish community relief from having to adhere to automobile lighting on their buggies, and instead be able to use reflecting tape and kerosene lanterns). 

So why single out Indiana? 

• First of all, the sponsors of this law have indicated, and in at least one case explicitly stated, that they want to use the law to discriminate against the LGBT community. According to USA Today, "One of the law's primary sponsors, Republican state Sen. Scott Schneider, has touted the notion — which will be an issue for the court to settle — that Indiana's RFRA could exempt Christian businesses from having to provide wedding services to gay couples."  
• Second, in the face of massive outcry from individuals, businesses and non-profit organizations prior to the law's passage, stating explicitly that the law is viewed as anti-LGBT and that implementation would occasion significant backlash,  the nice folks in the Indiana legislature, and Pence, the sterling occupant of the Gov's office decided to pass it anyway. Now just to put that in context, last year when the state legihaters in Arizona passed a similar law, then Gov. Jan Brewer, who really can't be considered your basic liberal gay-friendly rational pol, vetoed the law because, as she said, "It could divide Arizona in ways we cannot even imagine, and no one would ever want."  I was amazed at the time, but even Jan, who has rarely let anything stand in the way of making a right turn on the political highway, realized that the state economy couldn't withstand what was bound to be a firestorm of backlash.
• Third, the language in Indiana's law is different, and it allows for discriminatory behavior. Unlike the federal version, it is written to apply not just to individuals, but also to closely-held corporations (think Hobby Lobby). In addition (this is my simplistic, non-legal understanding) the language allows it to be used as a defense in discrimination suits between private entities rather than only disputes between an individual and the government (the original intent of the original federal law). So what does that matter?  It means that in the few Indiana locales that actually have anti-discrimination laws on the books (which the state does not), the law can now be used as a defense for anybody (or anycorp) sued under those existing anti-discrimination statutes for discriminatory behavior. 

So I'm writing to celebrate. Wait, what?  I'm writing about a law passed to legalize hating us. Why should that be cause for any celebration? Look at the response. That's why I'm writing.  

No longer is formalized gay-hating a fringe issue, protested with hand-written signs only by those of us who are impacted. Real economics are being used to hit the haters where it hurts most - in the wallet. Salesforce.com cancelled all employee travel to the state. Angie's List, which is headquartered in Indianapolis, put on hold a $40 million and 1,000 employee expansion after Pence signed the slime into law. Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote a blistering editorial in the Washington Post. Even other governments are getting into the act. The governors of Connecticut and Washington, and the Seattle mayor have banned official travel to Indiana. 9 CEOs of major Indiana corporations (including corp giants Eli Lilly and Anthem) have sent a letter to Gov Pence stating that the law needs immediate changes. The NCAA really wishes the final four was being played elsewhere (NCAA President Emmert: "We are especially concerned about how this legislation could affect our student-athletes and employees").  Even religious organizations are backing away, for goodness sake - The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is looking at moving the convention it has scheduled for 2017 in Indianapolis!

And so "Vote With Your Wallet" takes on a whole new meaning when that wallet belongs to billion dollar corporations, national non-profit organizations, and state and municipal governments.  

Big wallets make big impacts. But so do small ones. So do your part. 

Vote with your wallet!

A couple of years ago, along with millions of other frustrated bank customers, I ditched my bank and moved to a credit union. I've been pretty happy with them up 'til I started setting up a trip to England which we intend to take next summer. At that point I bumped into the most provincial, 19th century process I've come across in a long time. Tucson Federal Credit Union does not appear to recognize the concept of international finance. Although I finally wrestled my transaction through using pure brute strength, it left me in need of providing feedback to the credit union. 

In keeping with my promise to blog on my ongoing customer service experiences, I give you the following missive which is being snail-mailed because...well...read the letter:

Tucson Federal Credit Union

Attn: Manager, Credit Card Fraud Dept.

PO Box 42435

Tucson, AZ 85733-2435

Dear Fraud Manager,

Your process is sadly in need of improvement.  In October I discovered, through a painful process of having transactions declined, the need to get pre-approval for a transaction outside the U.S.  Consequently, in anticipation of the need to pay for activities for an upcoming vacation in England next summer, I went into my local branch and had my card opened up for a $2,500 transaction to take place today (Friday December 12). 

•        Because of the time difference I called my English merchant at 6am this morning and gave them my credit card information (1^st contact).  I waited about an hour and checked my account online, and the available credit had not declined.
•         I called your contact center (1^st contact) and discovered that the merchant “fat-fingered” the expiration date with a “6” instead of a “5”, so the transaction was declined, and the ability to make the English transaction was terminated due to this failure. The agent with whom I spoke contacted your credit card folks, verified that this was not a fraudulent transaction and reopened the window to make the transaction. 
•          I called the merchant in England (2^nd contact)…credit card declined. 
•          Back to the call center (2^nd contact) to be told that it takes a little time to reopen the window for approval, but it should now be open.  Thanks – if I had known that on my first contact with your agent, I could have waited and saved my third call of the morning to England.
•          Once again I call England (3^rd contact). Tell them I will wait on hold while they process the information one more time.  Transaction clears…hooray!!

And so we’re done.  But wait.  I get home from running errands to be handed a phone message that I got an automated fraud message for the credit card. 

•          I call the fraud number and go through an automated process verifying my identification and then it starts asking me about transactions I made. 
•          It asks me did I make a transaction for $2471.xx?  Press one if you did. I press one. 
•          Then it asks did I make a transaction for $2471.xx?  Now I’m a little concerned – did this transaction process twice? But I press one.
•         Then it asks did I make a transaction for $2471.xx?  Now I’m really concerned – has this thing been processing every time we try and nobody knows? What the heck?  But if I say no, I may have to start the entire transaction process all over again, so I press one, and the automated system says: “Thank you. The hold on your account has now been lifted and you may continue using your card.” 

Wait a minute! Hold on the account?  Didn’t I go through multiple blankity-blank phone calls (not to mention the personal appearance with the original customer service rep at my branch that I thought would take care of the whole shootin’ match) to pre-approve and satisfy the fraud monster? Plus, at this point I don’t know what’s been processed, how many transactions – now I’m peeved.  So….

•          I call your call center (3rd contact). Your agent tells me that the fraud alert was triggered because of the size of the transaction, and this automatically put a hold on the account.  That being the case, help me understand why I went through an extremely long and annoying process to get this transaction set up, which included providing the amount of the transaction to you, so that there would not be any issues.

This activity has now cost me several hours of my time including (but not limited to), a personal visit to my local branch, 3 calls to England, 3 to your contact center, and my temper which I have lost completely.  TCFU and I appear to be complete idiots, and have no doubt perpetuated the ongoing mythology about provincial Americans and the wild, wild, west that is already pernicious across Europe.

At this point I have no faith in my ability to travel outside the US with this card. I am now actively looking for a Visa card that understands what century we are in, and is a bit more capable of managing my international travel without me spending the majority of my vacation on the phone with you trying to explain various transactions. Once I have another card – explain to me why I might want to keep yours.

And, oh by the way, what kind of an experience am I going to have with my TFCU debit card when I try and get cash in England or on the continent?  I moved to TFCU because I really don’t want to do business with banks, and I flat refuse to walk in the door of a money-center giant. But if this is the best I can expect in terms of lining up with my lifestyle, perhaps I need to start shopping for a local bank that can handle an occasional international sortie without locking down my financial life.

Yours in extreme frustration,

Stephanie Bader

Speak up - you never know what will happen

Having expanded this blog beyond the original specific economy of politics focus into the realm of why I (and perhaps you as well) might start or stop spending with a particular entity (thereby voting with your wallet), today I share a success story.  

I purchased tickets online recently (to a UofA Mount Lemmon SkyCenter evening - if you are in Tucson and haven't done this, run right out and sign up), and the transaction ran through a third party ticket sale application called Tix. I purchased 3 tickets, but when I went to print them I couldn't find a way to eliminate a page in between each one that printed only the Tix logo, and my 3 page print job therefore took 6 pages. Needless to say I found this annoying, and in the spirit of vocal activism decided to let Tix know about my experience.  I used their "contact us" link and sent them the following kind, gentle note:

Subject: Your print process is environmentally unfriendly and truly annoying

Dear Tix web people,

I purchased 3 tickets to an event today and could not find any way to print them in under 6 pages because you set up your system to print your logo all by itself on a separate page after each ticket.  So because you find your logo so enchanting that you need it not just on the header of the ticket page but also on a separate page in isolated splendor for each ticket, you wasted my paper, my toner (thereby also using twice the environmental resources necessary), and my patience.

If my next Tix experience still has the same annoying features, I will start sending notes to the underlying ticket issuers asking that they change to some other ticketing website and explaining why yours is nasty.

Thank you for your attention to the environment…and me.

Stephanie Bader

A week later I received the following reply:

Dear Stephanie Bader,

First of all, thank you for taking your time to bring this matter to our attention.  We do apologize for the inconvenience and wasting of resources.  Please do know, that Tix is very concerned about the environment.  We never intended for our logo to print on a separate page (regardless of how splendid it may be!) and that the extra page was due to a formatting issue.  This has now been corrected.

Thank you once again for your feedback.  Please let us know if you need any further assistance.

Tix Customer Service

The response was a satisfying positive for me on several levels. The first and most important being that by speaking up and pointing out a previously unidentified "undocumented feature" (Intuit in-joke) in the Tix printing process, I've struck a small blow for resource conservation. Second, all Tix customers going forward will have an improved experience. Third, in a world where the individual customer is all too often a speck of fly excrement on the map of corporate priorities - too small to even notice - this company took the time to read my complaint, understand the cause, fix it, and let me know - with an injection of humor included.

I am now a big fan of Tix. I don't know how I can promote their business, but I can publicize their good service. And should anyone in one of my entrepreneurship classes be setting up a business requiring ticketing, I will be sure to let them know about my positive opinion of Tix.

So take the time to speak up. You never know what will happen.  

Way to go Healthnet

I said I would post another blog entry if I got a response from Healthnet, and I did. I first got a form letter stating that my issue was in the hands of the "grievance process" which normally addresses coverage issues, and I figured that would be the end of it. I was prepared to be totally dissatisfied. But I'm not.

Yesterday I received a two-page letter in response.  I won't post it in its entirety  (it was a snail-mail response and I'm too damned lazy to re-enter or scan and manipulate), but they did a good job of reiterating each of the issues I raised and letting me what they are doing to address each one (i.e. feedback to the training dept. about rep's service skills, feedback to IVR group about the sub-optimal way they are using their technology and how they could improve, etc.). Whether or not their processes actually change is an open question, but at least I know that they care enough about me as a customer to address my issues individually and specifically. Way to go Healthnet.

Customer Support - some do...some don't

When I looked at the date of my last entry I was shocked at how long it's been since I posted to the blog. But I can't allow a piss-poor support experience to go unremarked, so I'm publishing the letter I have just sent to Health Net regarding my recent customer service experience, and I thought that since so many of my readers are in the support biz, you'd be interested in seeing what I had to say to the VP.  Should I receive a reply, I will post it here as well.  So here's the missive:

Ms. Juanell Hefner

Sr. VP of Customer & Technology Services

Health Net, Inc.

21650 Oxnard Street

Woodland Hills, CA 91367

Dear Ms. Hefner,

Yesterday I had the misfortune to call your contact center because I received an email indicating that your accounting department seems to have misplaced the payment made through my Health Net web portal for my April premium. The entire experience was a classic example of poor customer processes and poor service on any number of levels.  Having been director of customer support for a large, popular software offering, I am well aware of the challenges of providing phone support. I am also well aware of how policies, processes and people can either support or undermine your relationship with your customers, and yours are frankly awful. Specifically:

·         I was on hold for over 90 minutes. I head the same segment of a Mozart piano concerto several dozen times, interrupted at frequent intervals by a recording that assured me that “We know your time is valuable...” and “…we will be with you shortly.”

o   Even before I retired in 2009, IVR technology had wide-spread, affordable capabilities of informing customers how long the wait time is…to within a couple of minutes. Implementing this feature would have allowed me to make a sane choice to call back at another time.

o   I don’t know what your operational definition of “shortly” is, but 90 minutes is completely outside mine. And if you really think my time is valuable, may I please bill Health Net  at my current hourly consulting rate for my hold time?

o   Unless April 11 is your peak day of the year and you are purposely understaffing to  a specific volume peak, you really need to examine the system you are using to align staffing with arrival patterns. A 90 minute hold time in the middle of a normal month would have had my Sr. Operations Manager’s job on the line.

·         When I finally reached an agent…

o   First she did not apologize for the wait, although it was one of the first things I mentioned to her, and continued to mention throughout our conversation hoping for an acknowledgement and an apology. That’s basic customer service and it’s taught in agent training …or not (obviously).

o   Next I explained my issue and she tried to tell me that the fault was with my bank for failure to forward the payment I made through my bank’s website, and it would likely just take more time.  I explained to her a second time that I did not make the payment through the bank’s website but through Health Net’s, and frankly 10 business days should be more than adequate time to post a payment made with either method. She questioned my payment method yet again, at which point I logged into my bank account and read her the line showing an electronic funds transfer to Health Net on March 26, and into my Health Net account and read her the screen saying that I had made a payment on March 25.  She asked me for a confirmation number. But guess what?  The Health Net screen had no confirmation number on it, and no ability to link to any more detail.  These days every two-bit web interface I purchase from can provide a confirmation number and self-service tracking. As a technology executive you should be ashamed of a system so inadequate that customer activity disappears into the ether. You could save yourself a bunch of inbound phone volume by adding that feature.

o    When the agent finally understood the issue, her solution was to send an e-mail to “accounting” asking them to research the problem.  She informed me that if they could not find out what happened to my payment they would contact me, otherwise they would just reply to her letting her know that the issue was resolved. I requested that she then contact me either via phone or email to let me know that the issue had been resolved.  She told me she was unable to do either of those things, and recommended that I…wait for it…call back next week to find out whether you had found my payment.  Really?  Empower your agents to do so little that their only option is to suggest that I contribute to your inbound call volume issues? C’mon….

·         And then, of course there is the basic underlying issue – that your accounting system interface with your customer portal system is so crappity-dappity that you can lose an electronic funds transfer that was initiated through your own system. What’s up with that, anyway?

I purchased my insurance through the ACA website, and your offering, although it was obviously good enough to be my choice at the time, is now surfacing some basic flaws. I would be most interested to hear whether or not your organization cares enough about customers to keep them once you get them, as unless this experience is a total aberration I’ll be shopping for an alternative next year when open enrollment comes around.

Sincerely,

Stephanie Bader

We've Moved Our Money

Well, we did it. Today we ditched Wells Fargo.

On November 1 we opened the multiple accounts we need at one of the local credit unions here in Tucson. For the past two months we've been working through the hassle of getting checks, ATM cards, catching up with all the autopays and direct deposits and getting all the minutae moved from the old bank to the new credit union.  And today we identified the final stragglers as being moved, so we went down to our local Wells Fargo branch and closed all our accounts. Never being ones to leave quietly, we also sent a letter to the President and CEO of Wells Fargo to make our opinions known. Below is the text of our letter. 

Dear Mr Stumpf,

We, Cathy M. Hemler and Stephanie Bader, are moving all of our accounts to Tucson Federal Credit Union after years of being Wells Fargo customers. The folks at the Wells Fargo Bank Bear Canyon branch in Tucson have been unfailingly great and are most courteous and helpful. However, we have decided to quit doing business with banks that are too big to fail, and by depriving Wells Fargo of our funds we are hopefully contributing to a reduction which will bring banks back into the realm of failure as a consequence of ill-conceived business decisions where all other businesses must survive. 

We find Wells Fargo’s business practices abhorrent. We refuse to do business with a bank that defrauded their customers. As noted by the Federal Reserve Board: “Wells Fargo has agreed to pay an $85 million fine for allegedly steering customers who were potentially eligible for prime interest rate loans into more costly loans and for falsifying information on mortgage applications.  According to the Federal Reserve Board, the purpose was to make it appear that the borrowers qualified for loans when they would not have qualified based on their income.  The $85 million civil money penalty is the largest the Federal Reserve Board has assessed in a consumer-protection enforcement action," the Fed said in a prepared release. In addition to this and other national issues, Wells Fargo has directly taken advantage of the poor economic climate in Tucson. In yet another exhibition of ethically challenged behavior, according to the Arizona Daily Star (August 7, 2011), Wells Fargo is one of several large banks that is buying up struggling homeowners’ tax debt right here in our community.

Of course, Wells Fargo is not the only scoundrel, but not only did banks play perhaps the number one role in creating the 2008 economic disaster (in partnership with the stellar congresses who so kindly removed all those pesky regulations), and take huge amounts of our money in bailouts (how come 99% of the population isn’t considered a group that is “too big to fail”?), they are now sitting on the piles of money they received from us and not lending it to the businesses and individuals in need.

So we thought, “What’s a poor consumer to do?”  We answered ourselves, “Stop doing business with the banks.”   We thought, if only one or two of us do this, we will certainly feel better about ourselves and how we interact with the world. But if many of us do this we make a statement that can be heard outside of our own four walls. In the immortal words of Arlo Guthrie: “…And friends they may think it's a movement.” And therefore, we’re posting to all our Facebook friends and family to share this idea, as well as adding this letter as the latest entry to our blog.

Moving our money is a big deal to us. We have been with this bank for a long time. We ended up with Wells Fargo because Southwest Savings, where we started sometime in the ‘80s, was bought out by a small bank, which was bought by a regional, which was bought by Wells Fargo, which is part of the problem with banks, because of deregulation they are no longer minding their own business.   Although it's a big deal to us, now is the time for us to make the move, and yell long and loud about why.

So we have opened our new credit union accounts, and today we are closing the Wells Fargo accounts and becoming bank-free.  At this point there is nothing that will change our minds, but an apology to the American people for all the damage the banks and all their Wall Street financial industry friends have done to “We the People” would not be remiss.

  

Sincerely,

  

Cathy M. Hemler & Stephanie Bader

Vote with your wallet, and Happy New Year!

Steph