Foxtel’s Online Consumer Failings
1 March 2009 No Comment
You may have seen in the midst of an economic meltdown, Foxtel recorded a 19% rise in profit for the first half of the year. However, their CEO Kim Williams remains cautious and says Foxtel needs to stay on its toes to continue this growth. He says:
“Naturally, the global crisis is having a big impact on consumer confidence, and consumer uncertainty translates into consumer indecision. The challenge for us is to speak to subscribers openly about what their concerns are.”
He goes on to say that Foxtel was putting “a lot of effort into customer attention”, given the confronting outlook.
My advice for Mr Williams is to start at the website. Immediately. It is one of the least consumer friendly and most frustrating websites I have ever coming across. This was the process:
1. Logging in. You can’t log in for the first time even if you have all your Foxtel details and your dogs vetinary records on hand. As it wasn’t an urgent issue and I did not want to wait on the phone for a lengthy period, I searched for an email address or feedback form to clarify the problem.
2. Searching. Try and find the ‘contact us’ page on the site. It’s bloody hard. It is not in the main drop down tabs where most of the information can be found. You have to click through to ‘about us’ section with no guarantee of finding anything or head to the base of the homepage to find it in small, light grey font (just near to ‘piracy’ if you this is also important to you).
3. ‘Contact Us’. There are four options on the ‘contact us’ page. The first is for new customers, second is for upgrading customers, the third links to a PDF user guide and it’s not until the fourth that Foxtel ‘welcomes your feedback’. When you click through to this feedback there’s no form but a list of requirements a consumer must go through to talk to a consumer advocate.
4. Consumer Advocate. Oh lovely, there’s a picture of a corporate man who is the consumer advocate. After reading about Alan and his job role I can click through to send him an email.
5. Feedback form. This is what the feedback form looks like:
In the (approximate) words of Derek Zoolander – “What is this? A message box for ants? How can we be expected to give feedback to Foxtel… if we can’t even type inside the space?”
6. Submit form. Fill out all your details and your miniature message, press submit and get this…
So, the most direct way to send off feedback about my problem is by wading through 13 options and 5 click-throughs to submit a miniature form that can not be found. And this is Foxtel putting “a lot of effort into customer attention”.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a personal grudge. If you come out with feel good statements like the one above I expect you to meet them. The whole experience felt like a drawn out cordial conversation in order to avoid the big issue which is the purpose of the interaction. It definitely wasn’t an open and attentive conversation.
Surely with a half year profit of $196m they can afford, say… an email address on the home page?
Related posts:
AER Head
caz vize
Daniel Oyston
I Nevitable
James Duthie
Leave your response!