2008 May 31 — HighTechDad HighTechDad

It seems to me that Apple rushed out the 10.5.3 operating system update. And that really pissed me off. Not because of the fact that they are releasing updates to fix bugs or security holes or pre systems for up-coming announcements…that stuff I like. What I don’t like is if these fixes and enhancements are rushed out the door without good Quality Assurance testing. This latest release seems to be a prime example.

My experience was simple. I got notified of the update, I installed it, my system rebooted and I logged back in and I went to work. When I came home, the system was frozen. So I did a hard restart (holding button down for 5+ seconds to shut down and then restarted). After that, my nightmare began. The system would reboot, and then start in an endless cycle of slightly changing screens like it was trying to draw the Login Window but never getting to it and then trying again and again in an endless loop. What the heck!

So, I tried the fcsk fix through Single User mode. I tried disk and permission repair using a TechTools drive partition. I deleted some .plist files. I deleted control panel preferences. I booted in verbose mode to look for the crash information. You name it, I think I tried it.

Just for reference, MacFixIt has numerous thread running about the issues here, here and here. There is also a thread (“After 10.5.3 update the system doesn’t start up”) on the Apple Support forums where I posted my solution (here). The list of issues is very long (and growing):

iTunes crashes
Time Machine slowness
Failure of the update itself
Freezing when changing network locations
Disk utility error
Refusal to boot (MY PROBLEM)
CPU spikes
Random application crashes and freezes
Fan runs more frequently
Login Window loop
Kernel panics (I only had one)
…and probably others

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This post was originally conceived as a rant but now I am writing it as a bit of constructive criticism and advice directed towards Tivo, as well as other companies that do any kind of Customer Service/Support or Public Relations (so that would be most companies out there, right?). We have always been taught that 1 story of something bad that a company did has the same weight as multi-fold good things. It’s always the negative that rises up and is heard by many. When was the last time you heard something good about a company or something that an employee did that went above and beyond your expectations? Hardly ever, right? So to supposedly combat this, companies build up Customer Service departments and spend countless hours developing policies and procedures for dealing with pissed off customers.

I have run a couple of Customer Service teams. These organizations are double edged swords. On one side, talking to pissed off customers can ruin your day and can make you question your position at a company, the company’s product or the company itself. You have to sit and “take it” as someone yells at you or challenges your knowledge of the product or tries to even profess their superiority or intelligence over your own. On the other side is the fact that Customer Service Departments can be huge sources of learning where you get large amounts of detailed information from customers, their likes and dislikes of your product, suggestions, work-arounds, and enhancements for your products. You can even develop some pretty solid relationships through these conversations, and it doesn’t have to be if they are yelling at you or helping you.

It is no wonder that there are new companies coming out to help companies become more visible and more efficiently help, engage and communicate with their customers. Take GetSatisfaction, for example. The have created a platform to facilitate this communication and engagement with the customer or end user, encouraging companies to “get real with their customers.”

So back to my issue at hand and the reason for this post. Small companies are great, they want to make everyone happy. They try hard to excel, to “bend over backwards” and to “go the extra mile.” Tivo was like this many years ago. I remember it well because I signed up with them fairly early. They had (and still have) and incredible product and an equally incredible group of people running the show. But I think what has happened to them is what happens to many companies that grow, they lose sight of how to talk to their customer and become less personal and more machine-like. Procedures are developed, forms created, scripts written, all with the good intention of creating efficiencies and streamlining the support process. But if it is not done well, these Support and CS departments simply become gears in wheel of a machine, churning out stats and meeting quotas. Lost is the focus on the customer and why they requested support.

Believe it or not, my issue with Tivo was only over a $65 charge that I did not feel I needed to pay. But that was not the reason why I was upset. I won’t bore you with the details of my problem (well, maybe I will), but I need to provide a few facts for a frame of reference. 1) I had Tivo service for many many years, 2) I am a huge advocate of their product 3) I participated in numerous beta tests with new iterations of the the Tivo software (I tested Tivo Desktop, Rhapsody and, of course the Tivo software itself, among other things) and, 4) I even tried to publicly help them with some product ideas.

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