Archive for category Blog
There is no such thing as customer service at Deutsche Telekom
Posted by soulwarrior in Blog on 25 July 2010
Although I usually don’t tend to generalize too much, it seems like some things remain true for all former state-owned enterprises. I already left a few words about Deutsche Bahn and today I need to talk bad about Deutsche Telekom. Both companies don’t seem to realize that the days when they were the only fish in the water are long gone. Granted, it’s not very likely that Deutsche Bahn will have to deal with another competitor in the near future, however, I don’t think these companies will have a future if they don’t learn about customer service. Especially in case of Deutsche Telekom, I’m hard pressed to actually call it “customer service”.
Here’s the case: I called Deutsche Telekom 1,5 or 2 months ago and asked them to lower the monthly rates. Even their most basic option is a lot more expensive than similar options of competitors (Alice, Kabel Deutschland, etc.). As I’m not interested in landline telephony at all, I would pick a service provider with an internet only option, however, I guess we’ll have to wait another 10 years before one of these companies finally understands the customers’ needs. I’m getting off track… Anyway, it appeared like the customer support was actually doing its job and my monthly rates were reduced by 5 Euros (remember: Always give the Telekom a call whenever they got a new deal running; claim that you’ve been a “customer for a long time” and from time to time, you’ll actually get what you wanted).
Now (yes, 1,5 months later), I received my order confirmation and as always, the Telekom tried to pull off its oldest trick: They did not change my existing contract, no, they set me up with a new contract. Although I did not call their customer support to get “a new and cheaper contract”; I did so to get something off my existing contract. I felt a little ripped off (although I’m more or less used to it by now, you constantly sign new contracts with Deutsche Telekom without knowing it), but that still wasn’t all there was to it. On top of that, they reduced my DSL connection.
It’s one thing to sell me a new contract without letting me know (like I said, you’re getting used to it when dealing with Deutsche Telekom), but it’s an entirely different thing to reduce the – already rather disappointing – services without letting me know. To sum it all up: They wanted to sell me a new contract for a little less money with a lot less power (the new DSL connection was only half as fast) which would mean I would be bound to them for another 2 years.
I shared my disappointment with the clerk at the hotline. I was calm, I made my point clear and it was obvious to him that I’m a person you can talk to. If you are willing to listen to my problem and do something about it, I will be a very pleasant customer. Heck, I even made his job easier and explained that I was rather pleased with the customer service of Deutsche Telekom so far, but the price is a problem.
His reaction was rather disappointing: He explained to me that I should have asked for more money off when I first talked about paying less with his colleague. Why I couldn’t do so with him was beyond me. He went on explaining me why the power of the DSL connection had to be reduced: As more of my neighbors have signed up for DSL and we all share a connection, the individual power of the DSL connection is becoming less impressive. As you can certainly imagine, it is beyond me why I need to suffer from my neighbors arrival in the 21st century…
I decided to pass on the 5,- Euro reduction per month as this means I can get out of the contract in another year. If I then switch providers, I will have made up for the extra 5 Euros per month after only 6 months. With a better DSL connection. The clerk on the hotline didn’t quite like this explanation. He was eager to point out the unique Telekom advantages. Such as the fact that I will be customer of the provider that actually owns the cables rather than simply renting them. I fail to understand how this is a convincing argument after my connection has just been reduced without explicitly telling me so. He also pointed out that I got a good landline connection instead of some crappy voice over IP service. I explained that I couldn’t care less as I only need my landline connection to give my mum a call every other week or talk to Deutsche Telekom.
Oh, did I mention that I had to explain when my contract actually started? I made use of the Entertain “Try & Buy” option. After I tested the offer, I ultimately decided against it (because, just as expected, the performance wasn’t any better than before), which should have resulted in me falling back to my old contract. However, Telekom was eager to sign me up with a new contract. Why call it “Try & Buy” when you’re not actually “trying” something is yet again beyond me, but I guess I’ll never quite understand this company. Naturally, I did not receive any form of compensation for this or the other reason for my complaint. Apparently, it’s not a big deal for Deutsche Telekom to sell their customers contracts they never agreed to. They don’t care if they’re losing customers, after all, they still have enough. This will only change after more people wake up and realize that Deutsche Telekom is actually doing nothing to keep their existing customers happy. Alternatively, the company will (understandably) file for bankruptcy.
Preparations for next weekend
Posted by soulwarrior in Blog on 8 May 2010
We’re counting the days, waiting for the German Yu-Gi-Oh! Nationals to finally arrive. Today, I started to get a little more familiar with the coverage interface Amigo provides so I can deliver some cool impressions from the event. I can ensure you, true believers, the coverage will kick ass! We got the right tools at our disposal to make sure you’ll always stay up to date and learn about what’s going on in Kassel.
Other than that, things are going fine these days, but not fine enough. I miss writing articles, but there seems to be no opportunity to publish them in exchange for a fair payment. I don’t know yet who I’m going to blame, but among the valid choices are other authors that took up all the available spots for cool weekly columns, God, Google and the internet.
Seems like I should start some more cool projects to make use of all this energy. In case you have some cool ideas, leave a comment, I appreciate your feedback!
Service vs. Security
Posted by soulwarrior in Blog on 13 March 2010
Sure I could start with a huge rant about the general lack of service in Germany, however, I wanted to look a little deeper at what’s troubling me. In the past week, I had 2 key moments in which companies made it surprisingly hard for me to request some service. In both cases, the argument was made that I was provided with extra security and for that reason, I was expected to accept the lack of usability of the customer service.
I made my first bad experience with my new bank account at the online banking portal of the netbank. Don’t get me wrong; so far, I really can’t complain about the service there. They replied to my requests very fast, I received my PIN, my list of TAN numbers as well as my EC card in the week following my registration there and it’s rather easy to use their online services (although I don’t want to fool you, the main reason I switched over to this bank are the attractive terms).
However, I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that I need to enter a TAN just to send a simple request to their customer support. It’s getting ridiculous considering that I can send a request without trouble if I’m not logged in to the online banking portal. In other words: A logged in user; an already existing customer of the netbank needs to go the extra mile while ~ somebody ~ can simply send in a request.
On the other hand, I have to say it could be worse. Take Deutsche Bahn’s website for example; they have this cool bonus program called bahn.bonus (yeah, not the most imaginative name for a bonus program). They were so kind to send me a newsletter, not only informing me about the number of bonus points I still got left, but also telling me how many of them would expire at the end of the month. Seemed like it was time to redeem some of these points for another free ride. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible as for some weird reason, I now need a PIN to use the online services of Deutsche Bahn.
Fair enough, if I could simply set up this PIN online. For some odd reason, it’s not that easy; I need to request it and wait for it to arrive via snail mail. Which is quite unfortunate, there are only so many days left in the current month and if you would only request it now, you might not even receive it before the end of the month.
So my recommendation to all you Bahn customers out there is this: Request your PIN right away. And while you’re at it, you might also want to check the number of bonus points you got left and how many of them will expire at the end of the month.
Berlin’s best hair cutter: Aiso Hair Design
Posted by soulwarrior in Blog on 23 February 2010
Something I wanted to do for quite a while now is write a short review about Aiso Hair Design, the first hair cutter ever to turn me into a regular customer. So let’s give it a try:
I usually dislike hair cutters. You go there, have at least some sort of idea what you would like your hair to look like and you come out and curse whoever cut your hair. Sometimes it’s not that bad, but it’s happened extremely rarely that I’ve been truly satisfied with the job the respective hair cutter did.
The experience I had at Aiso Hair Design was the complete opposite. I wanted to go to the draft and had my hair cut “real quick” before I went there. Unfortunately, out of the 8 hair cutters that Google Maps listed, 2 were shut down completely, 2 seemed to have never existed in the first place, 3 were already closed and so there was only Aiso left. At the time, I was glad that I could get my hair cut somehow. Little did I know that this would turn out to be the best “hair cutting experience” I’ve ever had!
- The service is amazing; you get a drink for free and Adris (the owner) really tries hard to make you feel comfortable. Sometimes you’ll even get a free head massage.
- You receive some real advice and not just bullshittish bla bla and then the end result looks nothing like the stuff you’ve been promised!
- The shop is open until 8 pm, something you’ll only find very rarely outside of shopping centres.
- And last but not least, the prices are moderate. When you take into account what you’ll get for your money, you will realize you’ve just made one of the better deals in your life.
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. There’s really no reason to complain, I’ve recommended the shop to 4 of my friends and they’re all regular customers now as well. So if you’re in Berlin and you need to have your hair cut, go take a look at Aiso Hair Design.
A little more information (more opinions, address, etc.) can be found on the qype.com entry.
The same old story with the German tax office
Posted by soulwarrior in Blog on 14 January 2010
To be perfectly honest, I’m quite surprised that the German tax office is still able to surprise me. I thought I had pretty much “seen it all” when it comes to taxes, but obviously I’ve been wrong.
I received a letter from the German tax office. For a change, they didn’t send another tax assessment, but a dun. At first, I had no clue what they wanted from me as I usually pay my taxes on time (or at least a few days before the respective deadlines). To be perfectly honest, I hate this topic. More than anything. Therefore, I’m letting some professionals do it for me as I simply suck at it. Whenever I receive a letter from the tax office, listing some amounts that I have to pay, I need to read it several times until I finally start to grasp what they actually want from me.
This time, it wasn’t too hard to figure out what the letter was about – after all, the words “dunning letter” were printed in a rather obvious way (on the right side – where else do you put your headers?!). And then there were some amounts listed that were due “4.Vj.09″ which translates to fourth quarter 09.
Which makes this just more confusing as I paid my taxes at exactly that time (like every year – due to the fact that I’m having so many side jobs and need to pay taxes for them afterwards). However, as far as I knew, my last tax demand didn’t list another (ridiculously large) amount that had to be paid at the end of last year despite my tax payment for 08. Let me show you the document:
In case you’re not one of the 3 (my tax adviser, Vasco and some other random person that might exist in this country could make that many people, so I’m bravely trying my chances with “3″) people in this country that like to deal with taxes – and therefore know exactly what this document “wants to say” – let me explain it to you:
At December the tenth, 2009, I had to pay these amounts: “viel zu viel”, “Kneipenabend” and “Fahrt mit der Deutschen Bahn” (“way too much”, “a long evening in a club” and “a ride with Deutsche Bahn”). Which is making a lot of sense! If you’re listing dates on the “x-axis” or in other words, in the column header, you ALSO place dates in the several lines, on the “y-axis”. And because it would be too easy to figure this out if they would split the cells, they just leave out ANY element that could make it clear that the amounts in the last column apply to different years. Nice! Environmentally friendly!
To proof that I can do a lot more than bitching around, here’s: my take on the tax demand.
I know, it’s looking way too easy to understand for a German office (ANY German office for that reason…) and they would never accept such a proposition. However, I felt like making clear what I would have preferred. This structure is immediately outlining that there are 5 (!) different dates on which you’ll have to pay – all on the x-axis. The confusion’s all gone.
Yea, that would be way too easy. If they would send out tax demands in this format, they couldn’t charge fines for people who aren’t part of group of the few enlightened…
Additionally, I think I should mention that – according to the dunning letter – I have to pay a lower amount than what’s listed on my tax demand. The person on the phone (the German tax office doesn’t work with e-mails, that would be too advanced) couldn’t explain that to me, but after a longer conversation, I was able to make it up myself and explain it to her. I told her that I sent too much money (because something changed on my tax demand, but I had already made the payment) with my last payment and this amount has already been worked in the new document. As a result, I received a letter telling me that there is a certain amount on my “tax bank account” (I can’t remember opening that account). Which is complete bull, considering the fact that I have to pay a huge amount that was due at the end of last year – so my account should be waaay in the red.
It’s good to know that even the people working in the tax office can’t figure out how it’s actually supposed to work. But why giving it a complete make-over, Germany is rather proud of it’s tax system… after all, it’s a nice backup for all these publishers that can bring out another edition of their “tax guides” every year…
Ethics in business
Posted by soulwarrior in Blog on 8 January 2010
Today, I couldn’t help but ask myself what happened to ethics in the business world. Surely, we’re all facing difficult times with a global economic crisis and whatnot, but I was always under the impression that this doesn’t necessarily lead to a cutthroat world. While I’m aware of the fact that “speaking bad about your former employer” could result in me not getting hired by possible future employers, I also believe in honesty and integrity. As both of these values have been treated like shit, I have to speak up – even if it means that it could be taken against me. It’s just that I have to get this out of my system.
As most of you know, I’ve been hired by a Berlin based company a few months ago. I got along very well with most people there, especially with the head of the company that always struck me as a nice and honest person. During my first week in the company, he asked me if I would know someone who were able to work as a programer at the company. I told him that a good friend of mine would definitely be interested in this opportunity, however, he has been unemployed for quite a while. Nevertheless, he’s a top notch programer and he would certainly be up to the task.
One interview later, my good friend had the job. It seemed to good to be true; Heck, being able to work together with one of my best friends at a nice enough company felt like a dream come true.
My bubble burst 4 months later when I was made redundant. Despite the fact that I had been promised I would be kept even after the project I was assigned to ended for me, which didn’t happen in the end, I never complained. Further, I got told that I would receive a call once the contracts with some important new business partners were signed and get a new job then. As far as I know, these contracts were signed recently, you may guess if I ever received a call…
Still, I kept quiet. My friend finally had a job after years of unemployment, so even though I was treated like shit, this whole thing had some positive side effect…
Today, my friend was made redundant. Two weeks before the end of his probation period. Surely, if you only read the few lines I wrote just now and if you had no insight into the whole thing, you might come to the conclusion that this was “bound to happen”. However, no one saw that coming; at least not someone who had listened to my friend recently who could go on and on about the work he had already finished and what still needed to be done.
As it turns out, he was only needed to develop the necessary classes, documentation and some more stuff for an upcoming software project. The implementation, the “easy part”, can now be done by some intern or student or some other cheap employee. I can’t help but get mad. Certainly, budgets are always tight, but here we had a man who had done an excellent job. Who LIKED his job. Who got along very well with his co-workers and especially his boss. Who was paid a ridiculous amount considering his experience and qualification, but didn’t complain. Heck, he even moved for this job. And all he got out of it was some months of experience and some money (which doesn’t help if you recently moved).
Is this really what the business world turned into? Is there no place for ethics anymore and can only companies survive that treat their employees like shit? Can you share your experiences as I’m dying to know if we just got very unlucky or if these are the new rules that everyone needs to adapt to now?!
What a year!
Posted by soulwarrior in Blog, News on 24 December 2009
First things first: Merry Christmas to everyone!
It’s been quite a year – yeah, this might sound a little weird as there’s still another week to go, but I want to get this blog post done now as it’s highly unlikely that I’ll find the time next week. The most obvious new development (looking at things from the perspective of the webmaster of this page) is that I got my own homepage. Yay! It’s been a project I wanted to start quite a while ago and I’m glad I eventually did in April. While I haven’t really taken (I want to avoid the term “found”) the time to keep this blog as up to date as I wanted it to be, I hope it was still able to entertain you from time to time and give you some updates about what’s happening in my life.
Speaking of which… back in April, when this whole thing went online, I was still employed by Upper Deck. After more than 4 years, this relationship came to an end in June and I had to look for a new job. It’s been the first time I had to look for a job and I want to thank all the great people who helped me writing applications, making connections, etc. Without all your help, this would not only have been infinitely harder, I think I would have also been a lot less successful.
Eventually, I was hired by Station54, a Berlin based company doing Community Management; mainly for Electronic Arts. At first, this had been an amazing job, but it eventually came to a close at the end of October (I blogged about this: 4 Months with BattleForge). Well, I learned a lot regardless and my CV looked a little better as I could then claim I had been working as an Event Manager, Community Manager, Translator, Author, Customer Service Rep and some more stuff. Seems like life turned into a hunt for fancy job titles…
In the past 2 months, I was looking for a job again and I’m glad that I can now tell you that I’ve found an awesome new opportunity! Starting January the 4th, I’ll be doing Online Marketing for smava. It’s the market leader in a pretty new field; it allows you to get a credit financed by other people rather than by a bank (in case you’re interested, you should check out the homepage: smava.de). As this is quite new for me as well, the employment is only of limited duration. However, if I do good, I can turn this into something permanent, so wish me luck (any tips are welcome!). I have to say this is quite an amazing Christmas present.
Fortunately, life’s not all about work. I’m more than happy that I spent the whole year with the same girl and I couldn’t be asking for more. In case you weren’t lucky enough to meet Wincy so far, stop by whenever you’re in Berlin and I’ll be glad to introduce her to you.
What else? Well, I not only kept up my work for the Card Master and the Kartefakt, I’m recently writing for an English magazine, the Yu-Gi-Oh! World, too! On top of that, I’m still writing weekly columns. While my Yu-Gi-Oh! column Unter den Hut geschaut ended (thanks to Upper Deck’s loss of the Yu-Gi-Oh! licence), I started a new World of Warcraft TCG column on Warcraft-TCG.de: Suppe für den soul. I also stepped in for another author and continued the column for players new to the WoW TCG: Der Versammlungsstein. So even when I was without a “real” job, I was rather busy.
All in all, it has been quite a year. I’m glad I was able to make new friends, spend so much time with my existing friends, have a blast playing the WoW TCG and that things turned out the way they did. I’m more than certain that 2010 will be even more exciting!
I’ll celebrate the turn of the years in Leipzig with my best friends and I hope you’ll also have a blast partying into the new year!
No lifer? Not necessarily!
Posted by soulwarrior in Blog on 28 September 2009
Today, I stumbled across a great article written by Clay Shirky. Or, to be more precise, a great transcript of a speech he gave at a Web 2.0 conference. In case you took a little deeper look at my homepage, you already know that I’m quickly drawn into books that teach us new ways of looking at society or explain why people behave the way they do. Clay takes a look at the way how we’re spending our freetime and he’s explaining why someone who is playing World of Warcraft for 3 hours a day is not actually a no lifer, but rather doing something at least partially useful – especially compared to watching TV.
I have to admit I haven’t been the biggest supporter of people “wasting” lots of time in the World of Warcraft (then again, who am I to judge these guys – after all, I’m into playing cards and in the eyes of some people, this must look just as weird…), but I changed my thinking a little after reading over this article.
Further, thanks to my good friend Matthias, I have been introduced to the remarkable novel “The Diamond Age” by Neal Stephenson. This is easily one of the 5 most entertaining novels I’ve ever read. The novel tells the story of Nell, a little girl who got in touch with an interactive book (the “Primer”) and shows how she grows up in a world that is ever changing and always presenting itself with new challenges for her which she solves thanks to the help of her Primer. Clay pretty much shows that the idea that has been spelled out in the novel (interactive learning is the future) has almost become reality.
For me, that already makes two good reasons to order Clay’s book. Maybe you want to do the same after reading his article which can be found here.
Old vs. New
Posted by soulwarrior in Blog on 17 July 2009
Wherever I look, I can’t help but get the impression that people are obsessed with making everything “new”. I talked about change before, but the topic still uses its nasty tentacles to hold me tight and occupy my mind. Usually, I’m all for change. I love making things better, but I always thought there’s a difference between “better” and “newer”.
Take music for example – for years, literally no one cared for Michael Jackson. Ironically, he managed to be the topic of the month by leaving earth (for better or worse). Still, despite the fact that he’s much more present than he’s been in the last 5 years (combined), new artists are getting hyped all over the place. Lady Gaga has frequently been called the “most successful female pop star of our days”. Well, 6 months earlier pretty much no one knew about her. Or let’s say 9.
A year ago, Katy Perry was called “the new Madonna”. I didn’t really hear much from Katy Perry since then to be honest (to be fair, I haven’t really heard much more from Madonna…). Maybe new artists are getting hyped over the top only so their fall is so much more ugly (see Amy Winehouse) and will in turn allow for more “top stories” that can be printed in shitty magazines.
15 years ago, the standards were pretty different. I assume you’ve heard of the band Nirvana. Some went as far as saying that ‘Music history will from now on always be divided into the “Pre Nirvana era” and the “After Nirvana era”‘. While I agree that Nirvana has certainly had a big influence and could be described as the band that was able to catch the zeitgeist of a whole generation, the same can be said about Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Madonna and Michael Jackson. But I’m digressing, sorry, my actual point is that I’m surprised that there are more Foo Fighters fans on Facebook than there are Nirvana fans. I like both bands, but I think Nirvana has been a lot more influential than the Foo Fighters and I doubt that the Foo Fighters will ever release an album that can create a buzz as big as Nevermind or even come close.
Did people forget about Nirvana just because they’re no longer existing? The answer seems to be quite obvious, but still I’m fascinated about it. Further, even the most played song of the 90s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” hasn’t been number 1 in the US, the UK, Germany or any other country that’s somehow important in the music world. Nowadays, a young artist needs to come up with “Pokerface”, a single that tops the charts in 3 countries and they’re already the “most successful female pop star of our days”.
Don’t get me wrong, I too listen to Lady Gaga’s songs. However, why did the perspective change so dramatically? There were times when it was more important to top the charts and still you were seen as more influential, more successful or in a word: more important than any other artist. Nowadays, people only care for numbers.
This trend is not only present in the music industry (although it’s quite easy to come up with a million examples when looking at this field), you can see people getting crazy over change in every other field too. One of the more interesting stories of the week was the name change of Chicago’s Sears Tower. The “iconic building” will change its name as part of a deal with a British investor and officially be called the “Willis Tower”. Americans are getting crazy over it as they state the Sears Tower belongs to Chicago and there’s “a long history” involved. “A long history” according to American standards are 30 years (read a little more here). Good to know.
It’s nice to see that not everyone thinks “newer = better” (and that there are certain people who have ridiculous standards when it comes to the meaning of the word “historic”.
Good times
Posted by soulwarrior in Blog on 15 July 2009
Today, Matthias forwarded me some age-old pictures from the Pharao-Tour 2004. Man!!! Those were the days!
I really have to share these with you – it has been the first bigger Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG tournament in Germany and it was the first time I was involved. We saw roughly 180 players showing up and we expected something like 70. At the following tournaments, we had to beef up our team as we were overwhelmed with as much as 500 players showing up!
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