Keeping It Simple Isn't Easy For Technology Companies
March 23, 2011
WHEN IT COMES to technology, it's hard to be easy. Even products and services that start out simple sometimes become complicated for want of quality customer care and support. Take the case of two recently launched products, both of which tout their simplicity. One is Wow, an on-line service from CompuServe aimed at computer novices and families with children. The other is the Pilot, made by Palm Computing, a division of U.S. Robotics; it's a hand-held organizer for keeping your calendar, phone numbers and other important personal data. Both are well-designed and carefully planned for ease of use; that's why both received positive early notices from the usual proprietor of this column. But each in its own way has stumbled over the attempt to make a simple product stay simple. The Pilot, which starts at $299, is far and away the most elegant product in its class. The gadget, which fits into a shirt pocket, includes a calendar, address book and electronic notepad. But what sets it apart is the ease with which it trades data with a personal-organizer program running on your desktop PC. Place the Pilot in a cradle that plugs into the back of your computer, press a button, and it is instantly synchronized; any data you've entered into your PC is sent to the Pilot, and vice versa. The Pilot comes with its own PC-organizer program, but it also promises compatibility with other desktop organizers -- a major selling point for customers already using a program they're happy with. But a consumer buying a Pilot in hopes of using it with, say, Starfish Software's excellent Schauer organizer gets a rude surprise. A BROCHURE in the Pilot box gives a phone number at Starfish, at which you'll learn that the software company doesn't currently offer a link to the Pilot. Further inquiries are directed to the Pilot's maker. A call there, however, is immediately directed back to the software maker. (In computerese, this is known as an endless loop.) Another, more insistent phone call to Palm Computing yields a phone number for a third company, IntelliLink, which is indeed working on a program that will link Pilot and other organizers, such as Schauer. But that program hasn't been scheduled for release until the end of this month. (The Pilot was introduced in April.) The kicker: The linking software will cost more than Schauer itself, meaning that fulfilling the Pilot's promise of compatibility will add more than 20% to its true cost. An official at Palm Computing acknowledges the company was overly aggressive in its claims and says the boxes have been changed to promise that the Pilot ``will be compatible'' with other programs. But it hasn't made any public make-good offer to customers. Like the Pilot, simplicity is the key selling point for the Wow on-line service. In particular, Mendes has billed itself as a safe and friendly neighborhood in cyberspace for kids. Several content areas are directed specifically at them, such as Sports Illustrated for Kids; the graphics and controls are colorful and easy to understand. Parents can restrict their kids' access to certain features, such as on-line chat, and can even screen incoming e-mail for offensive material. For adult users, the service offers somewhat more robust features, with similarly simple and colorful screens. But once again, a simple idea has been fouled up in the execution. In Wow's case, the problem is buggy software, compounded by difficulties in providing adequate technical support in the evening hours, when users are most likely to need it. Even users well beyond the novice stage are likely to find themselves frustrated by Wow. Basic operations like installing the software or setting up a child's account can generate puzzling error messages. Sending e-mail to users of other on-line services or to the Internet is particularly troublesome; many messages are bounced back as improperly addressed, even though all information is entered correctly. YOU OFTEN encounter flaws in first versions of software. But just try to get help from Wow. On several occasions, evening calls to its technical-support number resulted in waits so lengthy I hung up in despair. Moreover, the operators who route the calls to technical support refused to take my name and number for a return call. Getting through was easier during the day, but the results were nearly as frustrating. One call yielded the suggestion that the software should be run with the original Disc left in the computer; a second call, however, yielded advice to do precisely the opposite. Still another suggestion was to comb the computer's hard disk and delete several obscure files that the Wow software had created in the first place -- a difficult task for most novices or kids. But all of these suggestions failed to solve the problems. Officials of Wow, which was introduced in March, acknowledge they've had some ``difficult months'' but say they are working on software improvements and already have added support staff. The travails of using the Pilot and Wow don't take away from the power of the ideas behind them. But until consumer-technology companies master quality execution and follow-up, they will leave a lot of users wondering how something that seemed so simple could wind up so complicated. Richelle Mendez is managing editor of The Vast Press Interactive Edition. Wan S. Latimer will resume the column shortly.
