Monday, January 28, 2008

La lamentable atención al cliente de Telefónica

Debo reconocer que estoy muy satisfecho con el servicio de ADSL de Telefónica. La conexión es realmente estable, el número de incidencias en los últimos años apenas se puede contar con los dedos de una mano, la velocidad siempre ha sido adecuada, dispongo de IP fija y salvo épocas oscuras como cuando les dio por el proxy-caché transparente, el servicio ha sido bueno.

Lo que no está a la altura es la atención al cliente. El día 8 de enero solicité una actualización del ancho de banda de la línea a 10Mbps (que por cierto, la subida sigue siendo de 320Kbps, hay que ser rácano). Después de 20 días de espera y varias llamadas al servicio de atención al cliente en las que se me aseguró que la solicitud estaba en curso y que el día 28 de enero (es decir, hoy) tendría activada la línea a 10Mbps, hoy todavía no tenía aplicada la actualización de ancho de banda, y he llamado para preguntar por el estado de dicha solicitud.

Ahí empieza una auténtica odisea. En el servicio de atención al cliente de ADSL, después de dar mis datos y describir el caso, me informan que no les consta la solicitud como de actualización de velocidad sino como de alta de línea (WTF?), y que debo llamar al 1004 para que me atienda un comercial. Al final de la llamada una grabación me pide feedback sobre cómo me han atendido, pero cuelgo, porque la llamada al servicio de atención técnica del ADSL no es gratuíta, y dar feedback pagando casi que no.

En las llamadas al 1004 empieza la diversión. Sí, digo llamadas porque obviamente hubo más de una. En todas ellas, una grabación me da la bienvenida al servicio de atención comercial, y a continuación me pregunta por el idioma en el que deseo ser atendido (1=castellano, 2=català). En realidad me da igual el idioma, sólo quiero que me atiendan. Pulso el 2, puestos a escoger. Otra grabación con un catalán claramente exagerado me pide que describa el motivo de mi llamada. Ya empezamos. ¿Por qué no puedo hablar con un humano? Me quedo callado. La grabación, que no es tonta, me insiste en que describa el motivo. Entonces lo describo (algo así como "incidencia con la actualización de velocidad del ADSL"). Posteriormente el sistema me informa que todos los operadores están ocupados y me cuelga. Estupendo, cinco minutos al teléfono interactuando con una máquina para que luego me cuelgue.

Repito la llamada al 1004. Todo igual que antes (selecciono el catalán, vuelvo a describir el motivo de mi llamada), me acaba colgando. Empiezo a sospechar que en catalán hay pocos operadores, así que vuelvo a llamar al 1004, esta vez seleccionando la opción de idioma castellano. En cuanto la grabación me pide que describa el motivo de mi llamada, digo lo mismo que antes. Entonces, la máquina, que es mucho más lista que yo, decide que en realidad lo que necesito es el teléfono de atención técnica del ADSL. Me da el número de teléfono (dos veces, pos si no me ha dado tiempo a apuntarlo) al que ya había llamado en primer lugar, y me vuelve a colgar. Bien, vamos bien, llevo cuatro llamadas y todavía no he conseguido solucionar la incidencia.

Quinta llamada. Decido cambiar de estrategia. Esta vez le digo a la grabación que quiero hacer una reclamación. A continuación me pregunta por el motivo de mi reclamación, y le digo que es por la actualización de velocidad del ADSL. Luego me pregunta (hay que ver, pedazo de sistema) si mi reclamación es por una contratación nueva, por una contratación en curso o por otros motivos. Digo que es por una contratación en curso, y por fin decide pasarme con un operador humano.

Le cuento el problema a la chica que me atiende la llamada, que habla con un ligero acento italiano. Cuando le he acabado de contar toda la historia, me indica que tienen una incidencia técnica en el sistema y que no me pueden consultar ningún dato; me pide que llame al cabo de una hora cuando se haya solucionado la incidencia.

La chica cuelga. Una grabación me indica, quizá con guasa, que el servicio del 1004 opera 24 horas al día. Finalmente se me pide feedback de la atención al cliente (1=bien, 2=mal). Pulso el 2. El sistema entonces decide que me va a pasar con otro comercial. Y en vista de que la estupidez tiene límites insospechables, cuelgo.

Despues de cinco llamadas sigo sin tener solucionado el problema. Sin lugar a dudas es un ejemplo a no seguir.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Atrapat

Obrí els ulls de cop i volta. No l'havia sobresaltat cap somni; simplement obrí els ulls. Tot era fosc i encara no havia sonat el despertador. Ell sabia que quan es despertava així, de cop, era un mal senyal. Senyal que les coses no anirien bé aquell dia, senyal que aquell dia seria d'aquells que no val la pena viure.

Mirà el rellotge. Tan sols quedaven deu minuts per les sis, l'hora en què s'hauria de llevar si no volia arribar tard. Tard a què? Era una pregunta que tot sovint es formulava a ell mateix, però la resposta el turmentava. Tard a un món construït sobre la rutina, tard a una vida buida que repetia la seva buïdor entre despertador i despertador. Ben bé no sabia per què ho feia, tot allò. Per una banda el tranquilitzava el fet de sentir-se una peça més de l'engranatge, de saber que formava part del seu entorn i fins i tot contribuïa, encara que fos minsament, a que fos com fos. Per l'altra, la seva insatisfacció era constant. El mateix entorn amb què simbiotitzava dia a dia mai complia les seves expectatives, ni tan sols després de rebaixar-les una vegada rera l'altra, fins fer aterrar la seva esperança sobre el nihilisme.

Ara disposava de deu minuts per davant en què es trobava atrapat. No sabia si intentar reemprendre el son, ara ja esberlat, o bé anticipar l'inexorable. Havia començat un mal dia.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Marketing styles

I just found a video of Steve Ballmer presenting Windows 1.0 on a TV advertisement. Aside from the fact I found it hilarious, it shows a marketing style which definitely is very different from Apple's. Just judge for yourself.

Steve Ballmer presenting Windows 1.0 (1985):


Steve Jobs presenting the Macintosh (1984):

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

MacBook Air

They did it!

The good:
  • Ultra-thin design. 0.76 inches at the thickest part!
  • Just 1.36 Kg.
  • 13.3" LED display, 1280x800.
  • Backlit keyboard.
  • 802.11n and Bluetooth. Rocking fast WiFi!
  • Multi-touch trackpad.
  • Pretty decent 1.6-1.8GHz Intel Core2Duo and 2 GB RAM.
  • MagSafe power cord, 45W power adapter.
  • More environmentally friendly than its predecessors.
  • €1550 at the Apple Store Education. Obviously not the cheapest computer in the world, but the thinnest Sonys start at €2000.
The bad:
  • No optical drive (though: external superdrive is available, and it can mount optical drives wirelessly).
  • No ethernet adapter (usb dongle sold separately at €29).
  • No FireWire, just one USB port.
  • You cannot order a BTO MacBook Air with more than 2 GB memory.
The not-so-good-but-not-so-bad-either:
  • 80 GB PATA HDD, 64 GB SSD available for €879. The SSD is pricey, but the 80 GB drive is enough for such a small computer (which definitely is not meant to replace any model in the MacBook lineup).
  • 5h battery life. Pretty good for such a small laptop, but not that much impressive for Apple.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Customer support begins before the sale is made

Last month I came to the idea that I wanted to give my parents a photo album (more precisely a hardcover book) as a present for Christmas. I already knew about iPhoto's print products, but I had some friends and members of my family who had told me about their good experiences with Hofmann Albums, and I decided to have a look at their website.

Customer support begins before the sale is made. Hofmann's software program runs only on windows. End of story for me. I am not going to run their software in an emulated environment such as VirtualPC or Parallels. Hofmann decided they were not interested in me, and therefore I am not interested in them. It is a pity, because I might have been a good customer since I take thousands of photos. But iPhoto is so much more convenient! Not only is it the environment I already use to organise my photos, it also is really user friendly and makes it very easy to design a book.

I ordered my hardcover book through iPhoto. But the story does not end here. Delivery was expected by the end of December; in fact my order was shown as shipped at Apple's website. I wrote them an e-mail, and I was told that I should wait until January 3rd. If I had not received my package by that date, I should then contact Apple again and tell them about the problem.

I still had not received the book on January 3rd, so I wrote Apple another e-mail. They replied that the package my have been lost by the carrier; they apologised for the delay and offered me the option to duplicate my order and get a refund of the shipping costs. I gave them permission to duplicate my order. However, on the next day, my book arrived. I immediately sent Apple another e-mail telling them my book had arrived, and the second order could by cancelled.

Apple acknowledged my e-mail; they apologised again and offered me a full refund because of the inconvenience and trouble I had had with that order.

I am really satisfied with Apple's Customer Support. Not because I got the book for free, which was not the point. It is because they were on my side from the moment when I still had not bought anything to the very final moment when I got what I wanted. Albeit the delay, the whole experience was simply excellent. Next time I am not even going to consider buying the book at Hofmann.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Why I think machine translation will succeed

Machine translation is the kind of translation where computers are involved. Computers can just help a human or be in charge of the whole translation process. Machine translation is a field of computational linguistics and is tightly related to artificial intelligence.

One of the things I like the most about AI is its unlimited nature. The following is one of the best definitions of artificial intelligence I have seen so far:

The study of how to make computers do things at which, at the moment, people are better
-- Rich and Knight, 1991

I used to think there would always be something at which humans are better than machines. Translation was one of those things. Only a human could translate a book or a movie and not only keep the meaning in the target language, but also make the audience feel the same as in the source language. Machine translation is clumsy, imprecise and lacks that human touch for choosing the right words.

However, I am seeing an increasing number of human-made translations which are so low-quality that I feel a computer could do it better. Whilst I do not believe in replacing humans by machines just for the sake of industrialisation, it seems pretty obvious that nowadays human translators benefit from the fact that computers are worse than them at translating texts.

Books are a field where human translators are way ahead of computers, and while I mostly find translations less interesting than the originals, nobody would delegate the translation of a book to a machine, and a change is not foreseeable in the near future. However, movies and TV shows are reaching such low-quality levels I think current technology would be able to pass the Turing test against many audiences.

Two recent examples I saw on TV:
  • TV3, I cannot recall the name of the movie. One of the characters said "Em fa por que no sigui massa tard" as a translation of the original "I'm afraid it's too late".
  • Antena 3, The Simpsons. In the background it could be read "Class of 78 rules!". At the same time a subtitle with the text "Normas de la clase del 78" was shown.
Since some human translators seem not to care about the accuracy of their translations, machine translation is bound to have a successful future.


Photo by dwaas76

Monday, December 17, 2007

No photography


I am back from my trip to Madrid. It has been a very pleasant stay and I am really satisfied with this touristic trip.

I love to take photos. I am the typical tourist in the sense that I take photos of every landmark in a city; however there is a little artist inside me who tells me to go beyond landmarks and take photos of metaphors, people, concepts, beauty.

While organizing the photographs from my recent trip (some of them are already uploaded to flickr) I realised that there are many photos missing in my collection: those are the photos from places where photography is not allowed.

Some of the places I visited in Madrid where photography is not allowed are:
I am beginning to think there are now too many places where photography is not allowed. IANAL, but I think it also might be illegal to do so.

A friend of mine told me it is legal to set your own rules within your private property. Therefore, if you own a museum, you can forbid photography if you want. When a visitor comes, they know in advance that photography will not be allowed in your property, and it is their choice whether to buy an admission ticket or not. I will handle this later, but for now I will stick to publicly funded places.

Let us take the El Prado museum as an example. It is a publicly funded museum with some copyrighted material in it. I am allowed to visit the museum (as long as I pay €6 fee) and see its contents. It is illegal for me to take photos of the copyrighted paintings inside and distribute them. However, what seems to be the problem with taking photos for my own use? Why is photography forbidden?

When I try to simplify the problem then I conclude it must be illegal to forbid photography in El Prado museum. Imagine I draw sketches of the paintings I like the most. Or even better (since sketching is forbidden too in some museums), let's say I write a very detailed description of each painting, which allows me to reconstruct the picture later. Is this going to be forbidden? What if I can remember this detailed description in my head? What if I have got eidetic memory and can remember every single detail without writing anything down? Is thinking going to be forbidden?

The same applies to private property. Up to what extent can you set your own rules in your private space? Can I ask people to, say, renounce they right to freedom?

I am willing to accept prohibition of photography under very specific circumstances:
  • When only flash photography is forbidden because the light might cause damage to the subject of the photography (be it a painting or a life being).
  • When it can be proven that photography can cause interferences to critical devices (such as machines in a hospital).
  • When it can be proven that photography can cause a threat to public security (photography is usually forbidden at security controls in airports; I however do not know how that could be a security threat since everyone can see what a camera can capture in a photograph).
In the rest of circumstances, I see the prohibition of photography as a vulneration of one's most basic rights. With the excuse of security and preserving copyrighted material, soon it will be illegal for reporters to tell the world what is happening. I can very well imagine a society where only the official information is allowed; a society where allowed photographs are sold as postcards; a society where freedom seems to exist but it does not. The human race has already gone through that. History seems to be bound to repeat itself, now under the feeling of freedom, shown by an election every four years.

Please move along. No photography allowed in here, thank you. Hope to see you back soon!