Posted by John Patrick on Dec 17, 2007 in
e-Business,
Internet Technology,
PKI,
Public Policy 
One element of privacy on the Internet is "Opt in" versus "Opt out". When you register at a web site you will often see a small box to be checked giving you the “option” to be included or not included in subsequent emails making offers to you. Opt in means you proactively choose to be included. Opt out means you are included by default and you have to take action to be removed from the list of those who will automatically receive the emails. In some cases you have to read the words very carefully to determine which case is the default. This is part of Trust. Is the site really opening up to you and making it very clear what your options are, or are they making the words a bit fuzzy and hoping you won’t figure out what the default actually is?
Citibank introduced a service called c2it back in 2000 that enabled the sending and receiving of cash via email. You simply visited the c2it site, specified which of your checking, savings, or credit card accounts you wanted the money to come from, and entered an email address for someone you want to send the money to. That person would then receive an email, was asked to enroll in c2it, and then could accept the money from you directly into their checking, savings, or credit card account. This seemed like a potentially useful service to me when I learned about it and so I enrolled. Only after I enrolled did I find out that there were fees involved. Then I discovered that incoming amounts are not credited to your account for five to six days, which is longer than if I had received a check and deposited it myself. Then I discovered that there is no fee to receive into a Citibank credit card but there is a fee if it is another bank’s credit card. I am not saying the fees are unreasonable – the competition from PayPal and other services would determine that. C2it ceased operations in 2003. If you visit the c2it site you are told that you could contact c2it for a copy of your statement by writing a letter to "Customer Service Center" in
Sioux Falls, South Dakota and provide them with your full name, e-mail address, phone number, and a copy of your social security card, driver’s license, or a telephone bill, gas or electric bill or bank statement from the last 30 days. What would they do with all that information? Probably sell it to other companies. If you have any doubt of that, just read the Citibank Privacy Notice.
Fast forwarding seven years I would have been hopeful that Citibank would become a leader in gaining our trust. Unfortunately, not the case. Who might Citibank share your personal information with? The list includes affiliates among the family of companies controlled by Citigroup as well as non-affiliated third parties, such as financial services providers and non-financial organizations, such as companies engaged in direct marketing. I can’t think of much that doesn’t fall into one of those categories. What information is it that they might "share"? Your name, e-mail address, zip code, age and income range, information you provide on applications and other forms, information about your transactions with affiliated or nonaffiliated third parties, information received from a consumer reporting agency and information received about you from other sources. I can’t think of much that is not included.
We are talking about a sweeping allowance to provide a broad and undefined amount of information about you with a broad and undefined audience. If you touch Citibank you will quickly start receiving marketing offers. Citigroup says "We may do this even if you ask us to limit disclosure of personal information about you". Not that it really matters, as they say, but how would you make a request to have your privacy respected? You would send them a "Privacy Choices Form" by U.S. mail. Mail? Yes, snail mail. This highly automated web savvy giant can transfer money in and out of any of your accounts in milliseconds but to have your privacy respected "please allow thirty days from our receipt of your privacy choices for them to become effective".
The issue is trust. It was easy to get the feeling that Citibank was not being forthcoming about their c2it offering. Citibank reminds us that it is "allowed by law to share with its affiliates any information about its transactions or experiences with you". Should the default be “check this box if you do not want this"? Seems to me that it should be opt in not opt out.
Brand used to be a feeling conjured up by how a company’s product was physically packaged or how you imagined yourself using it. Increasingly brand is a feeling conjured up by your experience on that company’s web site and from it’s privacy policy. These tie directly to Trust. Companies that have a web site that provides an end-to-end positive experience and which enhances people’s quality of life by saving them time will gain enhanced brand equity. The converse will become obvious. Web sites already have a repository of huge amounts of personal data that represent the byproduct of not just our registrations but also our surfing habits, our purchases, and our interactions with others. In the near future our medical records will be on a web site somewhere and beyond that will come real time data streamed from pacemakers and other medical instruments that are attached to our bodies. All of this data can bring significant benefits to us but only if we are able to trust the holders of the data and have confidence that they will protect it and respect our preferences about how and when it can be used.
Epilogue: This is not a story picking on Citibank. They are one of the giants and they put things in our physical mailboxes on a regular basis, so they have no place to hide. Unfortunately, most privacy policies out there resemble what I have discussed here.
Other patrickWeb stories about Privacy and Trust
Posted by John Patrick on Dec 7, 2007 in
e-Business,
On Demand 
There have been many stories here over the years related to customer service. The Internet offers the potential for businesses, schools, governments, and hospitals to offer unparalleled customer service. More and more are doing so but there is a long way to go. When I wrote Net Attitude during the summer of 2001 I thought by now things would be different. This story will summarize two cases — one great and one much less than great.
In order to end on a high note, I’ll start with the not so great customer service from Symantec. Symantec is a great company and their technology protects millions of consumers and businesses daily with their anti-virus and firewall technologies. I use the Symantec Internet Security on some computers but on one of them I decided to try something different primarily because I find the renewal process tedious — where it could be a mouse click or two, it turns out every year to be long chats with call centers to get a renewal. When the renewal charge showed up as an American Express card transaction I called the 877 number on the transaction. I got a recording saying to call a different number. I called that number and got a recording saying the number was no longer in use and that I should visit http://norton.com/support. I went to that link where it said I could get help with subscriptions, product activation, product download, returns, or rebates. Clicking on subscriptions took me to a customer service page with the same set of choices as the prior page. None of the choices were what I needed so I clicked on "contact us" which showed me option for "Instant Online Chat". I clicked "Chat Now" and then was asked to go through a set of steps to install Microsoft ActiveX technology, which I consider to be close to a virus. The Symantec support structure only works with the Internet Explorer browser, which I do not use. Being a consumer oriented company I am surprised Symantec would impose IE on people when the current browser statistics show that Firefox, Netscape, Safari, and Opera have reached 43% market share. I am sure one of Symantec’s challenges is to get people to use their website instead of calling. Making the browser choice for consumers is not a good way to achieve that.
On the flip side of the coin is Amazon.The company started with a vision of great customer service a dozen years ago and continues to get better. A few months ago I bought a Linksys “Wireless-N Gigabit Security Router with VPN” from Amazon. After using it for awhile it became clear that it had a defect. I confirmed this with Linksys technical support. They said they could send me a reconditioned replacement or I could return the unit to the retailer. I chose the latter and followed the simple process online at Amazon’s customer service page. The Amazon "Your Account" page has just about everything you can imagine — return items, combine orders, track or cancel orders, and even change the payment method for an existing order. All of these functions are intuitive and easy to use. I chose "Return an item" and then was asked if it was a gift or if I had ordered it. I was then shown a list of all my orders (they can show you online order history going back more than ten years). Next was a selection of why the item was being returned. It was clear they are using artificial intelligence to then ask questions and take actions based on your responses. When I said the item was defective, an apology was presented, and with a mouse click a shipping label was ready to print, and they automatically notified UPS to pick up the package.
A confirming email asked if I was satisfied and I had to say no because I didn’t want to send the router back until I received a new one. When I clicked on "no" in the email a web page showed various options for resolving my concern, one of which was "Click here to speak to a real person". I clicked the button and 1 second later my phone rang. I told the person my concern and he completely understood and communicated to me in a clear and helpful way. He immediately put the UPS pickup on hold and placed an order for a replacement router for overnight delivery. "Is there anything else I can do for you?". What could I say other than thanks. Amazon made just shy of $1 billion in profit last year. Sales were over $13 billion. Is it any wonder? The company has made a huge investment in customer service and has always made this a priority. They were criticized for not becoming profitable soon enough. Now the company is valued at just shy of $40 billion. Many companies talk about customer service but Amazon really delivers on it.
Other patrickWeb stories about On Demand
Posted by John Patrick on Jul 18, 2007 in
Conferences,
e-Business,
Internet Technology 
A video of Ira Magaziner’s talk at last week’s eCommerce celebration in Washington can be found here and a video of my wrap-up talk, which I called "The Future of the Internet", is here.
Posted by John Patrick on Jul 17, 2007 in
Conferences,
e-Business,
IBM,
Internet Technology 
Ken Wasch is a fellow alum (Economics and International Relations) from Lehigh University and a law graduate of SUNY Buffalo in New York. After spending eight years as a senior attorney for the U.S. Department of Energy working on petroleum price regulation, Ken saw the light and established the Software Publishers Association (1984) which is now the Software & Information Industry Association. I have known Ken for more than half of his twenty-two years in the industry, so when he called to ask me to participate in a conference to celebrate an important milestone for eCommerce, it was hard to resist.
A handful of us joined with Tim Berners-Lee to start the World Wide Web Consortium at MIT in December 1994. None of us at the time foresaw today’s level or potential for eCommerce. Most of the focus at that time was on techniques for formatting web pages and on various other content related issues. Jim Clark, founder of Netscape, did see the eCommerce potential and he also realized one of the biggest inhibitors was the U.S. Government regulation of encryption, a key tool for making eCommerce secure. Jim and a handful of us started the Global Internet Project as a public policy group to gain more awareness about encryption and urge governments around the world to loosen the reigns. That effort was successful and use of encryption is no longer an inhibitor. (The inhibitor is insufficient Net Attitude to enable web sites to meet our needs).
There were many other complexities looming under the surface that could have dramatically stalled the growth of eCommerce. Collectively it was a hodgepodge of sticky issues — like non-U.S. countires that objected to the U.S. control over key elements of the Internet infrastructure — but the biggest issue was a lack of vision. There was no consistent framework for eCommerce that could enable businesses to move forward. One of the first of the Fortune 500 to put a stake in the ground was IBM Corporation where Lou Gerstner said in 1997 the web is not for surfing, it is for transactions — later named e-Business. The gamble being taken by IBM and many others was that the Internet would become internationally politicized and potentially regulated to a standstill. Fortunately, there was a person in a high place in the government that would help solve many of the tough issues and enable President Clinton to announce a “Framework for Global Electronic Commerce” in the summer of 1997. It was a huge accomplishment for which we should all be eternally grateful. The person who lead the effort was Ira Magaziner, a top aide at the White House. Ira is best known for his efforts to create a major American healthcare program. His effort got attacked from every political direction and eventually fell. Unlike healthcare, the Internet was not well understood by politicians and they stayed out of the way as Ira raised and solved many of the key issues. He then traveled around the world enlightening key government leaders. The rest is history. At the conference last week Ira modestly said the event was "a good reminder of how far we have come and of how much opportunity still remains". Ken Wasch said “Electronic commerce has provided a significant engine for the growth of the global economy and has sparked the delivery of a multitude of innovative products and services.”
It was my privilege to serve on a panel moderated by Michael Mandel, chief economist of BusinessWeek. The other panelists were Stewart Baker, Assistant Secretary, Department of Homeland Security; Dan Burton, Senior Vice President, at Salesforce.com and former President of the Council on Competitiveness; Jamie Estrada, Assistant Secretary (Acting) at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Ira Magaziner who is now Chairman of the Clinton Foundation. To set the stage for discussion, Michael announced the results of a poll of thought leaders in the industry in which they voted on the most significant "eCommerce Developments of the Last Decade". The results are so commonplace to all of us that it is hard to believe that they are ten years or so old. No surprise, Google (Sept. 1998) came out on top. Number two was when broadband penetration of US Internet users reached 50% (June 2004). Third was eBay Auctions (Launched Sept. 1997). Fourth was Amazon.com (went public in May 1997). Fifth was Google Ad Words (2000) which enabled key word advertising. Sixth — Open Standards. Seven — WiFi. Eight – User-Generated Content (YouTube 2005). Ninth was iTunes (2001) and last but not least, the BlackBerry (1999). See the SIIA press release for more details on the top ten.
It was my privilege to give the wrap-up talk which I called "The Future of the Internet". I asserted that the Internet has grown to it’s infancy and that we have so far only seen five percent of what the Internet has in store for our business and personal lives. The examples used were things often written about here in patrickWeb. A video of Ira Magaziner’s talk is here and my closing speech is here.
Other patrickWeb stories about Conferences
Posted by John Patrick on Mar 14, 2007 in
e-Business 
The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce has announced that U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the fourth quarter of 2006 were $29.3 billion, an increase of 4.6 percent from the third quarter and 24.6% above the fourth quarter of 2005. In fact, the year to year growth has been more than 20% for every quarter since it has been tracked back five years or so ago. The impressive double-digit growth rate is more than triple the growth of retail sales overall. E-commerce has now reached 3% of total retail sales
Why isn’t it 20% instead of 3% ? There are many reasons — most of them are not technology related. Other than the major sites, many web businesses have lame web pages that ask you to re-enter a date because you forgot the dashes, or re-enter the date because no dashes are allowed, or enter your favorite color and then tell you it must be at least five characters in length (nix red, blue, gray, tan, pink), or make bold statements about how their e-business is there for you 24×7 and then displays a page that says "sorry, our web site is temporarily unavailable", or "you can’t there from here" error messages . When it comes to concerns about security, identity theft, and privacy, I am optimistic that these issues will be adequately addressed. However, the ease of use issues require a shift in attitude to solve. I must confess that I thought this would be well understood after a decade of e-commerce but we clearly have a long way to go.
As eBay and Amazon continue to grow and show real profits to the world, business leaders are paying more attention. The free markets are driving competition and innovation is beginning to kick into high gear. We have barely scratched the surface of what is going to happen. It will never be 100% of retail but I can see it getting to 25% which will make it a trillion dollar business.
Posted by John Patrick on Nov 20, 2004 in
e-Business The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce has announced that their estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2004 was $17.6 billion, an increase of 4.7 percent from the second quarter of 2004 and 21.5 percent from the third quarter of 2003. E-commerce sales in the third quarter accounted for 1.9 percent of total sales. This impressive double-digit growth rate is more than triple the growth of retail sales overall. Soon — probably by the end of the current quarter — e-commerce will be more than two percent of all retail sales.
Why isn’t it 20% instead of 2% ? There are many reasons — only some of them not technology related. The number of people with "always on" Internet connections is a factor. Ease of use and concerns about security, identity theft, and privacy also contribute. I am optimistic that these issues will be adequately addressed. As eBay and Amazon continue to grow and show real profits to the world, business leaders are paying more attention. The free markets will drive competition and then innovation will kick into high gear. We have barely scratched the surface of what is going to happen.
While e-commerce is important and will continue to grow rapidly, it is not the most important capability of the Internet for humankind. How about if linking millions of personal computers together and combining their unused capacity could lead to a cure for cancer or create a vaccine for SARS or smallpox? We know it could happen in years but a new breakthrough might accelerate the timetable dramaticlly. IBM’s announcement of the World Community Grid earlier this week may turn out to be the most significant use of the Internet ever. Much more on this in an upcoming story.
Other
patrickWeb e-business stories
Posted by John Patrick on Nov 4, 2004 in
e-Business 
We all have experienced "airline woes", and like my fellow travelers, I continue to look forward to the day when I can write a story about how great airline
web sites are. Hopefully, the story will also describe how well the airlines have integrated all of their information systems and processes so they present themselves as a single seamless interface to their customers. I have complete confidence it will happen, albeit a bit less confidence that all airlines will be able to afford to do what they need to do.
Airlines have a complicated business
and are under enormous financial pressure. Even with the elegant and theoretically simplistic web services technology, there is a huge effort ahead to create a modern and seamless
integration across the many systems and applications that airlines run. Progress is being made but you can see the legacy systems and vocabulary peeking through the facade. I was talking with an American Airlines agent the other day about some travel arrangements (unfortunately, I was not able to get the information I needed through aa.com). The agents continue to do a great job but they also make it clear that they do not have web access and any questions about the web site have to be directed to a different department at a different phone number (this is not unique to American Airlines). At the conclusion of the discussion, the agent said she would send me an email confirmation with all the details of my upcoming trip. Since my wife would be traveling with me this time, I asked the agent if she could copy my wife’s email address. Sort of. The agent told me that they can only do one email at a time and no copies are possible. The email would take up to 24-48 hours. I could call back the next day and ask that another email for my wife be put "into the system".
You can tell that the airline is not using a completely modern-day email system. There are other clues. The "To:" line of the email says JOHN @ PATRICKWEB.COM. The email is likely being generated from the airline’s mainframe system (which decades ago was predominantly UPPER CASE). Nothing wrong with mainframes, of course. To the contrary, it is great that they have integrated their powerful mainframe back end systems with the web front end. Some cosmetic changes are needed to clean things up so that the web users have confidence that the airline is speaking their language. Part of this is technical, and part is just plain attention to details and grammar. The email said "This is a American Airlines/American Eagle itinerary notification only and does not constitute ticketing". Perhaps the sentence was made generic so that it could also say "This is a United Airlines…..". How about making it "This American Airlines/American Eagle itinerary is for notification only and does not constitute ticketing"? Sometimes the simple things — like good grammar — send us the right signals. It would be nice if the company marketing department, not just the IT staff, has read and approved web pages and email content for grammar, spelling, style, and appropriateness.
Not to pick on airlines, here is my all-time favorite page — at a multi-billion dollar e-tailer web site that was offering gift "certificates online". I clicked, and here is what I got. "You would need to contact the store where you are wanting to get the gift certificate from. We currently do not offer the purchase Gift Certificates online. If you have any further questions or would like to offer feedback, please email us".
The airline industry is highly competitive and so every airline is working very hard to make their web presence effective. Although making great progress, airlines have
a long way to go to become on
demand businesses. What is an on-demand business? It is very
simple to say, although it requires a huge amount of work to achieve. An on demand business is one that allows you to engage with them whenever you want
from wherever you are with whatever kind of communications link you have
and with whatever kind of device you may be using to do what you need to do with simplicity and productivity. Another
way to say it is that an on demand business simplifies your life and
saves you time. Again, it is easy to say and hard to do. I continue to say that we are
just five percent of the way there. Not long ago I thought it was just two
percent,
so I do think the businesses of the world are making significant progress.
Posted by John Patrick on Oct 28, 2004 in
e-Business 
There was quite a bit of feedback about the Four Percent story. Bill Sell, Managing Partner at Advisor Communications in Framingham, Massachusetts said that he had been looking for a 27” television with a specific housing size to fit in a wall unit. For over a month he had been visiting "all sorts of stores" but usually finding the specific item he needed "out of stock" and, he added, "no interest on the part of the sales people to help find it". With his existing TV getting worse and the Red Sox game coming up, he decided to search online. In short order, he found the unit in stock at a Best Buy store 40 miles from the area where he had been doing his "physical" shopping. Bill ordered and paid for the TV online, got a map with driving directions from the Best Buy site and received a confirmation email saying that "his" TV was being pulled from inventory. He then received another email, this time from a service manager at the store saying that the TV was waiting for him with his "name on it".
The elapsed time from starting the search online and receiving all the communications: 10 minutes. Bill said, "No gas involved, and a complete surprise to me how easy this was". He drove to the store, picked up the TV, and was "out of the store in less than five minutes". "It’s restored my faith in the e-commerce model – one where I didn’t have to pay a huge shipping premium". Bill says, "Keep up the encouragement for the medium!". Ok, Bill, you can count it.
Alan Herrell is a web designer and "the head lemur". He questions the four percent assertion. Like Bill, Alan he has some personal experience, in case through his own business. Alan has a number of clients who use the Internet "to increase
sales" but he believes that their results are not counted in the officially reported e-commerce. He cites two examples.
1. An auto wrecker has a web site that has a request form used to look for
parts.
The wrecker responds with a price including shipping. Using programs such as
UPS Worldship, ("a real deal closer") allows the customer to know to the penny what the total
purchase will cost.
Once the agreement is reached the customer is contacted and credit card
information is taken over the phone, the package is shipped and the
purchaser not only gets the part and a receipt but, while it is in transit, the customer receives an email with the tracking number so they can track the
shipment. Alan says, "While this may be a case of splitting hairs in terms of not using an
e-commerce gateway, this is still an e-commerce transaction". The customer gets tracking from contact to delivery. The auto wrecker gets
increased sales and "virtual elimination of fraud" by using the phone and email instead of credit card companies — and their service charges.
2. Body shops and insurance companies are relying more and more upon
electronic claims handling from assignment, through supplement, through
final billing, with the only contact between the body shop and the insurance
company being email.
In summary, Alan believes that e-commerce has a much higher share of the domestic product
than is being counted, and it is "in the counting mechanism rather than in
the technological barriers, or fears about identity theft" that are causing the undercount. "Nope, I think that e-commerce accounts for a far higher figure than 4%. More
likely in the 10-13% range when you factor in "Internet-related
methodologies". I think Alan makes some really excellent points. Hopefully, the methodology for collecting and reporting e-commerce activity will continue to improve.
Other
patrickWeb stories about e-business
Posted by John Patrick on Aug 18, 2004 in
e-Business 
The FedEx driver stopped by this morning and dropped off a package. We had a nice chat about the weather, the roads, and motorcycles. The Express envelope that was delivered contained an Express envelope for some materials I had to return to the Washington Speakers Bureau. The driver told me he would be passing back through the area at the end of the day and could pick up the envelope — as long as I called by noon.
I decided to use the web site instead of calling. The site insisted that I could not request a pickup unless I was a registered user, so I went through the registration process, filled out a page of personal information. After submitting it, the site asked for my FedEx account number. I don’t have one. I entered the WSB account number on the envelope and the system then said it must be an error because the address for that account number does not match the address I had entered. I gave up on the web site and called the FedEx 800 number. The customer service agent was very nice but she couldn’t help me because her PC was "frozen". After being on hold for quite a while I called again. This time the customer service agent said she could help but that it was past the pickup cutoff time for today. I explained that the driver had told me that he goes right past my location at the end of every day and that he said he could pick it up. "I am sure he could", she said, "but the system will not allow me to make the request. It is past the cutoff."
Things like this are what prompted me to write "Net Attitude". Is the situation I encountered caused by technical issues? I would argue not. Surely there are technical issues and policy issues but the bigger issue is to meet the rising expectations for On Demand services. If a customer can call and request a pickup without having an account number, why can’t they go to the web site and request a pickup without a customer number? Could the "system" send a message to the driver and ask if he could pick up the envelope? Could the customer service process been to tell the customer that the cutoff has been reached but that a wireless message will be sent to the closest driver and if he is able to pick up the envelope he will, otherwise he will pick it up tomorrow? Could the system send me an email to let me know if it would be picked up today or not?
FedEx is a brilliant and innovative company with huge systems resources. It is amazing what they do everyday, and being in the hotly competitive business they are in, they continue to get better and better. At the same time, as we all experience new and better services via the Internet, our expectations increase. On Demand is a big job for businesses, governments, hospitals, and schools. It means that the customer can get what they want, when they want it, any time, anywhere, using whatever device they choose to connect to the Internet.
Posted by John Patrick on Aug 1, 2004 in
e-Business Each and every one of us could write stories about less than perfect Customer Service. Recently, I wrote about a venture to find a GSM Provider that I could use with the Sony Ericsson P900. AT&T Wireless turned out to be the best in terms of coverage and, in spite of their ratings, their customer service has been pretty good. Cingular is a different story. I can accept that every provider is not going to have great coverage where I live, but good customer service is something that every provider should have.
The sales person was very nice. She captured all my information – name and address, ssn, driver’s license number, date of birth, etc. — using an online application. I was impressed (except for them insisting on so much personal information). I thought we were ready to insert the chip card , but then out came the paperwork. I had to fill out an application form with all the same information that they had already captured in their system! Go figure. Unfortunately, as I previously reported, I got home and found there was no signal. I immediately called the store and they said they could open accounts but they can’t close them. I would have to call 1-866-CINGULAR. (read more)
