Well, my bad user experience story pales in comparison's to Mike's D H HELL. I just signed up for Verizon voicemail...for around $5 a month, it was added protection for getting messages when I'm on the phone or when my cats turn the answering machine off (a task they have gotten fairly good at).

I'd tried to sign up online Thursday night, but although I'd gotten thru 95% of the process, I was unable to finish the final step; clicking the "next" button kept re-loading the page. No error messages were displayed, so I guessed it was an incompatibility with my Mac version of Mozilla.

The next day, I signed up on the PC at work. I couldn't figure out why it was listing one optional service I already had (call waiting) but not another (caller ID). Not sure if I'll be double-billed for the call waiting, I guess I'll wait for the bill!

The service was turned on as promised. What wasn't delivered were the instructions for setting up the voicemail. I apparently had a message (was getting the interrupted dial tone), but didn't know how to retrieve it. A call to Verizon customer service was quite happy to walk me thru their automated system. Alas, there were no service agents...they were off until Monday.

The good news is that the repair line was 24x7. I was expecting to be told my issue wasn't a repair one, but the agent was able to give me the info I needed to get in. (Interestingly, she wasn't aware that an alternative was to simply dial my own number and press * ... rather than call the Verizon voicemail number.)

For me, the silver lining of this dark cloud of less than great user experience is that UX professionals have a long career ahead!

04:02 PM | linkme | home