I’m a customer of Aldi locally, since it’s great to go in a store and not have to walk a mile to find the three things you need when you’re in a hurry, unlike the big box supermarkets that I hate with a passion for that reason. Aldi in Easton PA is a friendly place to shop, with a great staff. But there are certain frustrations with things that aren’t always available (what the staff calls the “damned seasonal stuff”.) This bugs me, and from what I’ve heard from other customers, as well as Aldi staff at the local store, I’m not the only one that’s bugged by this. There are also some items that come with three varieties packaged in a box. Usually one variety sells out repeatedly and early, and, according to staff, they can’t order/restock until all the varieties reach a certain low level. Also according to staff, customer issues that are passed on by staff to management are not valued.

Every package from Aldi has a guarantee on it. It also has the website address listed in a way that hints you can voice any concerns and give customer feedback on the website. Nothing can be further from the truth. The website has no contact form. When you click on the “Customer Service” link (which is hidden in an onmouseover event, and most likely less than accessible to anyone using assistive technology) there is a bunch of marketing language, and instructions at the bottom on how to send them a letter via SNAILMAIL. In this internet day and age, with the cost of stamps and gas, and all the green concerns of delivery and paper, the company expects its customers to send valuable customer feedback via SNAILMAIL? Okay, so I’ll call them on the phone instead. OOPS! No corporate phone number ANYWHERE on the website.

Now, that’s not the only thing wrong. The photo of whole coffee beans on the front page hints that this is a product available at Aldi. It isn’t. The website, as I’ve mentioned before, isn’t very accessible, since it depends on javascript and other things that may trip up assistive technology, which may bite Aldi bigtime if Target loses their lawsuit. I’d venture to say their search engine placement probably suffers as well. There is nothing sold on the website, despite the fact that a lot of the stuff featured on the website is not available at my local store, which is a huge missed opportunity for them as well as an annoyance to me.

But I can’t voice any of these concerns. There is no contact form, and there is no phone number. This is such a HUGE mistake. Both is preferable, but at least one would allow me to voice my concerns.

So Aldi won’t hear from me that I hate stocking up on Beaumont cappuccino in the spring to tide me over until fall, as do other customers as well. Aldi won’t hear from me that it’s annoying that they’re not offering the Fit and Trim mint ice cream sandwiches. Aldi won’t hear from me that I might TRY whole bean coffee if they offered it, and don’t buy anything but whole bean coffee, which means I don’t purchase coffee from Aldi. Aldi won’t hear from me that I don’t want trans fats and high fructose corn syrup in my foods and would purchase more if most of their stuff didn’t include trans fats and/or high fructose corn syrup. Aldi won’t hear from me that I and other customers would very much like it if they offered a couple breakfast cereals that didn’t have any added sugar. Aldi won’t hear from me that I’d buy my milk from Aldi if it was from dairies that didn’t use Bovine Growth Hormone and was clearly labelled as such. Aldi won’t hear from me that some of the electronics they’ve featured on their website are ones I would have purchased if they’d been available either at my local store or offered for purchase on the website.

Am I to assume from this that Aldi doesn’t care what Customers want? Am I to assume from this that they only pay lip service to Customer Service? That’s what this website says to me and others who try to use it. And it is a huge marketing mistake to essentially tell your customers you don’t give a shit what they want.

Technorati Tags: Web Design Mistakes, Marketing Mistakes, Aldi

I bought a new Dell back last September, and though I generally love the damn thing, I gotta say that the Dell Support Software is a joke. Rant warning . . .

First of all, the damn Support thing has been giving me “alerts” about the “security settings” I’m running. It says my Internet Explorer settings are insecure. Now, this is laughable since I don’t USE Internet Explorer for anything but testing webpages and running Windows Update, since it’s a totally insecure and broken piece of manure.

So Dell tells me my drivers need updating, I go to the support site to find the new drivers, by clicking the link in the Dell Support software, my default browser opens . . . and Dell tells me I’m using an unsupported browser. That’s Firefox, which has a significant market share these days. So I have to use an Insecure Broken Browser for doing anything with Dell, since THEY REQUIRE THE DAMN THING for interfacing with their support site. Excuse me? You tell me I’M INSECURE???? Dell REQUIREs ActiveX to be turned on to use their damn support site (Which, by the way, I only enable on a site by site basis, since it is so damned insecure.) Oh, and the issue they were squawking about re ME being insecure? The phishing thing, which I turned off since it was throwing an error consistently when I tested pages in IE locally. Oh yeah, that works REALLY well . . .

It was actually easier updating drivers on my old box I built myself, since they’d come up as optional hardware updates from within Windows Update.

Now, I could ALMOST understand this crapola on a box they sell as a home user box, though it’s been a long time since IE had over 90% market share. But I purchased through Dell Home Business (so I could get XP instead of Vista, and not have to get all that junkware they load home boxes with.) The LEAST that Dell could do would be to support all major browsers. And if they can’t do that, then THEIR SOFTWARE is insecure, not mine. It’s either that or they are too damn lazy to support what is fast becoming a significant portion of their clientele, who are those who are security conscious enough to use a REAL browser.

Technorati Tags: Dell Support Software, Dell Support Website, Dell Browser Compatibility

Do you believe this?

First I read this article in the Washington Post about DNS Error Redirection and the insecurity of it since the ads are served by a third party, resulting in all kinds of security issues. They say the security issues are fixed. There are, however, other ramifications to this.

In reading the article further down, it mentioned that SUBDOMAIN errors are also redirected by some ISPs. Earthlink was mentioned, as were Verizon and QWest, though I’m sure there are others doing this as well. So I tried typing in blah.kickasswebdesign.com and sure enough, MY OWN ISP WAS STEALING MY TRAFFIC.

I did get it fixed, but because I’m on two different shared servers with multiple domains, I had to have the hosting guys at both hosting companies fix it for each domain. It apparently has to be fixed by a DNS entry and a change in httpd.config, which, if you’re on shared hosting, is usually not within your control, or at least it isn’t within the scope of my current skills. If you’re on shared hosting, ask your support person to redirect wildcard subdomains to your domain. If you have active subdomains, I would mention that as well.

This is an issue from a lot of perspectives. Someone who, for instance, mistypes www. as ww. will get sent to an ad laden dns error page, which may lead them to think you’re out of business. Also, if they pick up a virus or fall prey to a phishing scam while trying to access your domain it could leave a really bad taste in their mouth. And that’s YOUR traffic that is fattening the wallet of your ISP, the one you pay (way too much) money to every month.

And I’ve gotta say I’m really PISSED OFF at Earthlink for this. I know they’re a public company who has to garner as many income streams as possible to placate shareholders, but this is not the way to do it. This will piss off any customer who has a website and who works hard to generate traffic. And pissed off people generate bad press in the blogosphere. HEAR ME, EARTHLINK????

So the bottom line is that from now on, every domain I activate has this wildcard subdomain redirect put in place at the beginning as part of my checklist of things that need doing to ensure the success of my new website. I suggest you do the same.

Technorati Tags: Earthlink, Verizon, QWest, Subdomain DNS Error Redirection