We joke about how bad CX is sometimes.  And with certain things like your online presence, sometimes certain brands miss the mark so badly, you’d have to have a heart of stone not to chuckle.  (Not to mention, the more brands get things so terribly wrong, the more work there is for consultants like me!)

For example, there’s a rental car company (it’s a big one…you’ve definitely heard of it) whose password reset procedure is, no kidding, to call an agent on the phone to get it reset.  Now, in fairness, the rest of this brand’s online experience is a dumpster fire as well, so frankly it’s par for the course and somewhat expected that Customers wouldn’t be able to do something as simple as reset their passwords on their own.  It only makes it funnier (or sadder, if you want to see it that way).

But here’s one that’s even more hilarious/horrific:  A while back I was looking up my Social Security account information.  I don’t know how frequently you look up your SSA information, but it’s quite a blue-moon incident for me.  Needless to say, I had no idea what my login credentials even were.  Somewhere along the line I must have ended up on an email notification list for them, and from there, they’ll periodically send me an automated message about my balance or that I can log in and check my projected benefits way in the future when I (if I ever) retire.  It was probably one of those emails that prompted me to even think about them.

So, I went to try to log in.  Naturally I had no idea what my password is.

The password recovery system is what you’d expect:  Answer a few challenge questions and they’ll allow you to reset it.  (An aside:  I have a friend who tells me it’s just easier for her to let her computer autogenerate one of those ‘super-cryptic passwords’ and if she can’t get in just go ahead each time and use the challenge questions as the password themselves.  Not efficient, but she never has to remember anything.)   Here’s the problem, though:  One of the questions is which street I lived on when I was in 5th grade.  Okay, no problem, I totally remember that, except:  Did I enter it as “10th”, “Tenth”, “10th Street”, “10th St”, “N 10th Street”…  Oh yea, you only get five chances.  (No I didn’t live on 10th street…there isn’t even one in my old town anyway, so sorry… you won’t be able to hack my Social Security account…hell, even I can’t access it.)  After I’d exhausted those in quick order, it’s, ‘alright, now what?’  “Click here if you need help,” or whatnot.

And do you know what the procedure is to reset it if you can’t get it done on your own?  (Hold your laughter.)

They’ll send you a temporary password…through the mail.  Yes, the mail.  Without the “e”.  As in Pony Express, Karl Malone, like Cliff Clavin (Berkowitz?).  Someone at the SSA office in Washington, DC, will print something (on paper), put it in an envelope, frank it, and send it into the USPS system.  A few days later, it’ll show up in the box that hangs out in front of my door.

Actually, it’s not even a few days, as the estimated processing time listed on the website is six weeks!  Six weeks?  I picture in my head down at the SSA some sort of Willy Wonka machine that cranks up when someone on the floor yells, “Password Reset!”  Steam puffs out and sirens howl as huge pistons start grinding out power to the PaSSA-Wordinator machine.  You can’t make this stuff up, except that I just did.

I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me.  As a 30+ year (and still going!) veteran of the Air Force, I’ve faced down some of the slowest, least Customer-centric systems allegedly built for getting the most mind-numbingly simple tasks accomplished that nothing’s shocking anymore for me, especially when it comes to working with the US Federal Government.

But still… I had to laugh.

All this to say, how are we as no-kidding legit actual business people with actual Customers who may go elsewhere if they’re unsatisfied making things easier or harder for our them to get their jobs done?  It reminded me of an article I wrote several years ago:  You don’t have to be Zappos!, you just have to be better than the DMV!