the blog of a bear

this is where a bear will post stuff.

open communication

an open letter to Keurig: lack of information does not make for responsible customer service.

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As a longtime user of
Keurig brewers and products
I’ve always ordered from the American site because of there extremely large list of available products, (235 to be exact) compared to
The Canadian site of keurig
that only has 86 choices.
So it came as a rather large shock when placing an order recently that 50% of my order could not be shipped to me.
I asked for an explination, and all I was told was that they had no information.
I then called customs and the CBA here in Canada and asked specific questions, and was told that Keurig should have this information and to call them.
After a little more digging by myself and others, we were finally furnished with a complete list of the products that were restricted, but still no precise reason for the restriction or a timeframe for it’s lifting.
We received the following message in response to this enquiry.

From: Jeannine Colella
Date: Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Subject: Restricted from shipping to Canada SR 81-344235529
To: (address removed for privacy)
The following products will be restricted for Canada:
• CS Southern Sweet Black Perfect Iced tea T6825
• CS Half and Half Black Perfect Iced Tea T6828
• CS Sweet Peach Perfect Iced Tea T6822
• CS Sweet Lemon Perfect Iced Tea T6821
• CS Sweet Raspberry Perfect Iced Tea T6824
• GMN Lemonade T6846
• Revv Pules coffee T4063
• Sweet and Creamy Regular T6603
• Sweet and Creamy Nutty Hazelnut T6604
• Acai Berry Vitamin Burst® T6863
• Strawberry Pomegranate Vitamin Burst® T6864
• GM Focus Blend TM T6724
• GM Antioxidant Blend T6723
• CS Antioxidant Max™ Blackberry Pomegranate Green Tea T6011
• CS Antioxidant Max™ Green Tea Blood Orange Star Fruit T6010
• Green Mountain® Pumpkin Spice Latte T9472
• Barista Prima® Cappuccino T9316
• Barista Prima® Café Mocha T9318
• Barista Prima® Vanilla Latte T9317
• Barista Prima® Sweetened Cappuccino T9351
• Cafe’ Escapes® Latte Creator- Creamy Latte T9417
• Cafe’ Escapes® Latte Creator- Chocolate Mocha T9416
• Celestial Seasonings® Southern Sweet Perfect Iced Tea T9326
• Celestial Seasonings® Half and Half Perfect Iced Tea T9343
The Original Donut Shop® Sweet & Creamy Regular Iced Coffee
Jeannine M. Colella
Consumer Care Representative
P: 877-208-9991 ext 7793172 F: 781-245-1869
E: jeannine.colella@gmcr.com A: 55 Walkers Brook Drive, Reading, MA 01867
W: www.gmcr.com www.keurig.com

I wasn’t impressed with the response, basically here’s a list, but I’m not providing any further information, deal with it.
I then composed the following letter to jeannine colella at Keurig.

From: Shane Davidson
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 5:14 PM
To: jeannine.colella@gmcr.com
Subject: lack of information does not make for responsible customer service.
Dear Jeannine Colella;
I am writing you today with concerns regarding the extremely large restriction on products being shipped to Canada, inparticular Ontario.
I refer you to the list of restricted products included in SR 81-344235529, and pasted below for your reference.
—list starts here—
• CS Southern Sweet Black Perfect Iced tea T6825
• CS Half and Half Black Perfect Iced Tea T6828
• CS Sweet Peach Perfect Iced Tea T6822
• CS Sweet Lemon Perfect Iced Tea T6821
• CS Sweet Raspberry Perfect Iced Tea T6824
• GMN Lemonade T6846
• Revv Pules coffee T4063
• Sweet and Creamy Regular T6603
• Sweet and Creamy Nutty Hazelnut T6604
• Acai Berry Vitamin Burst® T6863
• Strawberry Pomegranate Vitamin Burst® T6864
• GM Focus Blend TM T6724
• GM Antioxidant Blend T6723
• CS Antioxidant Max™ Blackberry Pomegranate Green Tea T6011
• CS Antioxidant Max™ Green Tea Blood Orange Star Fruit T6010
• Green Mountain® Pumpkin Spice Latte T9472
• Barista Prima® Cappuccino T9316
• Barista Prima® Café Mocha T9318
• Barista Prima® Vanilla Latte T9317
• Barista Prima® Sweetened Cappuccino T9351
• Cafe’ Escapes® Latte Creator- Creamy Latte T9417
• Cafe’ Escapes® Latte Creator- Chocolate Mocha T9416
• Celestial Seasonings® Southern Sweet Perfect Iced Tea T9326
• Celestial Seasonings® Half and Half Perfect Iced Tea T9343
The Original Donut Shop® Sweet & Creamy Regular Iced Coffee
—list ends here—
This is a rather large list, incumpusing 25 different products, that we in Ontario Canada have enjoyed purchasing from Keurig Inc. in the past.
On further review, no information has been provided to anyone regarding this rather large restriction, and the Canadian boarder agency, (CBA), as well as Canadian customs indicates that Keurig would have been advised in written form upon the first returned shipment as to why products are being restricted from being imported into Canada, specifically Ontario.
Upon myself and many others asking Keurig for a reason why, absolutely no reason has been provided and the blame has been passed to Canadian customs.
I am asking at this time for an official stance from Keurig on this matter, and for a written reason, (not just heresay) on why this restriction is in place, and a timeframe for when this restriction will be lifted if Keurig knows this information.
I am also asking that your website
www.keurig.com
be immediately updated with a complete list, and reason for the restriction so Canadians are aware of the restrictions in place.
Also, please ensure all telephone agents are also advised of the restriction, and what it incumpuses so they may advise residence that this effects, of the restrictions, to prevent disappointment when ordering.
Because of the nature of this matter, I will be posting my letter, along with any response by you or your coleagues, or a note stating your lack of a response, for public viewing on my blog as open communication at
http://stickbear.me
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely;
Shane Davidson

We’ll see what this gets me, some of you may think I’m wrong for riding them so hard on this issue, but I think we deserve answers, and someone will give us those answers, especially when the restriction was put in place with absolutely no reason given.
Talk to you next time.

a response to my dropbox support ticket about accessibility.

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The following is the response posted to my
support ticket e-mail to dropbox
yesterday.

From: David M. – Dropbox Support
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 12:28 AM
To: Shane Davidson
Subject: Dropbox Support – Re: interface changes do not always mean accessibility.
## IMPORTANT ## Text below this line won’t be added to the ticket
You can add a response by replying to this email.
Please be sure to reply with the same email address that you used to originally contact us.
David M. – Dropbox Support, Mar 13 09:27 pm (PDT):
Hi Shane,
Thanks for contacting Dropbox.
Our engineers have been notified of this issue and are actively working towards fixing it. Unfortunately, I can’t give you an exact timeline that a fix will be available but I’ll be sure to notify you when it’s released!
If you have any additional questions or concerns please let me know.
Best,
David

I’m really hoping these aren’t just words and that this does mean dropbox devs are actually working towards a fix to bring back accessibility to dropbox 2.0.
We’ll see what happens in the coming days.

an open letter to dropbox, interface changes don't always mean it's accessible.

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update: a response was received on March 14, 2013.
as a longstanding user of dropbox, I’ve grown to love it, from it’s ease of use, to it’s support on so many platforms, windows, mac, android, and iphone. So when 2.0.0 was early released and put up as the perminant stable download I thought nothing of it, until I noticed the right click menu was no longer accessible.
I did some research and noticed I wasn’t the only user experiencing this issue, and not the only OS effected, as the mac was effected as well.
I tested with JAWS, window-eyes and NVDA and got the exact same results.
So like so many others, I decided to compose an e-mail to dropbox support, asking them to please fix these issues. I post it below for your reading. The comment boards await you.

From: Shane Davidson
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2013 3:42 AM
To: ‘support@dropbox.com’
Subject: interface changes do not always mean accessibility.
Hello;
As a longtime user of dropbox, starting in 2009, and it’s paid service, becoming a paid user back in 2010, I’ve gotten used to storing important business and personal documents in the cloud, sharing folders with friends, and I referred people to your service since I highly recommended it.
It’s simplicity, ease of use, and ability to install it on everything, your computers, your iphone, your android, it was perfict.
Your recent doubling of paid users and adding more paid plans with more space screamed keep me, and I kept referring users, participating in contests, etc. earning more space.
Recently, you early released version 2.0.0 as a “stable” release to a select number of users, some of those users being totally blind that rely on screen access technologies, the three main ones being JAWS for windows from Freedom scientific, www.freedomscientific.com Window-eyes from GWMicro www.gwmicro.com and the free and open source NVDA www.nvda-project.org.
Reading your blog post at
https://blog.dropbox.com/2013/03/discover-the-new-dropbox-menu-on-your-computer/
and the forum post at
https://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=97895
I saw you had changed your dropbox menu. Ok, no big deal, right? Still able to right click. Actually no. The old style menu we were used to was gone. Utterly gone. I thought there was an issue with my access technology, in this case JAWS, but after discussion with other users via twitter, facebook, and seing this topic on the forums
https://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=97907&replies=1#post-533140
it seems that this is not the case and the latest version under both windows and mac, the menu is not accessible.
We still have the ability to move files around in explorer/finder depending on your OS, but this menu gave us access to the preferences, our space usage, recently changed files, and the ability if necessary to shut down the client if the need arose.
Myself, and others are begging, and imploring you to please, please fix this major accessibility issue before releasing to the public as a whole.
Your prompt attention to this matter would be greatly appreciated and a lot of users would thank you.
Your attention to this issue would show that a mainstream company is willing to listen to a group of people, and willing to keep accessibility in mind when making changes to a UI.
As a note, this e-mail, and any communications minus personally identifying information that may be included, will be posted as an open communication for all to read on my blog at
www.shaned.net
weather the feedback is positive or negative, it will be posted to the above linked blog to be read by all.
Thank you for your time and attention.

I and others await your comments. We’ll see what dropbox says in the coming days.

a follow up to the post entitled: welcome to open communication, pizza pizza.

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I posted
2 weeks ago
a letter I mailed off to pizza pizza, regarding their inaccessible iphone app, it was a little blunt, but you’ll have that.
Today, I received this in response.

——————————————————————————–
From: Pizza Pizza App Customer Support [mailto:iphone@pizzapizza.ca]
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2011 3:51 PM
To: Shane Davidson
Subject: RE: iphone app feedback.
Hello Shane,
Thank you for writing to us and we apologize for the delay in responding to your e-mail.
We are currently in the process of providing an accessibility solution for our website – www.pizzapizza.ca which allows for online ordering. Once this process has been completed, we will be looking into the feasibility of carrying this over into our mobile application. At this point, we would not be able to apprise you of a time frame but we do endeavor to meet the needs of all our valued customers and we recognize the importance of this matter.
We appreciate you taking the time out to write to us about this and your valuable suggestion. We hope to have the opportunity to serve you in the future.
Regards,
Pizza Pizza Customer Support
www.pizzapizza.ca
www.pizzapizza.ca

Welcome to a response that isn’t a form letter.
We’ll see how much of that comes to pass over the coming month’s.

welcome to open communication, pizza pizza.

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I love pizza, and hey, so does
james
So niftily enough
pizza pizza
one of the major pizza places here in canada has an iphone app.
Nifty, I thought, and hey, it’s free. no complaints.
Um, except their was.
The accessibility of this app, leaves their a lot to be desired.
With a lot of patience, you can find, and by trial and error make voice over read things, and you can put together an order, if using specials, but attempt to design your own pizza? not so much.
Buttons don’t read, the process is not explained, in short, pizza pizza didn’t design this app with the voice over user in mind.
So, I sent the following short and simple message to their iphone feedback address.

From: Shane Davidson
Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 4:45 AM
To: iphone@pizzapizza.ca
Subject: iphone app feedback.
To Whom this may concern;
I am writing you as a blind iphone user, who uses voice over, the built in screen reader.
The app would be useful to myself, and other blind iphone users if you took the time to make it usable with voice over.
At this time, some of the app is accessible, but it has a long way to go before it can be successfully used to order and manage previous orders with your company.
I am happy to help test this apps accessibility if your company is willing to build accessibility into the app so it works more flawlessly with voice over on the iphone, and other similar IDevices.
This is being posted as open communication on my own personal blog at
http://stickbear.me
and on another blog, welcome to knowwhere, that I help manage, at
http://www.the-jdh.com
so any response, or lack their of, will be read by a lot of users, both sighted and blind alike.
Thank you for your time and attention to this issue.
Sincerely;
Shane Davidson

In short, let’s see if pizza pizza cares enough to come up with a response or a reworked app with voice over support, shall we?
Feel free to comment, and give your thoughts on this app and things.

and I finally get a response!

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as I posted about way the hell over
here
back in february, the CRTC was and still is reviewing the usage based billing ruling.
During that time, I had e-mailed my views via the same form that’s in the post I linked above, and finally, I have a response, form letter or not, here it is.

From: Minister.Industry@ic.gc.ca [mailto:Minister.Industry@ic.gc.ca]
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 5:55 PM
To: shane@shaned.net
Subject: Usage-based billing (UBB) for Internet services
Dear Sir or Madam:
Thank you for expressing your concerns regarding usage-based billing (UBB) for Internet services. It is essential that I hear the views of Canadians on the issues that matter. Prime Minister Harper and I have been clear that we cannot support imposing a UBB business model on wholesale Internet service providers.
Our government recognizes that the Internet and digital technologies are an increasingly important part of everyday life—including driving innovation, commerce and social interaction. As the government develops Canada’s first comprehensive Digital Economy Strategy, we need to look carefully at how issues like UBB affect the big picture. We will be guided by our long-standing policies of encouraging competition and investment, increasing consumer choice, minimizing regulation and allowing market forces to prevail.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has chosen to examine these concerns that the government shares with a large number of Canadians. Details of the CRTC consultation are available at www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/com100/2011/r110208.htm.
When the CRTC reaches a final decision following its consultations, the government will carefully assess the CRTC position to ensure that it is in line with the best interests of Canadian consumers and encourages competition among internet service providers. I will be recommending that any decision counter to these foundational principles be reversed.
You can find the latest news on the government’s Digital Economy Strategy and related issues at www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ic1.nsf/eng/h_00008.html.
Once again, thank you for writing. I trust that this information is helpful.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Clement

That was kinda nifty to see in my inbox.

an open letter to wind mobile, gets sent for a second time. this time, from me, the actual customer.

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I’ve previously linked to the original
post that contains the letter
regarding this issue in multiple other places on this blog.
Take note that this post is dated october 10, 2010.
As of October 29, 2010, I called
wind mobile
regarding their not being a response to the original letter.
They provide me a ticket ID saying, oh we’ll look into it, fine, whatever.
I give them 48 hours, still nothing, so I call them back, the same run around, oh we’re looking into it.
So I finally get testy, and ring them up while I’m in the states, today.
I spent 20 minutes on the phone, most of it on hold, (not surprising.) and finally get put through to the back office, and speak to a manager their, who informs me that well your letter probably got ignored since james is not a customer.
I basically tell her outfront that because of this, even if you guys get out to petawawa neither of us will be returning as either knew or returning customers because of this incident.
I give you the resend in it’s entirety, minus the e-mail address I wrote to per the instructions of the manager at wind mobile.

From: Shane Davidson [mailto:va3duk@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 7:50 PM
Subject: a resend of the letter re: Wind Mobile’s fair usage policy, and accessibility concerns.
Importance: High
To whom this may concern,
I am contacting you at the instruction of kaieasha in your escalations/back office.
As you’ll see below, in a colaberative efort, myself and james, sent ken campbell, the CEO, the following letter on october 10th, 2010, and it is posted to
http://www.the-jdh.com
as an open communication, and referenced in multiple locations on my blog at
http://stickbear.me/blog
and this version will also herein be posted to my blog, and probably be referenced in james blog as well.
This to keep the lines of communication open, between you, and me, as the customer, and to attempt to show the public, that yes I am communicating with wind mobile, and when you write back, this will also be added to my blog linked above, as your answer to this letter.
I would like to make you aware that because of my pending move, I will have no choice but to move away from you as a company, but in light of it being over a month since this was initially sent and finally getting someone that cared enough to put me in touch with you, I may or may not return if you ever get out to the petawawa area.
This all depends on your communication with me, from hereon out.
Please remember all communications regarding this matter are either posted or linked to on
http://stickbear.me
and
http://www.the-jdh.com
With that said, here is the letter that still to this date has not received an answer.
Shane Davidson
From: James Homuth [mailto:james@the-jdh.com]
Sent: October 10, 2010 5:19 PM
To: ‘kcampbell@windmobile.ca’
Subject: Re: Wind Mobile’s fair usage policy, and accessibility concerns.
Mr. Campbell,
I’d like to draw your attention to a policy of a somewhat questionable nature. That policy, being your “fair usage” policy, grants Wind Mobile the authority to intentionally drop calls without warning after approximately the 2 hour mark. As a potential customer who has at one time considered switching to Wind Mobile, this policy has served only to confirm that, in the event I am in need of a change of carrier, Wind Mobile will not be on my list of potential alternatives.
In the first, at present you are the only company who currently disconnects customers, with or without warning, for perceived reasons of fair usage. Given how little network resources are actually consumed by a typical call over a typical cellular network, the reasoning behind this policy fails to be anything more than a perception–and, at the moment, not one that has been viewed favourably. In the second, as this restriction also affects users on your unlimitted packages, I believe advertising those unlimitted packages in light of such a restriction is misleading at best, and extremely dishonest at worst. And in the third, you are aware of customers’ genuine disapproval re: the dropping of calls by the major networks, who claim those calls are being dropped accidentally. To then announce in a “fair usage” policy that you will be intentionally dropping those calls indicates to me, as a potential customer of wind Mobile, that you are either ignorant of that fact, or simply unconcerned. In either event, this policy flies in the face of what I believe to be Wind Mobile’s intentions are re: differing themselves from the major carriers. We don’t need a carrier intentionally doing precisely what the major carriers regularly receive criticism for. We particularly don’t need it from a carrier who spent most of its pre-launch marketting time advertising itself as not like the major carriers. I would strongly encourage you to reconsider and correct what I see as a policy malfunction, as I am aware of a growing number of your current customers who, in light of this, are presently reconsidering their decision to remain with Wind Mobile.
My second concern is re: accessibility of information available on your website. Currently, both your terms and conditions and your “fair usage” policy are available only as PDF’s from Wind Mobile’s website. From an accessibility viewpoint, that is simply unacceptable. It is no guarantee that those without disabilities will be able to open and view PDF files, thus rendering them unable to access the afore mentioned documents. It is even less likely that, in the event the system in use is able to open and display the PDF files, a disabled person will even be able to read them. Which, again, virtually guarantees they will not be able to access the documents in question. You are encouraged, strongly, to consider converting the PDF documents to a more readable format, such as HTML, or have an HTML document available–and easily obtainable–in the alternative. Failure to provide this accomodation may leave you in violation of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, among other regulations.
Wind Mobile’s available offerings, these limitations notwithstanding, stand head and shoulders above Rogers, Bell and Telus–all of whom I have previously had dealings with. The removal of the restrictions outlined in this communication will, in effect, also remove the last of the major concerns I have re: possibly switching from my current carrier to Wind Mobile. I sincerely hope you will take this under advisement, and I will be available for further questions/comments on the issues addressed in this letter. Please also be advised that, due to the significance of the issues raised, this will be an open communication, viewable publicly at http://www.the-jdh.com. I will continue to address these issues on this website until such time as they are resolved. I look forward to further conversation with you on how best to resolve the issues in question.
Sincerely,
James Homuth

Let’s see what that does, this time, coming from me, as an actual customer, yes?
We’ll find out in the coming days.