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On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

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Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#211

Post by gowld »

jonahhorowitz wrote: post #194
pkaye wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With private companies you many times have a choice. With public organization, most times you don't. I needed to go to the CA DMV to renew my drivers license and appointments are booked 3 months in advance and if I go to visit them, some people are waiting 3-4 hours. Because of my flexible schedule I managed to estimate and go at a less peak time and reduce it to half this time. There is certainly no accountability i…

There's a very specific reason for the high wait times at the CA DMV right now - the new ID requirements forced upon us by the TSA. CA had to decide if they wanted to massively staff up to handle the increased processing required, or if they wanted to just work through the surge since it's temporary (once everyone has a new ID, the renewals will be easier). I wouldn't say there's no accountability. They just didn't m…

CA stalled on REAL ID for 5 years, leading to a burst of demand now.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#212

Post by chrsstrm »

hetspookjee wrote: post #148
da_chicken wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I'm quickly reaching a point where I want the default browser to work in Incognito mode, and the browser should only switch to regular mode when I explicitly whitelist the domain.

On Android I browse by default with Firefox Focus and only to use sessions like posting this response I copy the URL to chrome and make the post. Than I'll go back to Focus. It's crude but Firefox Focus beats all browsers privacy and responsiveness on Android imo.

Same. My one wish for Focus is that I could open another tab. Even just one more tab during an active session would make life easier.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#213

Post by gowld »

ggm wrote: post #136
inetknght wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes absolutely. Why do you think there's so many tech support fraud? Why do you think Geek Squad is a thing?

So.. if there's a profitable business here, why isn't google running helpdesk over its consumer products? They monetise as good as the next hegemon, why not this?

They do. If you want to pay for support for your free products, you can buy the Enterprise product. $5/person/month

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#214

Post by hulahoof »

solarkraft wrote: post #199
CamperBob2 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A classic example from several years ago: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ... That was several years ago.

That's using all of her purchasing history. Knowing your customer has visited a competitor's website appears more difficult to me.

If you're a telco this is trivial for your customers.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#215

Post by excalibur »

hetspookjee wrote: post #148
da_chicken wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I'm quickly reaching a point where I want the default browser to work in Incognito mode, and the browser should only switch to regular mode when I explicitly whitelist the domain.

On Android I browse by default with Firefox Focus and only to use sessions like posting this response I copy the URL to chrome and make the post. Than I'll go back to Focus. It's crude but Firefox Focus beats all browsers privacy and responsiveness on Android imo.

+1 for Focus, but I don't generally interact with HN through a browser on mobile. There's an app for that.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#216

Post by YokoZar »

blakesterz wrote: post #78

"Marital status is often factored in, with some companies assuming that singles are better customers, and others, the opposite. Age also is a common input, potentially penalizing older people because of their shorter projected lifespans." Odd paragraph... It seems like those things could go either way depending on the company. I'm sure we could all list companies that would bend over for old married people as much as…

That's exactly what the line says though. Some companies assume singles are better customers, and others, the opposite.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#217

Post by jklinger410 »

harryh wrote: post #185
jklinger410 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they link my identity to my browser They link your phone number to a session/user along with ad networks who have stored cookies on your machine and use predictive modeling to guess at who you are/what you do. It doesn't work on 90% of the HN crowd, people who block ads/disable javascript, or just don't do a lot of traditional "browsing", but yeah.

It doesn't work on 90% of the HN crowd Hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahhaha. No.

You're right, not 90%. But predictive modeling requires a bunch of data points. This is probably one of the most privacy aware crowds on the internet.

If you go to the extremes, sure, everyone is trackable. I don't work for any of these companies, so I don't know what I don't know.

Feel free to elaborate.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#218

Post by philwelch »

mehrdadn wrote: post #124
atwebb wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not nearly how far it's gone, but yes, this is an implementation of it.

You mean it's gone much farther than this? Would you have any examples?

Political campaigns track voters on an individual level, correlating third party data with public voter rolls and using the data for microtargeting and analytics.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#219

Post by rconti »

technofiend wrote: post #134
arebop wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: does anyone see these programs and think wow, this airline UX is so awful I want to show them my loyalty so that eventually they'll stop trying so hard to make me unhappy? I'm pretty convinced this all boils down to a sort of low-grade white collar corruption: people who travel a lot for business sometimes can get away with favoring one airline over another, where this decision costs the shareholders a little b…

>I'm pretty convinced this all boils down to a sort of low-grade white collar corruption: people who travel a lot for business sometimes can get away with favoring one airline over another, I suppose it depends on the business but at my Fortune 50 we're required to use "lowest logical airfare". You can force a choice of Southwest over United by choosing one airport over another, and there's enough wiggle room to let…

I was able to book myself a free business class trip to Europe on miles from flying just a couple of times a year, coach, non-flex fares, on the company dime, as a working schlub. I know plenty of folks who fly business class to China half a dozen or a dozen times a year and have more upgrades than they could ever possibly use. Hardly executives.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#220

Post by rconti »

rjbwork wrote: post #160
wpietri wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangent: Are there other people here who just refuse to sign up for any of these programs? I have family members who are super into frequent flyer programs, credit card points, etc, etc. But I don't like the cognitive load they introduce, and I don't like having to figure out how much I'm being manipulated in any given interaction. I get that I'm missing out on goodies, but they're paying for those goodies somehow, s…

I only do cashback. I currently get anywhere from 1.5 to 5% off of anything I buy via cash back. I don't think about it until I go to pay my credit card bill, then I just use the points to take the balance down the 5%

that's credit cards vs frequent flier programs. Two different things. you can double up on FF by having the 'right' credit card, yes. But that's not the only way to get miles.
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