Daily Archives: Sun, 4 May, 2008

Choice?

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Reading an article on Thinkbroadband reminded me about the strange way that companies drop products that may be in the customers best interest and always claim it is down to “customer response.”

In the article, it seems that PlusNet is dropping one of its broadband “Your Way” packages. They are increasing the cap on the cheaper packages but removing the high end product that was capped at 40gb for £29.99 per month. Personally I hate usage caps and would never go with a provider that had a public on, but the fact is all providers (except maybe Virgin Cable) have some cap, they just dont always tell you.

Anyway, because people are using things like the BBC iPlayer so much (don’t ask me about this, I don’t use it) PlusNet felt they had to change the caps. Basically this is the route they went down:

Package Old Limit New Limit Cost
Option 1 1GB 1GB (no change) £9.99
Option 2 8GB 15GB £14.99
Option 3 20GB 30GB £19.99
Option 4 40GB (withdrawn) £29.99

Now at first glance, this looks like removing something that was the best deal for high end users but it isn’t quite that bad. It seems that you can get Option 3 and add 10gb at £0.75 per gb so it is a bit cheaper to do it that way – however this misses the point. Oddly, someone I can only assume works for PlusNet commented this on the Thinkbroadband site:

Not sure why you think BS is involved. 40GB withdrawn because very few customers chose BBYW4 and it now works out cheaper to buy Option 3 and add ten more GBs at 75p each. Just a case of simplifying the choices.

Erm. No. It does not “simply the choices” it actually makes it more complicated for the user. Now if people really weren’t going for the expensive choice, why remove it? Why did it cost PlusNet to leave a slight less cost effective option for users who wanted the “simplicity” of having a larger usage allowance. The only way option 4 is more expensive is when PlusNet don’t increase its limit, which they haven’t.

Equally strange, if this is a result of more people needing more bandwidth, why not increase the allowance of Option 4 in line with the others? As few people used Option 4 this extra bandwidth for those few customers (say 45gb) wouldn’t strain the system surely?

Now, don’t get me wrong. PlusNet can charge what ever they want for broadband. I am not even a customer. It is just that something about this repricing exercise struck the cynic in me as strange.

Sadly, it isn’t always the company that is the main driver. When Morgan Spurlock’s tedious “Super Size Me” hit the screens, McDonalds were quick to withdraw the “supersize” choice. Sadly for the customer this represented the most cost effective way of getting food and was close to a loss-maker for McDonalds. I am sure they were devastated to withdraw it. When supersize meals were available, a very low income family of four could feed all with two meals, now they would be hard pushed to do it with three and would probably need to buy four. For about 25% increase in cost, the supersized meal delivered 33%+ extra food (at least it did over here). The only thing not increased was the burger but they are big enough already. Now, because at the most fundamental level western people don’t like the thought of self control, we have lost the option.

Well done world.

Bodiam Castle

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A while ago (19 Mar), I made a post here looking at the search terms most people used to get here. At the time we were comfortably getting 400 hits a day and the huge majority of them were people searching for Bodiam Castle.

Bodiam CastleWell, nothing has changed. We are still hovering around 400-450 hits a day, although there was a spike to 600 when a previous post got Stumbled. These are still around 80% first time hits, so we need to think about why people aren’t coming back. Of the first time hits, 80% (slight increase) are from search engines but still nearly all are from Google searches. Shame really, as I now prefer Yahoo search… 🙂

Anyway, the odd part is that the search terms haven’t changed either. Depending on your source (firestats differs from Feedburner and google analytics) the most searched for term is either “Fine Art” or “Bodiam Castle.” This terms are supplemented by such relevant terms as “castle” “castle with moat” “bodiam” “fairytale castle” and “art.” In all 60% of the top ten search terms through which people find our wonderful blog are castle ones. The remaining four are “McCann Blog”, “Obama” and the very odd “wtf” & “there.” I feel sorry for the people who arrive from some of these terms – no wonder we dont get repeat visitors.

I can live with two of them… It is strange, given the well thought out social commentary Heather posts that nearly all the searches people use to find our sites are for castle pictures. Is this a sign that more people search for castles than (say) Surveillance state or that our blog is just better ranked for castles…?

Still beggars cant be choosers, so as you can see I have pandered to the masses once more with another picture of the gorgeous Bodiam Castle, it really is an artistic castle picture (:-) ). If you are in the south west of England, you really should visit.

Protect and serve

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From our “Words Fail in the 21st Century” Department:

The Malaysian Foreign Ministry has proposed that women travelling abroad will have to have letters from their fathers, husbands or employers permitting them to leave the country.

This story is headed:Proposal to protect ‘fly alone’ women: Have letter will travel
How strange that fly-alone is in quotes but protect isn’t.

What exactly are flying-alone Malaysian women to be protected from?

In a move to stop Malaysian women being duped into carrying drugs for international syndicates, the Foreign Ministry has proposed that all women travelling out of the country alone be required to have a letter from parents or employers.

See, uppity women who dare to get on planes by yourselves. It’s to protect your feeble little minds from being fooled…

“I have submitted this proposal to the Cabinet and both the Foreign and Home Ministries feel this is necessary. Many of these women (who travel alone) leave the country on the pretext of work or attending courses and seminars.
“With this declaration, we will know for sure where and for what she is travelling overseas,” said Rais.
The New Sunday Times has learnt that 119 Malaysians, 90 per cent of whom are women, have been imprisoned in various parts of the world for drug-related offences

Wait a minute – so Malaysian women are pretending to travel to work or courses. I am actually pleased that despite the way the issue is phrased, it seems to be Malaysian women themselves who are actually doing the duping. And the Malaysian government that feels itself duped?

119 Malaysians imprisoned around the world, a hundred-odd of them women. Does that number seem huge enough to justify taking away the rights of all Malaysian women?

Surely, this means there have also been about a dozen Malaysian men imprisoned in other countries. In the interests of justice, I think they deserve the same protection. I think a note from their mothers, wives or bosses would go some small way to keep these fragile easily-fooled creatures from international harm, don’t you?