Try calling 1-888-AIR-MILES from your smartphone. If they call them smartphones, why can't a BlackBerry dial the customer service number for Air Miles? Or did Air Miles not anticipate this would be a problem with QWERTY keyboards?
The reason I was trying to contact Air Miles was to redeem some points towards a cordless phone set as a present for Christmas (yeah I know, I'm cheap but I'm also a student!). The customer experience I had was less than satisfactory because the mailer I got only had the number above to contact Air Miles. At least if you're going to use the spelling of the company in your telephone number then provide an alternate numerical equivalent of the contact number on the mailer.
iPhones didn't have this problem because its keypad still displayed the letters that corresponded to each number = 2 is to ABC, 2 is to DEF, 3 is GHI, etc.
1 point iPhone, 0 BlackBerry.
So going back to accessibility options for customers, it looked like the best option for Air Miles at this point was to also include the numeric equivalent of the word A-I-R-M-I-L-E-S in their contact info - especially for material where customers would be more likely to call in for redeeming their Air Miles points.
Ironically I came across this issue tonight! I was making a fictitious phone number for my Image Editing business and I have 7 numbers in my restaurant name, so I thought it'd be clever to use the number associated with the letter on the phone. But as I was looking at the numbers on my smartphone, I realized it wouldn't work the same as on a normal phone. Having the actual phone number alongside the letters is definitely a good idea!
ReplyDeleteYeah, companies should stay away from it altogether. It kind of dates a company when they use something like this without putting the number along with the letters.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe our smartphones can be better smartphones? It would be a good thing for all BlackBerry models to have the same capability as an iPhone...
Great post Eman. I've had this happen to me a couple times in the past. I would hope that Blackberry will address this with their future smartphones.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this info. I just want to let you know that I just check out your site and I find it very interesting and informative. I can't wait to read lots of your posts. 0800 call forwarding
ReplyDelete