Blogger Darren Murph was surprised back in September when he sent PayPal President David Marcus a direct message on Twitter  about customer service problems at the company and actually got a reply from the man himself. Marcus invited Murph to come talk to him at PayPal’s campus in San Jose, Calif., and the resulting interview is featured on Engadget and its weekly e-magazine, Distro.

Murph walked away with a better understanding of PayPal and the world of payment solutions providers.

He found that Marcus, a “startup junkie” who took over as president of PayPal in March, was sympathetic to the problem that Murph encountered when his PayPal account was abruptly and mysteriously frozen – it had happened to him, too.

A change in regulations was behind the frozen-account problem, and a system that didn’t have a product manager overseeing it from start to finish. Now it does, and dealing with frozen accounts is atop his priority list, Marcus said.

Murph writes that “while Marcus is certainly concerned with keeping the guard up where necessary, he recognizes that there are better ways to communicate what’s happening, why it’s happening and how PayPal is there to make life easier.”

In fact, Murph learned, “nearly half of PayPal’s entire payroll works solely to field complaints, fix issues and offer resolutions in some seriously hairy situations.”

At the end of the day, Murph says, “I leave his office feeling more assured that there’s finally someone in charge at PayPal who means it, and is doing more than just paying lip service.”

Photo: PayPal President David Marcus. Credit: Engadget

I took a quick video of our Comms Room here in San Jose HQ to give folks a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re working together to communicate information in real-time. The desks are set up in a horseshoe so we can easily ask questions to anyone in the room (representatives from the Buyer & Seller team, Corp Comms, Social Media, Engineering, eBay Annnouncements, etc. are all in here) for quick response…

Out in Salt Lake City, in addition to the Customer Service center, we have another comms room devoted to social media outreach and response. What follows is a sequence of photos taken out of that room where you can see folks on Twitter, Facebook, etc…

Personally, it has been great to see so many people involved in proactively communicating information – regardless of channel or platform. As a global organization, I am hoping we can build on this for the future.

Back to it…

Cheers,
RBH

Here, he talks about the first few hours of reaction to the eBay Seller Release of earlier today…

Cheers,
RBH

Here’s a look at what’s new for sellers and buyers:

New standard rates
…
For sellers who list items occasionally, new “eBay Everyday” rates are available. Auction-style listings with a start price of 99 cents or less will be free (with no insertion fees for up to 100 listings per month). When an item sells, the seller will pay a flat final value fee of 9% of the sale price — and never more than $50. If an item doesn’t sell, the seller pays nothing.

New Stores subscription packages…
For sellers who list often, new “eBay Stores” subscription rates offer insertion fees as low as 3 cents per listing for 30 days — a 90% reduction over current rates. Larger volume sellers with this “3-cent store” premium rate can move thousands of items at high velocity with full search exposure.

Subscription rates offer basic, anchor and premium store pricing options, depending on the size of a seller’s business. With the new pricing a seller with 250 listings per month would save $80 or $960 a year in insertion fees. With these changes eBay’s current store inventory format will no longer have separate search functionality from core fixed-price listings.

With the new eBay Stores rate package, all fixed priced inventory on eBay will have exposure through eBay’s core search functionality, increasing visibility for sellers and improving the search experience for buyers.

“Moving to one Fixed-Price listing format is another benefit sellers will soon experience,” said Dinesh Lathi, vice president, Seller and Buyer Experience. “Store Inventory Format listings automatically will become regular Fixed-Price listings, with the same duration. They’ll also renew at the new rates, and appear in ‘Search results’ with all other listings.”

Sellers who want to determine which pricing option will work best for their listings when the changes take place in March can use eBay’s Fee Illustrator: http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/FeeIllustrator2010.html.

Buyer Protection Program…

“We’re also making a big move to bring buyers and keep them with us through our new eBay Buyer Protection Program,” Lathi explains. “All over eBay, the message to buyers will be loud and clear: buy on eBay with the confidence, satisfaction, and quick response you expect from a trusted retailer.”

Boosting seller efficiency…

*** Sellers in eBay Motors Parts & Accessories will be able to create one listing with a complete list of compatible vehicles.

*** The ability to list multiple variations of a product in one Fixed Price listing in many more categories.

*** Return policy and handling time will be required for new listings and re-listings in eBay Motors Parts & Accessories in June — editing tools make updating listings easy.

***Category and Item Specifics changes are also coming with the rest of these updates.

Additional Resources…

*** A dedicated website regarding the Seller Release.
*** Take part in the upcoming webinar on Thursday, Jan. 28.
*** Join Dinesh and other leaders from eBay and PayPal in a Town Hall meeting on Thursday, Jan. 29. Check the Announcement Board for more details.
***Talk with eBay staff members during the next two days on a special discussion board set up for this purpose.

Twitter…

For those of you on Twitter, follow the #eBaySR (eBay Seller Release) hashtag for all discussion around today’s news.

I’ll be updating this post and providing video interviews with additional background information in the near future.

Cheers,
RBH

The NRF Foundation/American Express 2009 Customer Service survey was designed to gauge consumer attitudes toward retailers’ customer service and to provide a listing of the top customer service retailers. The survey, which polled 8,600 consumers, was conducted by consumer marketing intelligence firm BIGresearch in September 2009 The consumer poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.0 percent.

Consumers answered the open ended question, “Thinking of all the different retail formats (store, catalog, internet, or home shopping), which retailer delivers the best customer service?”

Like I said when I wrote about this last year, it is the individual sellers on the eBay marketplace that should be commended for achieving this high ranking. After all, they’re the ones providing the customer service to consumers on a daily basis.

Congratulations!

Cheers,
RBH

In a press release issued in Germany, eBay said that the proposal is intended to enhance customer support for eBay’s buyers and sellers across Europe and improve efficiency. The move means that Dublin will become the company’s main customer service center in Europe where it will employ some 1200 people in customer supports functions for both eBay and PayPal. It will mean 100 new roles in Dublin but unfortunately will mean the impact of 400 jobs in Germany. If plans are agreed, eBay will continue to directly employ 600 people in Germany. However, new positions will be created in Germany with third-party customer service providers.

“These proposed changes will enable us to deliver better and more efficient customer support to eBay buyers and sellers across Europe,” said Deborah Davis, vice president, Customer Service, eBay. “It will also ensure we maintain strong local support in Germany, which is one of our most important markets. Creating a Centre of Excellence in Dublin mirrors the approach we are taking worldwide to focus customer support in key operational hubs. Our goal is to improve service levels and responsiveness by better leveraging our expertise and knowledge.”

From what I can tell, this is very similar to the announcement made back in May of this year when eBay closed the Vancouver, Canada customer service facility and focused customer service operations at the existing facility in Salt Lake City, Utah.

eBay said that it is expected that European customer service levels would not be affected as it works through the programme, which is due for completion by mid-2010.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I know this is a business and business decisions are quite often difficult. Streamlining operations is typically a good thing in the long run but it doesn’t make it any easier on those on the receiving end of a workforce consolidation. I welcome new members to the eBay family but don’t enjoy having to write blog posts about colleagues becoming ex-colleagues. I wish the very best of luck to a group of of people that I will never got to interview for a future “5 Minutes with…” feature.

-RBH

From what I can tell, the closure of the Vancouver facility by September of this year will result in the elimination of approx 700 customer service agent positions. Conversely, it appears that it is eBay’s intent to add jobs at both the Salt Lake City CS center and at other CS facilities around the globe.

“We are working aggressively to deliver a better customer experience for eBay buyers and sellers,” said Chad O’Meara, vice president, Customer Service, eBay Marketplaces. “While it is a difficult decision to close our Vancouver facility, we believe that consolidating our North America customer service operations will help accelerate our efforts to continually exceed buyer and seller expectations.”

The press release goes on to stress that eBay expects to “maintain current support levels and does not anticipate any disruption to service as a result of this change.”

From a business perspective, I totally get it. Streamlining any operation typically makes good business sense in the long run and it must be understood, even to the most hardened cynic, that these decisions are not made in a vacuum, nor are they made lightly. Customer Service has already been a key point of focus in meetings I’ve been a part of in recent months so consolidating and streamlining further demonstrates that effort. The belief is that this will enable eBay to improve first-contact resolution for all U.S. customer service needs, strengthen top seller account management and expand the recently introduced phone support.

From a personal standpoint though, it’s extremely difficult to write this post. I’ve mentioned in the past that I’ve been part of a “consolidation” process on both sides of the coin. If you’re on the short end of the stick in that scenario there’s no way around it; no phrase or word will make it feel anything other than bad. Even though eBay seems to be making every effort to assist employees in the process (the facility isn’t due to close until September), it doesn’t make it any easier. My heart goes out to those folks in Vancouver and I wish them the best of luck.

-RBH

Full Name: Chad O’Meara
Nickname: I don’t really have one, but people do funny things with my first name sometimes like “Chadly” or “Chadster” or “Chadwick”
Official Title: VP Marketplace Customer Service
What You Really Do: Improve things for our Customers, Employees and shareholders
Your First Day at eBay: My first Day was at eBay Live last June
Education/Schooling: Drake University – Finance Degree
Interests: Spending free time with my wife and children, I like most sports… played Football, Wrestling and Soccer… but that was too long ago to remember. Now I just watch it on TV or when my children play… I like reading mostly about Business, Money or Leadership, I also like to travel & exercise.
Favorite Quote: “ To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe” by Anatole France
Most memorable eBay Inc. experience: I travel quite a bit, so it was the first time I Skyped my family from the hotel… the kids were so funny.
Most recent eBay purchase/sale: I went on a little bit of a shopping spree a couple weeks back and bought an external battery pack for my iPhone, pair of Tommy Bahamas shorts I could not find in stores, an exercise ball for my wife, socks and the deal of day… ink cartridges for my HP Printer
Favorite Albums: Aerosmith – Gold “Sweet Emotion” , Van Morrison, U2 – The Joshua Tree, Sheryl Crow, Buddy Holly & the Crickets, Elvis Costello
Favorite Movies: Caddyshack, Gladiator, The Godfather (any of the 3)
What You Wanted to Be Growing Up: Professional Athlete

Fill in the blanks:

I should have talked with more customers yesterday.
I wish that I could sing or play a musical instrument.
The first thing I do when I get to work is Check E-mails and Calendar

Regarding the eBay Marketplace announcement of April 14:

Q. Why did we change the resolution process?
We are currently in the pilot stage of this initiative, but it is one of the biggest changes we can make for our customers to build more trust in the eBay Marketplace. This new process will give buyers and sellers a better experience when they have a claim or dispute and will also reduce the time spent on resolving issues.

Q. How does the new resolution process work?
If you have an issue with something you have purchased on eBay either Item not received or Not as described, eBay is there to help you get resolution. You can contact eBay using a toll-free number and if your claim warrants further investigation, eBay will contact the seller.

Q. How are we changing CS to accommodate these changes to the resolution process?
We are changing the process to allow for a quick resolution for our Customers – both buyers and sellers. We are working to improve our member to member experiences and partnering with PayPal to simplify the process to ensure all of our Customer Service leaders, that deal regularly with these customer issues, can apply the new process.

Q. What else do we have planned for improving CS in the future?
We are making bold changes in 2009 on behalf of our Customer’s. We discussed resolutions above, but we are also improving other major pain points for our Customers including Listing Policies and Product Defects. These priorities will improve the Customer experience and reduce the need for these customers to contact us.

If our customers do contact us, we want to ensure that our service representatives can deliver a world class experience and resolve their issues the first time.

We are also investing in several enabling initiatives that will make it easier for all of us to service our customers. Examples include an enterprise CS system solution that will help our representatives do their work and consolidate many systems and the recently launched “Voice of Customer Portal” to give our Customers and our representatives a stronger voice in our business.

For more on the new resolution process, please check out the latest blog post on the PayPal blog by Monroe Labouisse, director of PayPal’s business on eBay in North America.

Cheers,
RBH

As some of you know, we’ve been enhancing and improving the way in which Twitter feeds (and other social media channels for that matter) are managed in order to maintain a level of consistency and, more importantly, to maximize what each group is getting out of their different conversations. For example, I’m working with folks internally on expanding our existing employee social media and blogging guidelines to make sure the new methods of communication are accounted for (and that each group and region of the company is represented through these tools of communication). I’ll save all this for another post though. For now, I wanted to share the latest addition to the list of official eBay Twitter feeds.

Ask eBay Motors
So far we’ve seen eBay utilize Twitter for a number of industry firsts including live reporting of earnings’ calls, and analyst presentations / conferences but I think what the eBay Motors‘ team launched this past Friday is something that is only new to our company: a dedicated Twitter feed to handle customer questions. That’s right, @askebaymotors has the following text for a bio: “eBay Motors Customer Service. Tweet me and we’ll help you out!”

Lots of household brand names such as Comcast (@comcastcares), Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) and JetBlue (@JetBlue) proactively respond to customer questions on Twitter so admittedly this is nothing groundbreaking in the grand scheme of things – but it doesn’t make it any less cool. I’ll be really interested in a) how the eBay Motors team handles this and maintains consistency and b) if successful, how other eBay business units utilize Twitter for Customer Service (CS).

Obviously, none of the companies listed above – eBay included – will be relying on Twitter solely for CS needs. Instead, it represents an additional service that can only add to the existing CS in place. However, there is a part of me that also wonders what Twitter has up its sleeve for businesses currently using their service for free to handle CS issues that would normally involve CMS tools, salaries and dedicated money and resources. TweetBiz Service coming soon maybe?

For now, I’ll congratulate Derek Cohen, Danny Chang and the whole eBay Motors team for taking the initiative and applying technology to help customers. Fire up!

Cheers,
RBH

The NRF is the same organization that back in September claimed that selling on the Internet is so addictive, people are getting hooked and satisfying their addiction by entering a life of organized Internet crime; pretty much equating eBay sellers to drug-addicted criminals. Well, apparently these same sellers are providing great customer service while they’re at it.

All joking aside, it’s no secret that eBay and the NRF have disagreed on a number of key issues in the past, including Price Fixing, so it’s great to see that the voice of the consumer counts above all else.

The survey, which polled 8,167 consumers, was conducted by consumer marketing intelligence firm BIGresearch from September 2-9, 2008. The consumer poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.0 percent. Consumers answered the open ended question, “Thinking of all the different retail formats (store, catalog, internet, or home shopping), which retailer delivers the best customer service?”

This top 20 ranking comes on the heels of eBay receiving a #2 overall rank for most trusted companies for privacy. However, given the above criteria for the survey, I feel it is the individual sellers on the eBay marketplace that should be commended for achieving this award. After all, they’re the ones providing the customer service to consumers on a daily basis.

Cheers,
RBH