Customer honeypots Kunde-honeypots

A honeypot is a decoy system. It has been set up just for hackers to discover it and hack it. It has no access to real systems and does not contain any valuable data.

En honeypot er et lokkesystem. Det er udelukkende blevet sat op så hackere kan opdage det og hacke det. Det har ikke nogen adgang til rigtige systemer og det indeholder ingen værdifulde data.

A customer honeypot is a system meant to trap customers that want to contact a company. The company doesnt have any other contact points. There is only the honeypot, but there is no way to get through it. The goal is that the customers give up and blame themselves for it.

En kunde-honeypot er et system der skal fange kunder der ønsker at kontakte en virksomhed. Virksomheden har ingen andre kontaktveje. Der er kun honeypotten, men der er ikke nogen måder at komme igennem den på. Målet er at kunderne opgiver og giver sig selv skylden for det.

Customer honey pots consist of large multilayered menu systems, that let you narrow down an answer you dont need. The menus have a precision high enough for you to think you can get help if you just proceed, and simultaneously low enough for you to think you made the wrong choice along the way, and thus ought to go back and choose differently. The menu systems can be supplied with a chatbot that is just as unhelpful, but without giving you the impression that all options have been exhausted.

Kunde-honeypots består af store flerlags menu systemer, som lader dig indkredse et svar du ikke behøver. Menuerne har en præcision der er høj nok til at du tror du får hjælp hvis bare du fortsætter, og samtidig lav nok til at du tror du valgte forkert undervejs, og derfor bør gå tilbage og vælge om. Menu systemerne kan være suppleret med en chatbot, som hjælper dig lige så lidt, men uden at give dig en fornemmelse af at alle muligheder er udtømt.

The first customer honeypot I was trapped in was on the support pages of Amazon webshops. It worked on me for more time than I want to admit. And so it surely did on many of their other webshop customers.

Første gang jeg blev fanget i en kunde-honeypot var på supportsiderne for Amazon webshop. Den virkede på mig i alt for lang tid. Og garanteret på rigtigt mange andre af deres webshop kunder.

I dont know if these honeypots are an Amazon invention, but I feel pretty sure they have their roots in the webshop sector. In any case, they were hugely successful, so they spread to many other companies.

Jeg ved ikke om disse honeypots er en Amazon opfindelse, men føler mig ret sikker på de har rødder i webshop sektoren. Under alle omstændigheder var de en kæmpe succes, så de spredte sig til mange andre virksomheder.

The one that I have the hardest time with, is a regional carrier. It has happened multiple times that they claim they could not deliver a packet even though I was home at the time they write they tried. They have even succeeded in loosing packets. If I want to complain, their menu system is of course no help. It points me to their chatbot, which is a particularly sinister version. You have to install their app to chat with it, and not getting any help.

En af dem som jeg har det sværest med, er en regional pakketransportør. Det er sket mange gange at de har påstået at de ikke kunne aflevere en pakke selvom jeg var hjemme det tidspunkt de skriver de var der. Det er endda lykkedes dem at smide pakker væk. Hvis jeg vil klage kan deres menu system selvfølgelig ikke hjælpe. Det henviser til deres chatbot, som er en særligt ondskabsfuld udgave. Man skal installere deres app for at chatte med den, og ikke få hjælp.

Signal

Signal

When you realise that you are in a honeypot, what signal do you realize that the company is sending to you?

Når du finder ud af at du er endt i en honeypot, hvilket signal indser du så at virksomheden sender?

A honeypot tells you that the company sees customers as a problem. That is why it implemented a technical fix for it, in the first place. Amazon sees their webshop customers as a problem. The carrier sees the recipients as a problem.

En honeypot fortæller dig at virksomheden ser kunder som et problem. Det var jo derfor de implementerede en teknisk løsning på det. Amazon ser deres webshop-kunder som et problem. Pakketransportøren ser pakkemodtagere som et problem.

When you, as a "problem", want to send the company a signal, and help them see things differently, I know people that will suggest this: Get hold of the highest ranked manager that you can. Preferrably one that has responsibility for customer service, but otherwise just the one you can get hold of. Send your complaint to that person. If enough customers do this, that manager will make sure that someone else will take care of the complaints. That way the stream of complaints will shape the organization, and create a path to a customer service.

Når man, som et "problem", gerne vil sende virksomheden et signal, og hjælpe dem til at se ting på en anden måde, ved jeg at nogle vil foreslå dette: Tag fat i den højest placerede leder du kan få fat i. Helst én der har ansvar for kundeservice, men ellers bare den du kan få fat i. Send din klage til vedkommende. Hvis nok kunder gør dette, vil denne leder sørge for at en anden tager sig af klagerne. På den måde former strømmen af klager naturligt organisationen, og skaber en kontaktvej til en kundeservice.

That is naive corporate absolutism, though. Reality is, a CEO for a webshop, that sees there are 0 incoming complaints, knows perfectly well what is going on. Namely that the company has chosen to ignore complaints. If you should succeed in getting hold of a manager, that you can send your complaint to, it will be met with indifference. The manager will not gain any points by taking care of it. The most likely outcome is that you end up in a spam filter.

Men det er naiv virksomhedsabsolutisme. Virkeligheden er at en CEO for en webshop, der kan se at der kommer 0 klager ind, udemærket godt ved hvorfor. Nemlig at virksomheden har valgt at ignorere klager. Skulle det lykkes dig at få fat i en leder, som du kan sende din klage til, vil den blive mødt af ligegyldighed. Lederen vil ikke få nogle point ved at tage sig af klagen. Det mest sandsynlige resultat er at du ender i et spam-filter.

A company that wont take feedback, is inevitably heading towards its downfall, no matter how succesful it is right now. But it can unfortunately take decades. While you are hoping for it to happen, the best thing you can do is to avoid the company as much as it is possible, and tell others what attitude it has towards its customers.

En virksomhed der ikke tager mod feedback, går uundgåeligt imod sin undergang, uanset hvor succesfuld den er lige nu. Men det kan desværre tage årtier. Mens du går og håber at det sker, er det bedste du kan gøre, at undgå virksomheden så vidt det er muligt, og fortælle andre om dens holdning til kunderne.