Just Nicky

P is for Pedant November 26, 2007

I went to buy some books for Uni from Angus & Robertson via their online store. I chose them because the books were cheaper than anywhere else and they’re offering free shipping at the moment.

They have this cute feature where you select which State you’re in and then as you type in your suburb a drop down list appears from which you can select the suburb and postcode. Very smart, ‘cept it doesn’t work. When I hit the Save button a message is displayed saying that all mandatory fields need to be completed and the Suburb is empty. Being a conscientious customer (and really wanting these books cheaply) I emailed them to notify them of the fault.

They responded promptly as follows:

Thank you for contacting us about the Angus & Robertson website and alerting us to the issues you are experiencing.

We are currently in the process of changing and upgrading our website. You may have some difficulty accessing the site during this time.

Previously www.angusrobertson.com.au was managed by a third party. We have made the decision to bring the website back under direct control of Angus & Robertson with the aim of providing better service to our customers. Hence, in setting up the new website we have had some initial issues, such as the ones you mentioned. We will be modifying the site continually, with the aim of providing you with a much better online experience than you had with the old website.

The new website is being updated to incorporate over 2 million titles -making it the largest online book store in Australia. New elements and features will be incorporated over the coming months which will make the new site much easier to navigate, and provide more information on titles than previously.

We do appreciate your patience on this matter and hope that you will check back regularly to see the new site evolve.

Kind Regards,

Sadly, not good enough for this little old ex-Test Manager, so I replied thus:

Thanks for your response.

I used to work as Test Manager so I am aware of the types of pressures you’re facing. At the risk of being both boring and annoying I would make the following points:

The inability to capture the customer’s suburb is, by any measure, a critical defect as it renders Angus & Robertson’s online store useless to a new customer. It doesn’t matter how many titles you have if people can’t buy them! I am surprised that you have gone into production with something this serious in place.

While your response is very polite and friendly - and I thank you for that - it doesn’t tell me when the defect will be rectified. Telling me that the site will be changed in the coming months doesn’t give me any sense of confidence that this issue is going to be fixed. And, given that I’m looking to purchase particular books within a certain time frame, my interest is in knowing when it’s going to work not that it’s going to ‘evolve’. Evolution is of no use if it doesn’t work.

Thanks again, but I won’t be ‘checking back’.

That was fun! Maybe I could go back to testing afterall.