AUX TV brings the music back

On October 1st, a new digital music channel will launch in Canada, and it's all about the music.

AUX TV goes live on Rogers channel 107 and will be available in Ontario, New Brunswick and parts of Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador.

For those in the know, AUX is nothing new. In fact, the website has been around for quite some time with access to music videos, news and other goodied to feed the music-junky's soul.

Aux will be a welcome addition now that MuchMusic and MTV Canada are more focused on t(w)een oriented reality TV and will feature some great programming including Explore Music with brainiac Alan Cross, Strange Acts - featuring live interviews with Alexisonfire's George Pettit and music news program AUX Weekly with Dave Alba, Lavonne Allen and former Edge host and funny man, Barry Taylor.

I look forward to seeing what AUX can bring to the already saturated digital TV market, but if they stick to their roots and really focus on what's important to music lovers, I'll be watching.

Why people complain about Rogers

People love to hate Rogers. More so than any of their competitors. If there was a list of companies people bitch about the most, I would like to think that Rogers would be in the top 2.

Rogers has a long history of being hated. It started way back in the cable TV days when they would sell you services because you didn't ask not to have them. The controversy struck again over their high-speed Internet offering, which offered max speeds but bandwidth was shared throughout the neighbourhood, which basically meant that if everyone was surfing at the same time, you'd never reach your full potential.

Their customer service and tech support staff have never been favourites either. A group so notorious for following their step-by-step procedures, that if you ask how they're doing today, they'll likely answer with: "Is the modem on", followed by: "how many green lights are flashing".

We could talk about the TSN2 fiasco, but that in itself could take a while.

Which brings us to the system access fee. The most hated $7 on the planet. Not only is this fee a burden on your wireless account, but they charge you on your Home Phone account too!

Once upon a time, if you asked what a system access fee was, Rogers would tell you it was a fee mandated by the CRTC - a statement that disappeared pretty quickly once people started calling the CRTC to learn more.

This morning, the Toronto Star reported that Rogers has decided to get rid of the pesky System Access Fee on all wireless accounts. My first thought was that this would pave the way for the other providers to follow suit. My second thought was: "Now how will they pay for the Toronto Blue Jays?"

Another couple seconds of reading quickly wiped out any feeling of joy I had just experienced.

While the $6.95 System Access Fee is going away, Rogers, in true form, is adding $5 on to each of their base plans and charging a "regulatory recovery fee" which ranges from $2.46 to $3.46 depending on your province.

But don't worry - you'll also receive 3 new features "valued at $11" as part of your $5 fee increase. You'll also be more satisfied as a customer because your bill is much clearer - or so say Ted's people.

Rogers recently increased the monthly price of their cable and Internet services and now they're at it again by removing $6.95 from your bill and replacing it with $6.46 to $7.46 in other fees.

...and that, is why people complain about Rogers.

Bullshit baffles brains?

I recently did some work with a gentleman who was looking to promote a branded social marketing solution to Tier-1 companies and agencies.

Working in close quarters, I often listened in on his cold calling. Conveniently, he claimed to have worked extensively in the category of everyone he called hoping to gain some credibility. I'm confident that he has not worked extensively, if at all, in most of the categories he claimed to.

He believed that this "strategy" would lead prospects to believe that he was knowledgeable in their category and would therefore been seen as a strategic partner rather than just another sales pitch. When I asked him about this, his response was "bullshit baffles brains".

I found this to be pretty ironic given that one of the fundamental principles for companies playing in the social space is to engage in OPEN and HONEST dialog with consumers.

Why, I asked myself, would someone lie in an attempt to sell an honest form of communication?

I truly believe that honesty is the best policy when it comes to sales and business in general. Bullshit may baffle brains at some point, but people are seldom fooled more than once and the marketing world is pretty small and it doesn't take much to tarnish your name. Lying to get a sale may work once, but it seldom works as a long-term strategy.

I've since parted ways with this person due to conflicting personalities but I am interested to see if he gets anywhere with his program...

GM takes responsibility

Genral Motors recently announced a new program to offer customers a full refund if they are not satisifed with their vehicle. The program applies to all Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac vehicles purchased between September 14 and November 30.

Customers may return the vehicle for full refund if not satisfied between 31 and 60 days of purchase.

The program is part of an ad campaign titled "May the best car win"

This is the first time in the history of the auto industry that an auto maker has actually taken some real accountability for their products. Every other retailer offers some form of refund program, but with cars, the customer basically gets a test drive and then has to decide if they are going to commit to a pretty significant purchase.

Sure, returning a $200 camera is very different from returning a $30,000 vehicle, but I would still love to see the rest of the auto industry create similar and ongoing programs.

I would like to think that most people won't bother returning a car, but what about the occasional "lemon"? Auto-makers typically do everything they can to repair a faulty vehicle, which instantly upsets the customer.

The chances of this becoming a mainstream practice in the auto industry are very slim, but I do give kudos to GM for taking yet another strong step towards winning back consumer confidence.

I'm very interested to see if this campaign does anything to help boost sales.

When Customer Service Works Both Ways

Something happened to me today that not only put a huge smile on my face, but reinforced my belief that customer service isn't dead. In fact, it got me thinking that there is absolutely no reason why companies and consumers can't work together to form a mutually respectful partnership.

Here's the story:

Telus Mobility is my mobile carrier and have been for a very, very long time. While I have never had any major issues with their customer service, I've never believed it was stellar either. I recently updated my handset to the HTC TouchPro 2 and have been messing around with it offline prior to activating it as my main phone.

For three days, I was unable to get my phone to sync with my Outlook calendar, contacts and e-mail using Windows Mobile Device Center. I called Telus and got on with a Data expert named Greg, who despite a vliant effort, could not solve the problem. Rather than spending an hour on the phone, we agreed to try and solve the problem on our own and touch base if either of us got anywhere. An hour and several Google searches later, I found the solution.

I called Telus this morning to activate the new device and asked to speak with Greg so that I could share my findings. They recognized the effort I put into finding a solution to a problem that their team could not help me with and appreciated that I shared the results so that they could assist other customers with the same issue.

Without batting an eye, she offered to credit my account for my troubles!

As a user of Telus' service, I am delighted at the fact that they compensated me for doing a little research that would benefit their clients. This is a simple example of a great mutual relationship between customer and service provider.

In a world where technology is making it so easy for brands to connect with their customers, I see no reason why more companies can't strive to build this type of relationship and trust.

Congrats to Greg and Telus Mobility for a little bit of forward thinking!

Samsung watches you watching its ad!

Samsung has just announced a new outdoor digital advertising technology that uses a camera and proprietary facial recognition software to determine who is watching the ads and use that data to target ads displayed.

The platform is based on an LCD screen, which displays digital ads. A camera mounted above the screen can analyze the number of people watching the ad, their gender, their age group (child or adult) and how long they watched the ad.

If the data shows that the screen location mainly reaches male adults, they can display ads that are more relevant to that demographic.

While the concept is interesting, I have to wonder how accurate it is. I'm also curious as to how people will respond to this type of advertising from a privacy standpoint.

Personally, this is less offensive to me than having someone like Google track my websurfing habits and advertising to me based on them, but I'm also not keen on having Samsung's cameras capture my face every time I pass one of their ad screens.

I suppose from a marketing standpoint there is some good value in this, but we'll have to wait until their global launch this November to find out what people really think.

You can read more at PC World.