(Was: Blockbuster Online and farmed-out Web surveys)

Dear BlockBuster Online,

Your survey company RightNow Technologies doesn’t do you justice. If they were the the lowest bidder on providing surveys for you, it shows.

I got this in my email yesterday:

Dear Mark, Your opinions and feedback can make a difference! As a valued customer of BLOCKBUSTER Online, your input will have a direct impact on how we continue to improve our service to meet your entertainment needs. Please take a moment out of your busy day to share your thoughts with us in an important research survey we are conducting.

Sure, BlockBuster, you’ve been doing some nice stuff lately, especially with your “Total Access” program, so I’m willing to give a little feedback.

Following the link, I’m taken aback. The web pages are circa-1998 ugly, not at all what I would expect fropm Blockbuster Online proper. Checking the URL, I see that the survey is actually administered by RightNow Technologies. Oh well, how bad could it be?

About half-way through, the survey wants me to fill in several dozen fields, each blank and requiring a number. Hint to survey company: Default to zero on fields likely to be zero. This is where things get unbearable. Every time I enter I a number, I get a Javascript alert box telling me I need to use a number. “I am using a number!” This happens about 20 more times. So I view the source of the web page, and spot the problem:

onKeyPress="if (event.keyCode < 48 || event.keyCode > 57) {event.returnValue = false; alert('Please enter numbers only.');}";

The check on event.keyCode is proprietary to IE’s DOM, and doesn’t exist in FireFox, which is what I use. If you’re using FF, (and not in a RSS reader) here is how it acts:

Yeah, painful (unless you’re in IE.) Not at all cross-browser. Handling onkeypress events across browsers is pretty well documented, however. Or as a friend of mine says, “it isn’t rocket surgery.” Here is just one example of how to make it work in both IE and netscape/mozilla. After 20 more of the spurious alert boxes, I gave up and dashed off a note to RNT:

From: Mark Woodman
Subject: Survey is too painful to continue in Firefox
Message: All your number validation rules (”how many movies…”) are broken in
Firefox. It’s too much of a hassle to complete the survey.

Shortly thereafter, they responded with this gem:

From: Jean
Subject: Response (Blockbuster Online)
Message: I’m sorry to hear you’re having trouble with our web site, Mark. Internet Explorer is the preferred browser we recommend and is what our tech team uses to test with. Other browsers such as Mozilla/Firefox, AOL/Netscape, Safari, and so forth may not be completely compatible. If you have security or privacy software running such as Norton/McAfee/AVG, then that is very likely the reason why you’re having trouble. If you aren’t sure how to allow our cookies via your software, then please contact the developer for those instructions.

I don’t know what’s worse:
a) An online survey company that doesn’t want to do cross-browser checking in javascript in more than IE.
b) An online survey company that blames their own bad javascript on antivirus software or cookies.

I would love to know what percentage of Blockbuster users have Firefox/Opera/Safari. Whoever contracted this firm at Blockbuster Online should be more than a little embarassed by this.

Update Jan 16, 2007

The ironies continue to pile up. I sent a message via Blockbuster’s main customer support web form with a link to this article, but their customer support service appears to also be farmed out to RightNow Technologies. As if that weren’t bad enough, the support reps can’t get online from their own trouble ticket system:

From: Ryan
Subject: Response (Blockbuster Online)
Message: Hello Mark, Thanks for contacting BLOCKBUSTER Online Customer Care. Please update me with your concern because I just cannot click on the link you have given. Our system won’t read it.

I’m guessing this isn’t going to put me on RNT’s “favorite blogger” list. Any bets on whether Blockbuster HQ ever sees this thread?