Feedback on Web Site

redmondb

For the first time in as long as I can remember, nothing happened when I turned on the kitchen tap this morning. After a fruitless search on water.ie, I rang "Water Supply, Metering and Emergencies". After taking my details, asking lots of (quite reasonable) questions about work in the area, recent plumbing activity, etc.,  they eventually found that an incident had already been reported in my area and that a repair team was on its way. The finished by recommending that I check out water.ie for the progress of the incident.

<Sigh>

OK, Water, feedback time. If your website was designed by an intern then he/she did a pretty impressive job. On the other hand, if you paid professionals for it then you should be ashamed. Some very quick points...
Operational
(A) Above all, despite a team being on its way, no-one had yet updated the website. This wastes your customers' time, not to mention that of your staff. (Apparently this is a common complaint... by your staff.)
(B) All of the time your staff member was questioning me, they were waiting for the results of of a search for incidents in my area. This took minutes!
Design
(C) There are five different types of incidents. There is no indication of what they each mean. While some are obvious, what does "Network Incident" mean and how does it differ from "Water Outage"? Read on!
(D) Other than the, hopefully, rare "Boil Water Notice" and "Pollution" items, the apparently well-named "Water Outage" is far and away the most significant item for your customers. Great, there are currently none in Dublin! Oops...
 - five of the "Network Incidents" have "Essential works may cause supply disruptions"
 - four have "Essential maintenance works may cause supply disruptions"
 - the remaining five have "Repairs to a burst water main may cause supply disruption".
 - My water is out!
Hmm, here's a thought... while your number-crunchers may salivate over "Network Incidents", your CUSTOMERS look at every one of these and think "When's my water coming back?!". (Which, of course, gives rise to the very unworthy thought that someone's annual bonus is based on the number of "Water Outages".)
(E) The remaining incident type is "Informational". Two of these say "We are investigating reports". This is genuinely good - get the incidents on-line ASAP, but flag that they are not yet confirmed. Unfortunately the remainder muddy the water...
 - One "Essential Works will take place"
 - One "Essential maintenance works will take place"

So, some thoughts on how to improve things... 
Above all, update your incident details in a timely fashion. (Including updating "estimated completion time" - past dates are not acceptable.)
Anything that causes (or may cause) people's water supply to be interrupted is recorded as either "Outage - Confirmed" or "Outage - Unconfirmed". No change to "Boil Water Notice" and "Pollution". Do what you damn well like with any other incident types. (Although you might consider a "Traffic interruption" type.)
All incidents are flagged as "Current", "Planned" or "Completed". Incidents which are updated to "Completed" should have an "Actual completion time" and be left on-line for, say, 48 hours.
Add a "Feedback" section to your "Contact Us" page.

Disgruntled_Customer

Irish Water: Amy A

Hi redmondb,

Thank you for your feedback. We will pass this along to the relevant department.

If there's anything else that we can help you with, feel free to ask.

Kind regards,
Amy

redmondb

Nope, that's the lot! Thanks, Amy.

Spear

So after Irish Water negligently mishandled and lost my personal details, which included banking details for the direct debit setup, and then didn't both informing me of their incompetence till yesterday, I then tried to register on the site since they can't handle paper forms. Their broken site gives a HTTP 500 error, didn't send the activation mail, and since there's no option to resend the activation mail, the account can't be used. I can't re-register because an unusable account already exists. It's an awe-inspiring amount of stupidity at every level with them.

Irish Water: Mairead

Hi Spear,

We are very sorry to hear you had this experience, and please accept our apologies for the delay in response.

Spear wrote: »

So after Irish Water negligently mishandled and lost my personal details, which included banking details for the direct debit setup, and then didn't both informing me of their incompetence till yesterday, I then tried to register on the site since they can't handle paper forms. Their broken site gives a HTTP 500 error, didn't send the activation mail, and since there's no option to resend the activation mail, the account can't be used. I can't re-register because an unusable account already exists. It's an awe-inspiring amount of stupidity at every level with them.

We can certainly look into this matter for you, if you could please provide the following details by private message:

- Name;
- Address; and
- Contact number.

Kind regards,
Mairead

Spear

Irish Water: Mairead wrote: »

Hi Spear,

We are very sorry to hear you had this experience, and please accept our apologies for the delay in response.

Spear wrote: »

So after Irish Water negligently mishandled and lost my personal details, which included banking details for the direct debit setup, and then didn't both informing me of their incompetence till yesterday, I then tried to register on the site since they can't handle paper forms. Their broken site gives a HTTP 500 error, didn't send the activation mail, and since there's no option to resend the activation mail, the account can't be used. I can't re-register because an unusable account already exists. It's an awe-inspiring amount of stupidity at every level with them.

We can certainly look into this matter for you, if you could please provide the following details by private message:

- Name;
- Address; and
- Contact number.

Kind regards,
Mairead

I already tried the contacting Irish Water about this through the proper channels. I was fobbed off with a generic copy and paste message to ring the phoneline, and then lied to that nothing was registered to my account, even though the Irish Water website makes a very clear claim otherwise.

Besides what relevance to my personal details have to design and implementation flaws on a broken website? 

Victor

Spear wrote: »

I already tried the contacting Irish Water about this through the proper channels. I was fobbed off with a generic copy and paste message to ring the phoneline, and then lied to that nothing was registered to my account, even though the Irish Water website makes a very clear claim otherwise.

Besides what relevance to my personal details have to design and implementation flaws on a broken website? 

They're trawling for details so they can bill you.

Look forward to your bank details being lost again, perhaps a second account being set up in your name, being sent nasty letters that you haven't paid your bill (that you never received) and being overcharged.

And when they apologise (rare, but it happens), realise that it is a superficial platitude to soothe you and avoid confrontation. It isn't actually meaningful, because if it was, it would mean they would fix them problems, which they won't, because they have a blank cheque from the tax / bill payer for the next 10 years.

Irish Water: Kim

Hi Spear,

Thanks for your response.

Spear wrote: »

I already tried the contacting Irish Water about this through the proper channels. I was fobbed off with a generic copy and paste message to ring the phoneline, and then lied to that nothing was registered to my account, even though the Irish Water website makes a very clear claim otherwise.

Besides what relevance to my personal details have to design and implementation flaws on a broken website?

We are currently unaware of any technical issues with our website. The reason we ask for your contact details is in order for us to look into your account to identify the specific problem you are experiencing, and ensure we get this resolved as soon as possible.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused for you.

Kind regards,
Kim

Spear

Irish Water: Kim wrote: »

Hi Spear,

Thanks for your response.

We are currently unaware of any technical issues with our website. The reason we ask for your contact details is in order for us to look into your account to identify the specific problem you are experiencing, and ensure we get this resolved as soon as possible.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused for you.

Kind regards,
Kim

A HTTP error code of 500 is trivial to identify in the server logs, no personal info is needed for that.

And the lack of a resend verification email option is a fundamental design flaw and lack of foresight, not a technial issue. So again no personal info is needed for that.

Irish Water: Mairead

Hi Spear,

Spear wrote: »

Irish Water: Kim wrote: »

Hi Spear,

Thanks for your response.

We are currently unaware of any technical issues with our website. The reason we ask for your contact details is in order for us to look into your account to identify the specific problem you are experiencing, and ensure we get this resolved as soon as possible.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused for you.

Kind regards,
Kim

A HTTP error code of 500 is trivial to identify in the server logs, no personal info is needed for that.

And the lack of a resend verification email option is a fundamental design flaw and lack of foresight, not a technial issue. So again no personal info is needed for that.

Thank you for your feedback and we will pass this on to the relevant department.

Kind regards,
Mairead