DAN Responds

[SlugLife]

If I was in Woody's fins, an eventual reimbursement and nicely written letter admitting fault, would be appreciated, but wouldn't right the situation.

Except DAN has already done that! It was done in less than a week! It was done before the video even came out.

Re-read what I wrote. I state that DAN reimbursed Woody and wrote a nicely written letter admitting fault. It's right there in what you quoted.

The underlined part is the interesting part, which you ignored.

Lets say you got a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, and paid for some service which is supposed to help you in the event of any vehicle emergency, but they're useless, so you have to call around, get a tow, arrange a new tire, etc, and it wasn't even clear at the time they would pay for it. All that time you're stressed out, kids crying in the back-seat, lose several vacation days, and so on. After everything is done, they agree to reimburse the money you spent and write an apology letter. The nicely written letter and reimbursement of money, doesn't do anything to compensate you for all that stress, frustration, time, etc dealing with flat tire. Maybe, if they're genuine, your next flat tire will be fixed according to the service you pay for, but that doesn't help the past you in any way.

Maybe DAN is working with Woody to also right those things, I don't know, that would be happening behind the scenes. However, a nicely written letter itself doesn't fix the "having to deal with it myself, when I paid for a service."

 

[Seaweed Doc]

This is a fair critique. I do appreciate and give DAN credit for their response being (paraphrased) "we messed up, and are taking steps to improve." That's 100x better than a statement about "We acted properly, here's how the customer was demanding services they weren't entitled to." or worse "see you in court."

There's another really bad response to consider: We messed up and we promise to do better in the future.

And that's all they say. I'd point to a local (to me) airplane manufacturer (let's call it Boing) that had airplanes nosediving into the ground. The response is "we're all about safety, and we will continue to improve that." OK, how?
Given your management culture came from another airliner manufacturer (let's call it McDonald-Dufus) that was bought out and which had a habit of building planes where engines fall off mid-flight, well, call me skeptical.

The airplane situation makes me think it's a governance problem at Boing that was inherited from the culture at McDonald-Dufus.

But DAN presented concrete, specific changes.

 

[tursiops]

But DAN presented concrete, specific changes.

 

[crofrog]

Quality programs evaluate quality and modify procedures or personnel (e.g., fire the slackers) if quality is lacking. DAN's doing that now. I'm not sure these programs would ever prevent all problems, and one incident where they had to rely on what amounts to a customer complaint doesn't tell us how many other problems were averted. (And even a few on SCUBA Board pointing to problems doesn't tell us much. The plural of anecdote isn't data.)

They were likely insufficient before considering the number of people who have said they've had similar experiences with DAN.

The plural of acendote is data.

A purely internal audit won't catch the dissatisfied customers. And sometimes the only way a company knows there's a problem is if a customer complains. E.g., I teach dry suit diver courses routinely. Students use rental dry suits. Sometimes leaks develop in the rental suit. The only way the shop knows there is a leak is if the student tells them. (And they often forget, despite my reminding them.) It's not until the minor leak becomes a major leak that a student is likely to complain. (A minor leak is trivial. Student notices their damp around one knee post dive, but forgets by the time they return the rental gear. It's when their whole leg is soaked they tell somebody.)

From DANs statement:
"The member was required to pay for both the medevac and the hospital visit — despite DAN having SOPs in place to make these payments when requested. The transcripts will show who advised the member that DAN would not pay, but the fact is DAN was not able to facilitate these payments. This was a deviation from DAN SOPs"

It is very easy to quanitify and report on "Number of times DAN had to remiburse a member for a service DAN should have been able to facilitate directly" that is an example of a internal control that could have detected and prevented problems like this.

The fact that these internal controls to detect and correct issues like that point to a goverance issue.

And why change governance if problems are being taken care of? That leads to executives covering up problems rather than admitting them and changing things.

Changes to "governance" do not mean leadership changes. It might, but usually does not.

 

[O-ring]

There's another really bad response to consider: We messed up and we promise to do better in the future.

And that's all they say. I'd point to a local (to me) airplane manufacturer (let's call it Boing) that had airplanes nosediving into the ground. The response is "we're all about safety, and we will continue to improve that." OK, how?
Given your management culture came from another airliner manufacturer (let's call it McDonald-Dufus) that was bought out and which had a habit of building planes where engines fall off mid-flight, well, call me skeptical.

The airplane situation makes me think it's a governance problem at Boing that was inherited from the culture at McDonald-Dufus.

But DAN presented concrete, specific changes.

 

[Wookie]

Then why was the video necessary?

Content providers are paid by the view.

 

[L13]

Re-read what I wrote. I state that DAN reimbursed Woody and wrote a nicely written letter admitting fault. It's right there in what you quoted.

The underlined part is the interesting part, which you ignored.

you said "eventual", that was the part I was responding to. I didn't ignore the underlined part.

Maybe DAN is working with Woody to also right those things, I don't know, that would be happening behind the scenes. However, a nicely written letter itself doesn't fix the "having to deal with it myself, when I paid for a service."

Maybe you didn't read my posts.

My point is that DAN has fixed all the things that are fixable. You are right that some things aren't fixable. But, without a time machine, what more do they need to fix, that they didn't fix promptly?

 

[L13]

Content providers are paid by the view.

And I regret that I gave them at least 1 of those views.

 

[SlugLife]

But DAN presented concrete, specific changes.

(I'm not encouraging any sort of witch-hunt against DAN, before anyone gets the wrong idea.)

Their public statement was fantastic, and if they follow through that is also fantastic. The level of detail suggests they're serious about those changes. I full support what they wrote, and it's implementation, and I think there's little else we can expect from a letter itself.

I acknowledge the above and still hold to everything else I said in that post.

And that's all they say. I'd point to a local (to me) airplane manufacturer (let's call it Boing) that had airplanes nosediving into the ground. The response is "we're all about safety, and we will continue to improve that." OK, how?

Taking the airplane example:

1. Their changes and apology letter won't do much for the people who were on that plane, nor will refunding their airplane tickets.
2. Whether it's DAN or Boing, or anyone else, the apology/change letter is a step in the right direction, but it's also valid to then say "show me."

I'm not expecting a letter to accomplish either of the above. Nor do I expect us to be able to see the changes in #2 immediately either.

 

[SlugLife]

Except DAN has already done that!

DAN has already done all of that for Woody

1. DAN had agreed to reimburse expenses at the time of the video, which Woody acknowledged at that time.
2. The letter came after the video.
3. The "done all that" is physically impossible, without a time-machine. "All that" includes assisting Woody with timely care when he needed it, which was the big thing Woody was complaining about in his video.

Should Woody have not been frustrated by the whole experience? Should Woody have not published the video? Should he have not criticized DAN?

After the screwup, I think DAN has done most of what they can reasonably do. But I don't see any problem with what Woody did by publishing that video. If I was in Woody's shoes, I'd be pissed too. As stated in my previous comment, I'm not supporting any witch-hunts or saying DAN is bad (etc). Just that Woody publicly criticizing DAN, even though DAN had already started to try to fix their mistake, is still a perfectly valid thing to do.