Jobs I'd Like To Have: The Nokia Ovi Services Troubleshooter

Last week, I introduced a new regular feature here on Mobile Industry Review called, “Jobs I’d Like To Have”. We launched with me exploring what it might be like to sort out Microsoft Windows Mobile. It started off as a 200-word post and quickly grew from there.

With that in mind, tonight Matthew[1], I’d like to be The Nokia Ovi Services Troubleshooter.

I think I’d be perfect. A fastidious arse with a healthy regard for the end-consumer, steeped in the commercial realities of developing for the mobile platform.

So obviously the role would involve — more or less exclusively — the Nokia Services division. And in my mind I see myself standing in the background… No… wait, let me set the scene.

Before I do, I’d like to make it utterly clear that this is entirely 100% make-believe. I don’t think I’ve met the person who’s *in charge* of the Nokia Ovi Store — which is probably a good thing. Any similarities between what I describe below and anyone living are purely coincidental. I’ve also deliberately used random made-up names.

The Protagonists
– – – – – –

– The Big Boss: Kenneth Greendale, Nokia Services board director, ultimately responsible for kicking Nokia Services into gear.

– The Troubleshooter: That’s me. Always dressed in a dark pinstripe. Dark scar along my left cheek. Grim expression. Leather gloves.

– The product manager person: Mr Smith, in charge of the Nokia Ovi Store.

Let me now describe the scene in my mind.

– – – – – –

It’s 7am. Kenneth steps out of his S600 Mercedes.

“Have a nice day, Mr Greendale,” says the chauffeur, closing the door.

“Thank you, Giles,” says Kenneth, striding purposefully toward the doors to the Nokiaplex. He makes his way past reception, not bothering to get out his Nokia ID. The embedded chip in his Nokia N985 pre-release handset has already declared his arrival and set the obligatory security barriers to ‘open’.

Kenneth, carrying just a small fashionable leather briefcase, hits the ‘Penthouse’ button as the elevator doors close.

Within moments, the EVP of Services is behind his large oak desk scanning his agenda.

“Who have we got this morning, MacLeod?” he asks, turning to the dark shadowy recesses of the office.

A tall figure, dressed in a black chalk-pinstripe suit, steps briefly into the light.

In a low voice, the figure says, “Ovi Store,” before taking a step back, disappearing into the darkness.

“Ah yes,” says Kenneth, pressing a buzzer on his desk, “Linda, send in Mr Smith.”

Kenneth tips his head to the side, murmuring discretely, “Let’s be direct, MacLeod.”

Our of the corner of his eye, Kenneth can just make out the brief, firm nod of his Nokia Services Troubleshooter.

The double doors to office open revealing a slight looking Mr Smith, product manager of Ovi Store, stepping nervously across the shag-pile carpet.

“Good morning Mr Greendale,” he says, eyes cast downward.

“Mr Smith, good morning,” Kenneth replies, glancing across his desk and finding last week’s Ovi Store report.

“I’d just like to say…” begins Mr Smith.

Kenneth cuts him off, “Let’s get to business shall we? Do sit.”

Mr Smith clears his throat and opens his folder, fumbling for his report, beads of sweat forming on his brow already.

Greendale doesn’t wait.

“Ovi Store is not performing, Mr Smith.”

Mr Smith’s eyes momentarily widen in shock, mouth agape. Greendale stares at him, his gaze penetrating. Seconds pass before Mr Smith recovers himself.

“Errr, yeah.. er.., well you see…”

“This is no time for excuses, Mr Smith,” Greendale continues curtly, “I want it fixed. And I want work commenced immediately.”

“Butttt…” begins Mr Smith.

“No buts,” interrupts Greendale, “This has gone on too long, Mr Smith.”

“I, er, I think there’s a glimmer of light, Sir,” responds the product manager, hoping against hope that Greendale won’t unleash the metaphorical hounds on his department.

“I’m sorry?” says Greendale, staring intently.

Mr Smith, glancing into the eyes of Mr Greendale can see his mind is made up. It’s bad news. He can tell the Troubleshooter is probably already en route to take control.

“I’ve asked Mr MacLeod to look into your operations,” explains Greendale, “As you know Mr MacLeod is my best man and simply cannot abide poor service implementations, particularly from the end-consumer perspective. I’m detailing him to your department forthwith.”

Mr Smith decides to try one last attempt at remonstration.

“With respect, Sir, I’ve heard some rather bad things about that Mr MacLeod.”

Greendale looks up from his paperwork, “Oh?”

“Well yes, Sir, people say he’s a little bit too obsessed over services and that he only thinks about the end user, not the sometimes difficult technical implications for us…,”

Emboldened by the silence from Greendale, Mr Smith continues.

“…Some of the things he made the Mapping team do, Sir. They had to work over the weekend, Sir. The weekend! And that’s not good for my team morale, you know that Sir. We all like to get home at 5pm, Sir. And provided the applications and services sort-of work, you know Sir, who’s complaining? There’s no need for us to boil the ocean, Sir.”

“Oh really, Mr Smith?” responds Greendale, a glint in his eye.

“Well Sir,” continues Smith, “I really think he should leave us professionals to it, Sir. We know what the consumer wants. It’s what we give them, Sir. It’s always been that way and I don’t see why we should have to change, Sir. So what if the map can’t find The Colosseum in Rome when you’re stood next to it, Sir, everyone knows that our turn-by-turn directions are brilliant, Sir.”

“So, you’re not a fan of Mr MacLeod, then, Smith?” asks Greendale, a gentle frown breaking across his features.

Thinking he’s in the clear, Smith doesn’t recognise the frown or Greendale’s change of tone.

“I’m no particular fan, Sir, no, I think he’s best for other companies, Sir. Doesn’t quite fit our culture, here Sir. Send him to Microsoft I say, Sir.”

“And the failure this week, Mr Smith,” continues Greendale, glancing at a memo printed on bright red paper, “I’m told that N86 users were prompted to download the Ovi Store application and upon clicking the link received an error? How do you explain that Mr Smith?”

Smith bridles, growing more confident. He can explain this one away — and maybe even avoid that damned MacLeod interfering with his team and objectives.

“An isolated incident, Sir.”

“Isolated, in what context, Mr Smith?”

“Well now, Sir, the team have been working hard and…”

“You don’t think that’s a basic end-user failure point, Mr Smith?”

“Well I do,” stammers Mr Smith, “But, Sir.. you need to recognise..”

“I need to do what, Mr Smith?”

“Well Sir, that’s not quite fair you see. It was only N86 users that were affected, Sir. And it was only for what, five or six days, Sir, so really… we don’t think it was that much of a problem, Sir? They could just browse the Store on web, Sir. That still worked fine.”

Greendale is not impressed.

“You don’t think it’s unacceptable that we don’t even match the service level and user interface quality of the likes of the Apple Store, Smith?”

Smith feels himself brightening at the familiar territory, missing Greendale’s deepening frown.

“Well Sir,” Smith explains, “Our users like us. For over a decade they’ve been using our stuff, just the way we program it, Sir. This new fangled ‘click-and-it-just-works’ stuff is a fad, Sir. Mark my words Sir, it’ll be over in a few months, Sir. And be sides, if consumers don’t like it, they’re hardly going to swap away from us, are they, Sir? That’s always been our position Sir.”

“You don’t think we stand to lose market share, Smith?”

“Absolutely not, Sir. Everyone’s always liked Nokia menus, Sir. Even my mum has finally learnt how to send a text, Sir. I know she still sends gobbledegook ‘cos she hasn’t quite got T9 yet, Sir, but our consumers are just lazy, Sir. It’s bone idleness. This simplicity stuff won’t catch on, Sir, trust me.”

Greendale’s slight frown breaks into a smile, as he turns his head slightly to the right, “What do you make of that, Mr MacLeod,”

“Christ!” thinks Smith, breaking into outright panic, “Christ to F**k! The Troubleshooter is IN the room?”

MacLeod steps slowly forward, out of the darkness, “It’s wholly unacceptable, Mr Greendale. Rest assured, I shall ensure Mr Smith’s team fix it as a matter of priority.”

“CHHHRIST!” thinks Smith, “Flipping f**king f**k f**K! He’s going to give me the ‘service’ treatment. We’re not going to get home in weeks!”

Recovering himself and thinking quickly, Smith leaps at the first argument he can muster, “This really isn’t necessary, Mr Greendale, I… the team..we…”

Greendale stands up, buttoning his suit jacket. Walking around his desk to stand in front of the beleaguered product manager, Greendale holds out his hand,

“I’m afraid it is, Mr Smith.”

Mr Smith stands, shaking Greendale’s hand, “But Sir… we..”

Greendale interrupts, “The decision is made. Ovi Store will be brought, kicking — and, if necessary, screaming — into the 21st Century. And within the next 60 days.”

Standing helpless, Mr Smith stares as MacLeod approaches.

Greendale turns to leave, “See to it, MacLeod. Good day to you Mr Smith.”

Resigned to his fate, Mr Smith slumps back in his chair.

“Assemble your team in 90 minutes in the board room,” instructs MacLeod, “I will issue the first instructions then.”

The End

– – – – –

Heh. That description descended quite quickly into a farcical experience. Whilst I know that, for the most part, Nokia’s employees are exceptional, friendly and nice people, the output to the marketplace is, particularly in the context of services, often pretty poor.

Here’s a screenshot from the frontpage of the Ovi Store this evening:

I recognise two brands. AccuWeather and Shazam. The rest? Well, what the hell are two-star rated apps doing on the frontpage anyway? Where’s the excitement? Where’s the fun stuff? Where’s the innovation ready to sweep Nokia customers off their feet?

So I would thoroughly, thoroughly welcome the opportunity to be the Nokia Ovi Services Troubleshooter with executive authority to make stuff happen properly.

And I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one.

In fact I know I’m not the only one who — now and again — fantasies (in an entirely masculine and proper manner) about Nokia delivering a series of service offerings that work smoothly, are brilliantly conceived, and truly innovative.

It’s not just the dire Ovi Store experience that warrants attention. It’s the end-to-end experience on the handsets that completely sucks. It was acceptable three years ago to have to repeatedly hit ‘Yes, connect to the internet’ and have to continually approve horrifying ‘WARNING’ or ‘CERTIFICATE ERROR’ rubbish messages. Or worse, have to decide where to install a flipping application. Why should I care? Just install it.

There are so many disconnected yet highly linked problems. The handset UIs on Symbian, goodness me. They need to be highly simplified. The integration with the Ovi Store has to be absolute. Completely re-write the way the Ovi Store handset works. Even I — a Nokia pro — was having problems understanding how it worked.

And… geez. The basics. Make the Ovi Store search work! How are consumers meant to discover stuff if the search doesn’t work properly.

Here’s an indication of just how rubbish that experience is:

My objective? Install Touchnote. They’re a company I’ve done a bit of work with and recently used them to send a card to my mother from my N86. Worked brilliantly.

So, here’s what I do to install Touchnote. It’s like getting blood out a stone.

1. Go to store.ovi.com on my computer.
2. Type ‘touchnote‘ into the search bar.
3. Get no results.

Momentarily confused I then realise that the search has automatically defaulted to assume I have the Nokia 5800 handset. Which I don’t.

So I go back to the beginning and change my handset to the N86.

I search again.

One result.. finally. Nobody thought to put a nice helpful message on the bottom of the search saying ‘no matches found for the 5800, but we’ve found the following apps for the N86 that match your query’?

So. I click on Touchnote. I am presented with a beautiful interface to ‘send’ it to my mobile. That works very nicely. If you’re logged in, it’s one-click. Really smart.

But I can’t seem find the other Touchnote products. Having used the one ‘credit’ up on the free app, I want to download the ‘5 card pack’ for £8 so I can send more cards.

Where is it?

I have to arse about hunting through the 29 related items before I finally find the ‘Touchnote – 1 Card Pack’, 2-card and 5-card packs.

On the phone this experience is even worse. I’d go so far as to state that I bet Touchnote get next to NO downloads of their premium editions from the mobile handset. It’s just too difficult to find.

This is — sadly — just one tiny example of basic navigational and discovery challenges that need to be solved.

Talk to any developer who’s submitted an application or a piece of content to the Ovi Store and they’ll describe similar problems.

And these are simple to fix. Really simple.

So this week, that’s a job I’d like to have.

I’d like to be the Ovi Servics/Store Troubleshooter, taking feedback from the planet’s talented mobile developers and not resting until the Ovi Store team fix these and a myriad of other annoying issues.

Of course it’s not just the Ovi Store — there’s a ton of other interrelated problems as I touched on above, that involve the hardware, software and UI teams too.

And for next week’s Jobs I’d Like To Have feature? I’m thinking something at Vodafone…

– – – – –

If you’d like to participate in this feature, then get involved. Pick a company you’d like to work with and tell me — and the rest of the MIR audience — in about 500+ words, all about it. (Mail me: ewan@mobileindustryreview.com)

[1] A very British reference to the TV show, Stars In Their Eyes, where contestants impersonate showbiz stars on stage. The memorable catchphrase being, ‘Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be [celebrity]. More at Wikipedia.