Posts Tagged Security

Recently, my wife started to see the following error when she tried to access Yahoo Mail. The  error occurred on two different computers and with both IE 8 and Firefox 3.5. On the same computers, I can log onto mail.yahoo.com with my own account and have no problems receiving mail.

Sorry, Unable to process request at this time — error 999.

As the error was not temporary, I submitted a request by clicking on the let us know link. I immediately got an automated response pointing the finger at my isp, my PC, malware etc. The error message ALREADY told me to do that.

Fair enough, it is an automated response and it gave a stock answer. I responded to the email and indicated that other yahoo mail accounts worked fine on the exact same pc’s with the same ISP. This time, a human being responded asking for more details plus some security information to verify identity. Alternatively, I could resubmit at the same let us know link. I choose the latter and this time had trouble with the confirm code required for submitting a help request …

Now that sure looks like 25uAMzez to me, but that code was not accepted after several repeated attempts. I later figured out that the A was a 4. I tried the audio code option and I failed at that too. I had to reload the page and start again with a new code to submit the ticket. Again, I got the same autoresponse as before. So I will respond to the email mentioned above instead. At the time of posting this, it has been a week since I first reported the issue and it is still not answered. OK – it’s a free email account and I should not expect instant access to a support person, but we do come to rely on email and it should work.

To whomever is responsible for customer experience at Yahoo – here are some easy wins that might help other users

1. The error message and details are vague and might apply to any Yahoo page. As mail is an important service, the system should recognize this as a problem accessing mail and provide more specific diagnostic instructions.
2. Definitely allow users to refresh the confirmation code – most other sites that use this irritating technology have the option to refresh the code
3. Perhaps allow users to view and track  their help request tickets through a CRM
4. Engage a third party (eg. Cubed Consulting) to audit your customer experience from the outside in

@jimmytmaher

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