I don't see the appeal of heated seats, I've never turned the ones in my cars on. OK, I suppose when you've left your car in below zero weather it's useful.
Heated steering wheel on the other hand; that's heavenly.
I suppose if I ever find a BMW attractive enough to buy one despite this consumer-hating behavior (their grilles help me stay away), I'd figure out if I can unplug the seat from the control unit, and just plug it straight to a different power supply to get the heat. Or will they use something like HDMI's Digital Content Protection to prevent "heat piracy"?
If you do not have a garage and live in a cold weather climate they are fantastic. Heat up almost instantly when the engine might not warm up entirely to get the heat going for a good 15 min.
I have some sorta skin condition that I can not stand either the heated seats and the heated steering wheel.
But my wife ... in winters, the first thing on entering the car is to activate the heatings seats. Some people like them. And yes I paid for the subscription (or a package that cost me a bunch but gave me everything all inclusive).
> Heated steering wheel on the other hand; that's heavenly
Twice I tried it on rental cars it freaked the hell out of me. This is what I'd imagine people experiencing some exotic neurological collapse feel like - part of hands feeling warm, while surrounding bits feeling frozen. Mixed signaling, really bizarre dissonance. So now when I get a new car, I get pretty much every option except for the heated steering wheel.
It's funny, I have heated steering wheel in my car (2022 Leaf), and when I bought it I didn't think anything of it. However, being in Scandinavia, when the first snow+ice came, I tried it and loved it instantly. Now I even use it on not very cold days, just because it feels nice. :)
I don't think either of those are consumer benefits at all. And the hardware was charged for when the car was initially sold - it was part of the total unit cost of creation. The subscription was a consumer hostile way of increasing spend with the brand. The genius' at BMW looked at Tesla's Plaid mode and FSD and thought they could replicate that model but failed to realise that people don't view their brands the same way - people treat a Tesla like a software purchase, but a BMW like an expensive toaster.
I think you misunderstand - they can charge slightly less for the car, and not actually charge you for that bit of hardware, if they're monetizing it differently.
No, I understand what you're saying. But they absolutely aren't doing that and there's no way they were eating the hardware cost as a loss-leader on future recurring revenue. The buyers paid for the hardware and then needed to pay for software to enable it.
Vehicle pricing is entirely a market decision, and targets a certain profit margin. You will absolutely have less profit margin on something where you believe you can make up that revenue on a subscription.
Good question! And something I should explain better. This iteration of it uses the HQ location to generate the sending number. So if you're admin sets up within England, we grab a +44 number to send from. Irelands +353 code should be able to receive a message with some limits on Meteor Ireland network.
If you wanted to test it from Ireland, let me know and we will add support for it.
On the roadmap, we have a task to base the number on the end-user location (based on the dialling code of their phone number), which will also allow us to vary the sending times based on their location. Currently, the survey will deliver based on the HQ location time.
Thank you! We tested several ways of sending but the highest response rates and the most candid data came back via SMS.
On response rates, it's around 20% more responses via SMS than email or chat apps. This is the same for marketing delivered via SMS - the percentage is lower but compared to email, etc. it's relatively high.
In terms of the data quality - we think it's because SMS is not a "company owned" platform that could keep logs, etc. Maybe it feels safer for the end user so they're more honest.
Also, the interaction is fast and fun. We get responses initially via emoji and within the text comment you can hashtag and mention other staff. We're working on MMS support so people can send photos too. It's not globally supported but it works in the US at the moment.
There's so many troubles with org structures and models of operation. My day job is in this area, in an industry that is criminally inefficient. Any field that sells hours isn't incentivised to be quick about anything.
Signals can have an impact if it's run executive level to all staff. It gives people a voice who can see inefficiency but don't have a forum to talk about it, and move past layers that are trying to preserve their roles / status.
I will take a look at OfficeVibe for sure. How frequently do they send it out?
While many managers won't do it, usually it's an innocuous thing like being able to move employees between teams and see where data moves that give things away. Not saying that's what's happening in OfficeVibe at all, but it's a common fault.
Writing styles and people exposing themselves is definitely an issue. One commenter here had a great idea on rephrasing through ChatGPT or similar to mitigate that issue.
This is a super interesting idea. It might muddle things like sarcasm, in-jokes (we see a lot of those around Christmas party time) and things like that. But even if it was something the user could control perhaps, it might be a great addition.
I get what you're saying for sure, but I think there's a level below that where you need to deliver some bad news into middle management about what's happening and it can be "career limiting" to say it, so people avoid the issue. Hopefully they gain a level of safety to deliver that message through us.
reply