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Posts

February 08, 06:47 PM
Good service trumps a product's failure

Over 40 years ago, and long before my move to Maine, I became acquainted with the story of the beginning of a great company.

It wasn't a great company in the beginning. In fact, way back before my time, its product (there was only one) had a 90% failure rate. That kind of track record would put most companies out of business, or send shade tree entrepreneurs packing. But there was something unique about this particular company because of the man who started it. He knew he had a great idea, and he decided, all by himself, to offer a guarantee. No problems, no questions: If you don't like the product or it doesn't work for you, just being it back and retrieve your money.

Well, a 90% failure rate wasn't a great start, especially when he refunded all the money he'd collected from buyers. But it sent him back to the drawing board to make the product better. When he was convinced he had it right, he offered it again, and people bought it, knowing they had absolutely nothing to lose if it failed again. It did not fail, and people loved it.

The man went on to produce many more of that product, to expand his product line, and to begin to build a very successful enterprise. He kept that guarantee, so people had no fear of buying his goods. He integrated customer service into the whole outlook of the growing company so that people would feel confident and comfortable doing business there. He knew that many of his customers were fishermen and hunters, so he kept his store open 24 hours, 365 days a year to accommodate their schedules. He didn't have to do this, but he knew he'd be serving his customers better. He was meeting their needs.

That company was started 100 years ago, and today turns nearly $1.5 billion per year in sales. It is still family-owned. The man was Leon Leonwood Bean, and L.L. Bean is consistently one of the top brands for customer service. In tthe 2011 Customers Choice Awards, L.L. Bean came it at number 2, between Amazon and Zappos.

Not bad for a company that started off with a "crummy product" but a complete commitment to customer service.

Happy 100th Birthday, L.L. Bean!

 

Note: I am not affiliated in any way with L.L. Bean, other than being a customer who wears their products every day. I am a lifetime customer.

 

 

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January 14, 07:29 PM
LinkedIn Spam Scam

Just about an hour ago, I checked my email from my iPhone, and found a request that stopped me in my tracks. Someone I don't know was asking me if it was OK to post my photo on LinkedIn.

The email (see below) looked like a LinkedIn message, but it didn't' smell like a LinkedIn message. LinkedIn is not a place to post a photo (except your profile picture). First, I checked my LinkedIn app, and the message was not there. Next, I touched the "View/Reply" link at the bottom and held it to display the URL (second licture below).

It doesn't go anywhere near LinkedIn.

Be warned - I'm sure I am not the only person to receive one of these social engineering bait emails.

See the full gallery on Posterous

And another attempt on Sunday morning:

And yet more, received 1/16:

(Mr. "Alien" may be from Roswell, NM.)

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January 05, 08:20 AM
Resolved for 2012: (See Number 2)

I'm not a "resolution for the new year" kind of person, but rather tend toward continual improvement.

For 2012, however, I'm making one resolution:

I won't spend any of my time grousing about the bad writing I see every day in blog posts by writers who should know better. (I think they do know better. See number 2 below.) No more attempts to enlighten or correct. No more.

I will simply form an opinion of your work that will include all or some of the following:

  1. You are sloppy
  2. You don't care
  3. You were educated poorly and haven't tried to improve on that
  4. You think, "It's not my job." "It doesn't matter." (See number 2)
  5. You don't think of your readers as customers
  6. You don't think of your own content as valuable*

Please note: I am not talking about people whose native language is not English, and who struggle with one of the most difficult languages that exists. I'm also not talking about Twitter. Goodness knows it's hard enough to dash off a 140 character message. I am mostly talking about people who, oh well, see number 2.

The other thing I won't do is try to keep struggling through malformed sentences, misused words, undefined acronyms and convoluted jargon.

I will just stop reading and move on.

 

The praises of those who do care enough to stop and read through their work (or, better yet, ask a friend to read through it) will be sung from the rooftops.

 

 

*Why, in heaven's name, should I?

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December 19, 05:41 PM
The Rule of Reciprocity

Dear Trainers and Educators,

 

A simple question: If I submitted a scan of a copy of a copy of a copy as part of my work, would you be willing to accept it without forming a negative opinion of my attention to the task at hand?

I didn't think so.

Remember that your students and clients feel the same way. If it would not be acceptable to you, it's not acceptable for you to do.

If you expect respect, give it.

Sincerely,

Roy

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November 29, 09:42 PM
Gamification Ramification?

Well, I'm seeing a lot of posts about "gamificaton" - creating game-like elements everywhere, including work.

When, may I ask, was all this not a game? Ever since Sister Mary Whosit or Mrs. Tarshaguadle or Mr. Fuggettaboudit  gave you a gold star for completing your work well, or you got an award for "perfect attendance" (no sick days), your life has been "gamified."

We earn little badges and pass milestones no matter what we do. We complete our college work and get a diploma. We do well at work and get a new title or a corner office.  We stack up the certificates of completion we earn at seminars and workshops. We get to use more letters after our names.

But there is a difference. I am left to wonder if achieving a GollyYerFabulous badge on a website or at work will have any real consequences, or if the new "gamified" world will dispense badges and tokens instead of raises, better benefits, respect and responsibility. Or maybe the badges are the real deal and the raises are an illuson. 

Well, whatever your game is, play it well and play it wisely. 

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September 30, 08:05 PM
Career ending flight?

Goodness knows I've been known to talk on planes. I've met some great people and one good friend by accidents of seating. Today, I learned how incredibly...well...stupid supposedly smart people can be.

Seated a row behind me on the flight from DC to NYC today was a woman maybe in her late thirties and a male companion whom I guessed to be a coworker. Throughout the flight, she loudly declaimed that "That guy is an a--hole" and that so and so "should be investigated by the SEC" and that she "piled boxes across the entrance of her cubicle to keep the idiots out" and that a school she went to (an excellent technical college with which I happen to be quite familiar) "was a waste in the middle of nowhere." All of this was said in a loud enough voice that people seated across the aisle from me were rolling their eyes. Now, amid all of this were liberally sprinked company names, bosses' names, coworkers' names, and information like "all the numbers were wrong so we just made up a bunch of sh-t."

Now, I'm no longer a hiring manager, but I was thinking, "Ma'am, if you were to cross my threshold looking for a job, I would have secuity escort you from the building."

The saying is that "loose lips sink ships" but they can sink careers, too.

- Mind your manners
- Remember where you are
- Think about this: I might be someone in your company you haven't met
- Think about this even more: I might be one of your competitors
- Think about this yet again more: I might be one of your customers (!)
- Think about this even more than that: I might be from the SEC or another regulatory authority

Have a good flight!

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September 13, 08:06 AM
Speaking engagements - Fall 2011

September 21: Toastmasters Club 897 Humorous Speech Contest (evaluator), Bangor, Maine

October 8: Toastmasters Humorous Speech Contest, Area 5 (evaluator); Belfast Maine

October 12: Speaking on "Social IT" - How IT support can use social networking concepts to better utilize organizational knowledge. http://events.linkedin.com/603-Networking-Oct-12th-River-Mill-Dover/pub/764242

October 19: Speaking on "Social IT" at the HDI Capital Area Chapter (DC) http://www.hdicapitalarea.com/

October 20: Keynote at Brew City HDI (Milwaukee, WI) on Customer Service Excellence http://brewcityhdi.com/

October 22: Toastmasters Humorous Speech Contest, Division B; Evaluation contest; Belfast, Maine

October 24-27: HDI Deskotp Support Forums (facilitator), Oklahoma City, OK

November 4: Colorado Information Management Association Fall Educational Conference, Colorado Springs, CO (Nov 2-4) on "Social IT."  http://ow.ly/6sSds

November 7-8 Voice of the Customer Conference, Bolton, MA (social media; facilitator)

November 16: HDI South Carolina Local Chapter, Columbia, SC at IT-ology. Presentation on Social IT, customer service, and their nexus. http://ow.ly/6N6E6

Update - Nov. 22: Done!

My favorite feedback from an evaluation (bold added):
" Roy gave an excellent presentation!  Very informative and applicable to our businesses.  Roy really kept the audience engaged.  Please have him back!"

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June 09, 02:04 PM
One way atrocious business jargon gets started

Today, it finally came to me--literally. I received an email containing the word "outgain."

It was not used as in "the wins outgain the losses" or something pseudo-correct like that. It was, I quickly realized, a typo. It wasn't supposed to be "outgain." It was supposed to be outage in, as in, "There is an outage in building 4..." I'm certain, however, given the tendency of business people, especially managers, to follow each other's speech patterns in spite of all the evidence pointing out the foolishness of that behavior, that I will see the word "outgain" used again.

Unless the jargon gods are merciful.

Pray with me...

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March 04, 11:09 PM
The beauty of the urban landscape: Greene and Krigsman share their vision

My Twitter friend @emoticomma (Barbara Greene) sent out what she called a "shameless plug" for these wonderful collections http://thepoetryofsnaps.tumblr.com/ Now, I may be a little prejudiced, having grown up in the New York Metro area and spent many happy days in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn from childhood on. Mom took me shopping at Macy's and Gimbel's; my dad took me to work with him on lower Broadway and later near the Brooklyn Army Terminal; my grandmother, aunt and cousin all lived in Queens; my best friend lived in Brooklyn Heights for a bit. My first visit to Coney Island was when I was about 6, on a summer day that gave way to a torrential thunderstorm. And so on.

Even with all that familiarity (or maybe because of it), I was stunned at the beauty of the pictures posted at http://thepoetryofsnaps.tumblr.com/ If you've only visited NYC as a tourist, you may not have seen a bittersweet Coney Island winter scene. I was immediately reminded of a vinyl album I was given years ago--Marsha Malamet's touching "Coney Island Winter." (http://bit.ly/hzaBAk) The majesty of the memorials, the intriguing ingenuity of street art, the pulse of it. Barbara Greene has captured something beyond snapshots of New York.

I do not know Boston nearly as well as I do New York, but I also appreciate the fine work of Michael Krigsman (@mkrigsman on Twitter). You can find his Boston photos here http://bit.ly/emfT9L (flickr), but don't stop there. His camera goes with him on his travels, and we benefit from both the photos and his writing (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/projectfailures ).

I'm lucky to have met Michael in person, and I'm hoping to meet Barbara someday soon. I hope you get to meet them through their wonderful impressions of life in 21st century America. Follow them on Twitter, too. Maybe you'll catch one of Barbara's "virtual tours" or one of Michael's Boston scenes in their tweet stream. In any case, you will not be disappointed.

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February 24, 09:41 AM
Quote of the day

"As I discovered during a recent tour of corporate mission statements, almost all companies say they want to empower their people, who are their most important asset. But the sudden appearance of a set of tools that does just that appears to have caught many companies off guard." http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/mcafee/2011/02/does-your-company-know-what-it.html

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February 10, 06:32 PM
I'm transitioning my decisioning

Why take a perfectly good and useful word that everyone can understand and replace it with an affected, more complex word that everyone has to relearn? Here are some examples of words I can live, quite happily, without:

decisioning - What happened to deciding, and who decided that it needed replacementing?
onboarding/offboarding - When did we lower hire? Who terminated terminate? Why are we in a ship, and where is it going? And if we are in a ship, are we shipping?
transitioning - We have a change management process, but we're transitioning it.

Some of these new "ing" words are plural; I know, because took the trainings and came away with the learnings.

Now, in contrast to the tendency to use words which end in "ing," in some cases, we are dropping the ending in favoring of some other wordinging:

I'd like to have more compute next year, but I'm not sure I can make the ask, and I certainly don't know if they'll go for the spend.

That's all my writings for now. I have to car to the airport and do parkings so I can be planing to my next meet.

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January 22, 06:03 PM
Things I keep in my car in the winter

I live in Maine, and winters here can be very harsh. Here are some things I keep in the cars at this time of year:

• Safety kit - (booster cables, crank flashlight [no batteries required], 30-piece first-aid kit, red LED safety light, utility knife, reflective vest, fleece travel blanket, emergency blanket, poncho, gloves, duct tape, shop cloths, six washup towelettes and car-care guide)
• Collapsible snow shovel
• Multi-function battery unit - 2 lighter-style plugs for devices (e.g., phone), jumper cables, air compressor/tire-pump, emergency lights
• Scrapers (with brass edges--plastic ones don't do well)
• Long-handled brush (reaches across the roof)
• Extra insulated gloves

Yes, we take it seriously.

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December 24, 02:22 PM
FollowFriday for December 24, 2010

People on Twitter are constantly coming up with alternative ways to send "shouts" to point out those whom they believe it's worthwhile to follow.
#FollowFriday or #FF - this is the biggie, of course. Every Friday, tweeps send out lists, one tweet at a time.
#FollowNow - Any day, same idea.
#SSW - Share Space With - In other words, converse with
#REC - Recommended to follow

And every Friday, the lists of folks I want to recognize as bringing value to my community on Twitter gets longer. So, I'll start this little "tradition" today, and add to it. I may also point people out one at a time--or a few at a time--on Twitter, but here's my *partial* list for today, 12/24/2010. Thank you all for bringing value to my 2010 Twitter time!

In no particular order, but some under hashtags they frequently use, here are some of the people I consistently read, interact with, and value:

@PhilGerb (<<my first follower) @minutrition @elliotross @jen_reyna @brandleadership @chuckmartin1 @togetherwf @ken_gonzalez @TheFoodieTeam @BradGrass  @JonStow @rafaelfarinas @tonyrichards4 @LouImbriano @CorePurpose @eekster @mkrigsman @RebeccaDenison @JKWInnovation @Daffynitions @Billy_Cox @FredCuellar @RubenQuintero @slines @JKWGrowth @AHawkCollinger @enthused @Mr_hillard @Leadershipfreak   @LettyMor @williecolon @dave_carpenter @Billy_Cox @JKWLeadership @chantalbeaupre @joankw @steveroesler @NaomiKarten @BonniToronto @AsianPundit @tom_peters @RickRake @BobSongs @OwenGreaves @apasboy @LeeJCarey @ej_butler @Alpha_Computer @mascrivener
#leadchange - @mikehenrysr @KetelboeterPR @mousleyki @PamWyess @JenKuhnPR @DennyCoates @JenniferVMiller @bizshrink @ITMinefield @eschreyer @Geoff_Snyder @LDguyMN @will_lukang @JohnFMoore @SusanMazza @MarkOOakes @LeadToday @leadershipcoach @DrSteveBroe @mikemyatt @BridgetHaymond @StrategicSense @CompassCoaching @CrisBuckley @LollyDaskal @DrJackKing

 

#HDI #ITSM #ITIL - @hdisophie @aranmcfarland @brenbt @ServiceSphere @ctomasi @matt_L @ThinkHDI @VigilantGuy @MattJury @mattberan @ITSMPundit @softwarenamaste @voiceofsteele @NaomiKarten @phil_verghis @brittonanderson @HDIEvntPrincess @CarlosCasanova @Lisa_Rowe_ @ITSMNinja @ivankamenken

#custserv - @JeffreyJKingman @MarshaCollier @expertinservice @RichardNatoli @josephmichelli @barrypeters @Reaburn @LindaSherman @frankeliason @Zendesk @berkson0 @bsdalton @tedcoine @KarenLocker @KnowledgeBishop @grmeyer @WriteTheCompany @action_jay @iluvMarthasVY @tatn @gregortbach @amandakaufmann @abhuret @JustinFlitter @briansolis @johninorlando @EYellin @KateNasser @Aimee_Lucas @skip7547 @DeRochier @kr8tr @mpace101 @Jon_Ferrara @elbiddulph

 

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December 21, 05:56 PM
Service Desk Christmas Pledge

I will not calculate Service Desk metrics during Christmas dinner.
If the phone rings during our family gathering, I will not worry about whether I pick it up within our Average Speed to Answer goal.
I will not upgrade the turkey to Windows 7.
If Cousin Arnie asks a question, I will not direct him to the Knowledge Base.
I will not reprimand the kids for violating the Social Media Policy. Unless they deserve it.
I will not worry about whether Ruthie’s pumpkin pie should fall under Incident Management.
I will not attempt to reboot the green bean casserole.
I will have a safe and happy holiday season, and I look forward to a great 2011 2012!

Best wishes to all my IT Service and Support comrades!

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December 18, 11:45 AM
Twitter Trends I Don't Understand

#1: No avatar? No Bio?
It seems to me to be a pretty basic concept that you pay attention--at least a little bit--to how you project your image to the entire planet. If you're going to bother being on Twitter, I would think you would at least choose your own avatar (not a default Twitter one), and would write a few words about who you are and/or what you do, especially if you are trying to get a presence going for a business endeavor.

So my mind boggles when I see new followers who have a default avatar and who are well beyond the first few tweets, or when seemingly bright people who might be interesting have no bio. None. Guess what... I might take the time to try to figure out what you're about by looking at your tweet stream, but chances are I will just ignore you.

#2: No URL shortener?
Why on earth would you want to use up all 140 characters by using a long URL? Why on earth would I follow you when I look at your tweets and see long URL after long URL and nothing else? Tell me why I should click on the link. Make me want to check it out. if it's a link to your homemade jewelry on eBay or Etsy, tell me. Tell me something. Anything.

I seem to be seeing these behaviors more and more as time goes on. If you expect people to follow you, you should give them a reason to follow you. Not everyone (thank goodness) just automatically follows everyone back. Offer me some value even if it's small.

I'm reminded of people who throw together a crummy resume and then don't understand why they don't get hired. Pay attention to what you do. Mistakes should be forgiven. Laziness and disregard for others is a bit harder to take.

My $.02

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October 30, 01:37 PM
Supermarket chain repeats a good thing

Last Year, I wrote about Hannaford Supermarkets' excellent program to help food banks around the holidays (http://bit.ly/5orwyr). The chain is repeating the program this year, with a few changes (http://bit.ly/d7SNtG). If you live in New England, check out this program to help a food bank (Loaves and Fishes in our case) provide more meals to more people. It's fast, easy and helpful. No excuses. Thanks.

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September 08, 03:32 PM
VMWare VDI, Wyse P20 - Beware of Display Resolution

Hello all, We have been evaluating the P20 clients along with VMWare View 4 and love the new PCoIP protocol. However there is one issue that we are having that seems to be with the P20. No matter what the screen resolution settings are in the VM or the View connection manager, the P20s connect at at 1280x1024 on both screens, which happens to be the native resolution of the monitors we have attached. We tested this by attaching monitors with a native resolution of 1440x900, and the PCoIP session came up at 1440x900. This is actually great, except for when we have users who want to run lower resolutions than what is native for the monitor. We have a couple of users who want to run 1024x768, but we cannot make it work on the P20s. Will there ever be a way to force the screen resolution of the P20 client in the future like we were able to do with the WTOS clients we had before? Thanks, Chris
via community-old.wyse.com

This is frankly primitive and does a complete disservice to the end-user, unless you've got all your work screens optimized for the native resolution of the particular display you are deploying. This is the best kept secret in the virtual environment. If you were to ask customers, "Would it matter to you if you could not adjust screen resolution?" the answer would be a resounding "Yes!" Fix this, please, Wyse and VMWare!

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August 09, 09:39 PM
Negative People

“Some people are sadly oblivious to the fact that knowing how to say something negative or sarcastic does not in any way equal knowing how to say something that is actually intelligent or useful.” - Mike E. Knezevich, Jr.

“People who say 'I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist' are actually just negative people who think they are always right.” - Nick Kinsella

“For many, negative thinking is a habit, which over time, becomes an addiction... A lot of people suffer from this disease because negative thinking is addictive to each of the Big Three -- the mind, the body, and the emotions. If one doesn't get you, the others are waiting in the wings.” - Peter McWilliams

"The naysayer is the person who often offers criticism of ideas, or always provides reasons why something won't work.  The extreme naysayer rarely offers suggestions or alternatives, but is very good at picking holes in the ideas of others." - Robert Bacal (http://work911.com/articles/poslan.htm)

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July 11, 04:27 PM
Disingenuous

dis·in·gen·u·ous –adjective lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous; insincere

Use in a sentence:
You are being disingenuous if your Twitter bio says you are one thing, and your tweets have absolutely nothing to do with that thing, but are obviously paid tweets for something else.

Addendum - 11/25/2010
You are also being disingenuous if your first DM to "welcome" someone who has actually taken the time to look at your profile and Twitter stream is a click-through come-on.

I don't mind being sold to. I do mind being used. 

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May 31, 01:14 PM
Summer Movie Trailer in Text

Handsome Lead - gun barrel - gorgeous lead - running - explosion - big explosion - romantic interlude - leads in compromising position - stop-action explosion - running - juuuuump - fast car - physically impossible leap - explosion - leads look at each other then run - movie name - end.

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roy atkinson on posterous
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Posts

February 05, 01:13 PM
Super Every Day
No matter who is the champion of whatever sport we happen to be following, we know that there are some important characteristics of teams (and individuals) that win:

  • They are talented
  • They are well trained
  • They are unified in their objectives
  • They are focused on achieving the goal
Can we say that about the teams we work with? 
  • Do we have the right people in the right places?
  • Is marketing getting the word out and presenting our products and services in the proper way? 
  • Does sales handle the "play" properly and, as Lou Imbriano would say, "Win the customer"? 
  • Is our service and support team ready to "defend" our gains by keeping customers happy and making sure they remain customers? 
  • Is our production or professional services team ready to fulfill the promises made by our advertising and sales? 
  • Do we have the right coaches in place for each of the specialty teams we field?

In almost every sport, coaches stay on the sidelines, or in the dugout, or behind the tee, or overlooking the tennis court. They are almost never active players (although there ave been some exceptions). Are you a manager? Do you also find yourself on the team you are trying to manage? Is the workload so intense that you must be counted as one of the players? Consider what you might be losing in terms of perspective and strategic view.

Sometimes, even in the most intense of competitions, there are time outs. Do you need to call one and assess how your organization is working together as a team? 

Give it some thought.

Image from iStockPhoto.com
January 15, 12:51 PM
Do. Improve. Repeat.
If you've been following me on Twitter for any length of time, you've read these three words before:
Do. Improve. Repeat.
I call it my "mantra." I've used it in just about every aspect of my life. Of course, it's my personalized version of "Practice makes perfect" or "La práctica hace al maestro" or "Kaizen," but with emphasis on a central step: Reflection and the conscious intention to make the next golf swing, guitar riff, kata routine, blog post or paragraph better than the last.

Every day presents a new opportunity to get better at something, whether it's being a better follower, leader, thinker, writer, golfer, musician, student, manager or martial artist (or whatever it is that you've chosen to apply yourself to). It seems to me that this is a common thread among the people I have admired throughout my life: They have worked on the things they find valuable, and have tried to continually improve not only for themselves but for others as well.

I realized long ago that practice doesn't guarantee you excellence as compared with the greats. I found out that I'd never be a major league baseball prospect, or a pro golfer, or lots of other things I might have enjoyed. But knowing I can't be the next Jack Nicklaus doesn't stop me from heading to the range and trying to get better. It's easy to put yourself on "cruise control" when you reach a certain level in your chosen profession or hobby or sport, and many people do. It's not my way.

Does this make me better than other people? Absolutely not, and that has never been my goal (especially because it isn't possible). It only makes me better than my "yesterday self."

If there's some area of your life, be it hobby or work, that draws you on and makes you try and try again, think about why that is, and see if you can't bring the desire you feel there into other areas of your life.

I would thoroughly enjoy hearing about your experiences.
Give it some thought.

Golf practice photo by Roy Atkinson
January 02, 11:03 PM
Customer Empowerment: Lessons Learned
Some very large companies learned lessons this year about the power of customers. There was the Bank of America fee story and the Verizon fee story. Now, those fees hit customers in the pocketbook, and it's easy to see why people rebelled against them. But things get very interesting when we look at what happened to GoDaddy, which lost upwards of 72,000 domains when customers decided there were better alternatives.


GoDaddy didn't increase its fees, or do anything directly draconian to its customers; the company did, however, indicate that it was supporting SOPA, the very controversial legislation making its way through the U.S. House of Representatives, and customers didn't like it.


There's always been an adage in business about customers who "vote with their feet," heading over to the competition if they find something they don't like about you, whether it be price or service. But now, people may leave you if they don't like your backing of a bill, or if they don't think you pay enough attention to the environment. And this is just the beginning.


Those of us who follow and contribute to social media are well aware of the ability to use outlets like Twitter and Facebook to make noise when something doesn't appeal to us, and some even credit, or partially credit, social media with a role in the recent governmental changes in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere, the so-called "Arab Spring."


But customer influence is being taken seriously at levels most of us are not even aware of. Take for example the complex social media analysis being done by Bluefin Labs. As explained in a recent article in Technology Review (login required for the full story), Bluefin extracts enormous amounts of information from social media updates related to TV programs and advertisements. It won't be too long before they can deliver detailed analysis related to almost any topic in any medium.


All of these things should be a very big warning to companies: 


Pay attention to your customers. They are empowered now in ways that they have never been before. They may vote with their feet, and take thousands of others with them when they go.


What are you doing to make sure your relationship with your customers stays on the positive side?


Give it some thought.
November 27, 11:34 PM
Was It Customer Service?
A couple of years ago, my (then) employer moved me into a windowless office. I decided to buy a full spectrum desk lamp.  There were two home improvement "big box" stores on my way home from work, practically across the street from each other. I'll call them Orange and Blue. The Blue one was fairly new and I'd never been there, so that's where I went.

After a couple of minutes of looking at the choices, I picked out a nice, inexpensive lamp that I felt would look good on my desk and get the job done. As is usual, there was a display unit and a shelf full of corresponding boxes. The only problem was, I couldn't find the lamp I wanted among the boxes.

I went to find some help, and soon saw someone in the store's blue apron. I asked for assistance with the lamp and was told, "I don't know anything about that department. I'll find someone and send them over to you." Having a little faith, I stood by the lamps for a few minutes, and someone in a blue apron came by. Apparently, however, not the one I'd been hoping for.

"Excuse me," I said, "can you help me with these lamps? I can't seem to find this one," I said, pointing to the one I wanted.
"Whatever we have is on the shelf," said the blue apron.
"OK. I guess you don't have one of these in a box, then?"
"Um, whatever we have in on the shelf."
"Will you be getting more of these?"
"I don't know."
"Well, can I buy this one?" I asked, indicating the one chained to the display.
"No. I can't sell that."
"OK--let me be clear," I said, slowly. "I would like to buy this lamp. If you don't sell me this one, I'm going to go across the street and buy a lamp there."
"Well, I can't sell you that one."

I did go across the street and buy not one lamp, but two.

When I mentioned this episode at work, there was a universal, "Oh yeah--their service is terrible."

I never went back.

Well, the Blue big box home improvement store closed up shop a couple of months ago. It was not because I didn't buy the lamp that day. It was because hundreds of people did not buy their lamps, drills, blinds, carpets, nails, pipes and whatever else they needed or wanted there. And it wasn't because I told a lot of people. The people I mentioned this to already knew that the service was bad. It was because people simply stopped shopping there.

An easy alternative existed, and this business failed to make the commitment to be better. Too bad, so sad, as the saying goes. Now, let me say that Orange does not have the best service I've ever had, but it's orders of magnitude better than Blue.

Moving in to compete? Customer service might be the difference between you and your competitor.

Give it some thought.
October 17, 10:07 AM
I Learned Customer Service from a CEO
There are some people around the web who seem determined to shoot down the customer service community that has taken root here, and one of the things they say is that the people who take part in the discussions and chats don't understand business. Well, I don't understand the kind of business that thinks it's ok to refer to "dumb customers" but that's another story.


I began my customer service education when I was in high school, working part time at a business a few miles from where I grew up. After about a year, I was promoted into the customer service desk, which was seen as a desirable place to work and as a steppingstone to management. This was not a tiny "mom & pop" store; it was a business that was doing over $50 million a year--in the late 1960's.


The CEO of this private corporation was only in his mid-twenties, and had grown up in this business. His father had started him off in the operation where I worked, and ran 5 other, slightly smaller operations himself. The son, "Tommy," and the people he hired gave me a  great education in customer service. We often worked side-by-side doing what we did best: serving customers. Here are a few of the things Tommy taught me:

  • It doesn't matter what your title is; when a customer needs assistance, you assist them.
  • Your employees need to know that you "have their backs" - Tommy never, ever dressed down an employee in front of customers or other employees; he saved his comments for private conversations that were more teaching than "getting yelled at."
  • No job in the business is too "low" for you do do, and it's a really good idea if you know how to do them, or at least how they are done.
  • Even when something happens that indicates that a customer is completely wrong, you treat them with respect. You do your best to come up with a solution on the spot. If you can't, you can escalate it all the way up the chain to the CEO, and be there when the CEO interacts with the customer, so that you can learn.
  • Employees are always held accountable for mistakes, because the ultimate goal is excellence.
  • Without customers, there isn't a business. Every aspect of your operation needs to reflect respect for customers and to go the extra mile to serve them.
  • Know exactly what to do in case of natural disaster or unexpected events, and always put the safety of your customers first.
  • Hire good workers who share your values. The managers Tommy hired either reflected these customer-focused beliefs or learned to, or they didn't last. 
I worked for Tommy for several years, both at the customer service desk and as a manager with responsibility for my own department's profit margins, before moving off into a different business, and I've never forgotten those early lessons, nor the CEO I learned them from. And, by the way, that operation was the most successful and profitable of its kind in North America at that time. (It is still running, by the way.) People traveled for miles, bypassing many alternatives, to do business there, because the goods, layout, selection, technology and people all were put together with the customer in mind. Thank you, Tommy.

Where did you learn about customer service? Who was your mentor?

Give it some thought.

October 06, 12:02 PM
Losing Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs wanted to change the world. I believe that he did.

There was a huge round of blog posts when Steve stepped down from the CEO position, a move that few mistook as anything but a sign that his health was very, very bad. I was, to tell the truth, a little angry about all the accolades begin showered on Mr. Jobs. It wasn't that I didn't feel that the praise was very well deserved; I just wondered where all this sentiment was for all his years at Apple, and during his time away. The fire was there all the time, but many felt the need to belittle it or write it off as some kind of fringe behavior.

It was obvious to many of us that Steve and the products he talked so persuasively about were something special, and that he would, in fact, change the way we use computers, the way we listen to music, the things we can do on the phone, and the way we think of animated movies. (Yes--that little company called Pixar was Steve, too.)

Now since this is primarily a blog about customer service, I would be remiss if I did not point out how important customers were in Steve's mind. Don't think so? Take a look at his 1997 Macworld Expo keynote  and pay extra close attention at around  22:30. Steve says that Apple's customers are its most important core asset, reveals that he calls the support line himself, and doesn't like being kept on hold. One of the very first things Steve did at the beginning of the monumental task of turning Apple around was to focus on customers. I remember it, because I was there, as I so often was. I developed immense respect for the brand and its champions, the greatest of whom was Mr. Jobs. 

And let's not forget one of the other big things: Steve changed the way we present, if we present well. I've had the pleasure to see many great speakers, but no one ever came close to Steve doing one of his keynotes. His beautifully simple slide shows (using Apple's Keynote, so please don't call them "PowerPoint") showed me the great value of using white type on a dark background: The words themselves give out the light your eyes are seeking, and so you are drawn to the words, not some fancy background. Brilliant, and all presenters (and corporate template designers) should take note. Combining Steve's low-key, dark clothing and incredible persuasive power, Steve's talks were amazing.

Some years ago, I heard Sting say that the definition of charisma was the ability to stand still and silent and hold people's attention. Steve had it.
 
I was lucky enough to be associated with Apple through the Apple Solution Experts and Apple Consultants Network. Before OS X arrived, I was a beta tester, and went through OS X "boot camp" in advance of its public release. I often worked the Apple Help Desk at Macworld, along with other ACN members. When Apple started issuing technical certifications, I was one of the first to earn "ACTC" - Apple Certified Technical Coordinator. I was also an Apple User Groups Northeast Regional Liaison, and was talking in 2003, as this writeup from Macworld shows, about what is now called "social IT" - having user groups as a first line of contact to resolve questions and issues before picking up the phone to anyone else.

Were it not for Mr. Jobs, I might not have been part of the great Apple community and would not have been thinking along those lines. I'm no longer a professional "Mac Geek" but I will always be partial to the design and function of Apple's technology, driven from the insight of Steve Jobs.

I have no doubt that Steve Jobs changed the world, because he certainly helped to change mine, and that's all I have to go by. Thank you, Steve.

September 03, 05:08 PM
Customer Relationship Management: What Does Your Favorite Restaurant Know About You?
I first heard the buzz about a “customer service” saga I’ll call The Steakhouse and Mr S (goodness knows everyone concerned has had enough publicity) from one of the frequent participants of the Tuesday evening #custserv chat on Twitter, suggesting that we discuss the episode. We didn’t, the main reason being that there already was a topic selected. As the week went on, I started seeing more and more about the episode, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it. But probably not in the way you’re guessing.

“The Steakhouse must have a great CRM system!” I saw on blogs and in tweets more than once. And what stopped me in my tracks was the notion that restaurants are using customer relationship management (CRM) systems to track transactions in a central way. Now, I’m a fairly savvy guy and I’m all for good CRM, and I understand that we give something up to get something back. When I get my little bar code scanned at the local supermarket, I know that what I buy, how often, where, and how much is all being tracked. In return for providing this information, I get some money off my purchase, and I get coupons that can be used on the items I actually buy. I understand the quid pro quo. Likewise any other loyalty programs I belong to.

But here’s where things get interesting: Nowhere in the many aspects of the saga of The Steakhouse and Mr S (that I’ve seen) has there been any indication that Mr S carries any kind of loyalty card, or is the member of some club. Nowhere on The Steakhouse website is there any mention of such a program or card. So, if The Steakhouse had enough information to track Mr S as a frequent customer, where did they get it? And, more importantly, what, exactly, do they do with it?

Let’s back up a bit: When I chose to get a loyalty card from the supermarket, I had a form to fill out. I knew what information I was giving. And on that form was a privacy statement, letting me know what the supermarket chain was stating they would and would not do with that information (albeit as we know from too many breaches of customer data, what’s stated is not always the case). If there’s no “loyalty card” for The Steakhouse, where did the information come from—right down to his Twitter handle? Let’s think.
  • Directly from Mr S – Well, yes. That’s exactly where they got it. Even if this was not a “stunt,” chances are Mr S gave his favorite restaurant his personal information. If not, that leaves the question at hand unanswered. But where did the rest of the restaurants in the chain get it? Did Mr S know they would?
  • From Mr S’s phone number – Really? How? Does the phone number for which I’m sometimes (not always) asked when I make a reservation trigger a process that gives a restaurant chain permission to look me up (“Google” me?) and store information about me? And I still find this an unsatisfactory explanation. Usually I’m asked for a name (“Roy”) and a phone number. Unless your magic CRM allows you to do reverse lookup on mobile numbers and associate them with Twitter handles, this does not wash. 
  • From the unthinkable - Would a restaurant grab personal information from my credit card? (I’m trying very hard not to think about that one.)
OK, so let’s take it for granted that restaurants, at least the chains, are using—or starting to use—some  kind of central CRM, and that they are gathering information from somewhere, somehow.

  • Was I notified that information was being collected?
  • Was I notified what information was being collected?
  • Was I notified how it was being collected?
  • Do I have any idea how the information is being used?
  • Do I know who is responsible for maintaining the security of my PII (personally identifiable information)? Do they adhere to NIST guidance?

Honestly, I don’t even know the names of the parent companies that own some of the restaurants I go to, so I would not know who to contact to find out what PII they store and how. Nor do I have the kind of time it would take to chase down that information.
When we sign up for services, there is either a printed notice or a link to a privacy policy that states the answers to these questions. I’ve yet to be asked to read and accept the privacy statement at any restaurant I’ve ever been to, unless I was joining some kind of program (which I have not, in the case of restaurants).

I’ll be going to a couple of restaurants this coming week during some travel. Maybe I’ll use a pseudonym when I call, and then pay in cash. Don't meet me at the airport, thanks.

What’s your reaction?

Give it some thought.
June 11, 05:07 PM
It's a Cooperative Effort
Because I've been involved in customer service and support for a good portion of my life, people I know tend to tell me their best and worst stories. The other day, I was having dinner with my friend and mentor—let's call her Barb. She is one of the smartest people I know, but not super-savvy when it comes to computers. It's not unusual to get an email from Barb with the subject "Help!" and I am always delighted to lend a hand or point her in the right direction to get the assistance she needs.

The other evening, Barb told me about an experience she'd had very recently at a hotel. She was having a devilish time getting her iPad to connect to the hotel's wireless Internet service. She tried getting help from the front desk, but they ran out of suggestions rapidly. They are paid to get customers into and out of the hotel quickly and easily, and take care of their needs as guests—not as technical support people. So Barb called the toll-free number listed on a card in her room for assistance with wireless.

Barb told me that the man who answered her call was polite and patient, and asked her a series of questions about where (exactly) she was, and of course what type of device she was using. Barb told me that he seemed to know more about how to navigate the settings of the iPad than she did, talking her into the exact panel he needed her to look at. While she maneuvered through the settings, she touched the wrong thing a couple of times, meaning that she had to get back to where she was before she could proceed. Her patient assistant stayed right with her. She, on the other hand, was feeling rather inadequate and, to put it the way she did, stupid.

At last, she got to where she needed to be, and the tech support person asked her to read him the device's  hardware address, a specific identifier for the network interface on any network-connected device. When she had read it to him, the tech said some very magic words:

"Thank you for helping me."

Barb told me that her whole mood changed at that exact moment. It was then that she realized that this was  a cooperative effort in problem solving. She didn't need to feel inadequate; she only needed to answer some question and describe the results to the tech. They were working as a team to accomplish a goal.

The iPad was quickly on the network, Barb's email was flowing, and the tech earned a big thank you from her.

In your interactions, whatever they are, can you think of a way to make it a cooperative effort?

Give it some thought.
March 06, 02:04 PM
Not Just a Button, Not Just a Number
As I read a recent post by John Custy about "buying" customer service ratings I also thought of how many companies make the mistake of looking only at some number without putting it in the proper context. "We need to get 9's for customer service" is not the same thing as "We need to offer excellent customer service." So many organizations make the mistake of thinking of Customer Service in the same way they think of, say, quarterly sales projections. Providing good service that keeps customers coming back is difficult to measure at best. Although customer surveys are mostly created carefully and analyzed by experts in the field, customers are basing their feedback largely on feelings. "It took longer than I expected" may not mean the same to me as it does to you. "The salesperson wasn't nice" may be based on a completely different set of expectations for two different customers. (I usually don't like a whole lot of extraneous chat while I'm making a purchase. Other people may perceive chat as being more personable.)

This past week, I spent a couple of days at a hotel that was smack in the middle of a Customer Service campaign. For whatever reason, their survey team chose 7 as their top rating, and all the employees had buttons with a star and the number 7 on them. (Every time I see employee buttons, I think of the famous "15 pieces of flair" scene in the movie Office Space.) I thought, "Oh boy, here we go. I'm going to be very sick of the number 7 before I get out of here." I was completely wrong.

Every single employee I passed in the hallways greeted me with a smile and a hello. Housekeeping was careful not to disturb me while I was working, but quickly made up my room while I was out of it briefly. Even though the hotel dates back to the 1920's, it was impeccably clean and comfortable.

My friend and I wanted to go to a top rated restaurant a short distance from the hotel, and I stopped at the front desk to have them call a taxi. "Oh, we'll take you, sir," the clerk cheerfully said. The hotel shuttle took us to the door of the restaurant, and the driver gave us his cell phone number, so that we could reach him to come back. When we called, he appeared within a few minutes and asked us how we enjoyed our meal. (It had been delicious, by the way, and never once were we interrupted by a waitperson asking how we were doing. Water glasses were refilled silently, and the waitstaff knew exactly when we were ready for a glass of wine or our coffee—because they were paying real attention.)

Throughout my stay, every indication was that all the employees were really attentive and focused on making sure my stay was pleasant and comfortable.

They weren't asking for 7's—they were delivering 10's.

Does your organization focus only on the numbers when you consider Customer Service, or do you create a culture of Customer Focus that shines through the actions of all the employees?

Give it some thought.

Disclaimer: I am employed by the company that published the post by John Custy.
February 13, 02:58 PM
Customer Focus, and Not

It was a fairly typical Saturday afternoon. My spouse and I usually do our grocery shopping on Saturday, and so plan whatever other errands "in town" for the same time. Yesterday, it was library book returns, three local stores, and getting batteries replaced in a couple of watches.

One of the jewelry stores in town is a completely local operation: One store only, and mostly custom made things. We've had a couple of repairs done there before, and they are always courteous and helpful. It's right down the street from the library, so as Spousal Unit (a she likes to be called) returned her books, I walked over to the jewelers. Now, we're not big on Valentine's Day, but a lot of people are, apparently. The store was mobbed. I waited, after being nicely acknowledged, for about two minutes, and one of the nice folks was assisting me. They looked at what I had, and said, "I can't promise them for you today, but we'll do our best. We are open tomorrow, too." I said I would call before we finished up our local errands, and would stop back, but there was no rush on my part. I went up to the library to catch up to SU.

We went on our rounds, including a local liquidation store where we often find great bargains. She found a very inexpensive wooden gift box of postcards, but it had no price. We headed over to the Customer Service desk to see if we could find out how much they cost. (The store doesn't use barcode prices, believe it or not, and there was no little red tag on the box.) As we waited, I looked at the signs posted in the Customer Service alcove. They all began, "Our policy..." or "Store policy..." and there was invariably a "not allow" somewhere. The woman behind the counter was nice enough, and we found the price and purchased the item. But I kept thinking about those signs, and how they reminded me of "Keep Out" and "No Tresspassing." It all sounded like "Stay away, you customers! Don't ask us to help you!"

After our other errands were completed, I called the jeweler back, and he was just finishing up the watch batteries. We went back to the store and I picked them up. It was all personal. I could not find a "store policy" sign anywhere.

Nice job, I thought on the way home. That's Customer Focus.

What messages are you sending your customers?

Give it some thought.

I'll be speaking about a framework for Customer Service Excellence in Las Vegas on April 1.

January 10, 01:25 AM
3 Characteristics of Great Customer Service Companies
In January 2010, I posted about my sense that Customer Service become increasingly important as a differentiator—separating your business from the rest of the pack—especially with regard to customer loyalty and retention.

This January, I'm going to make a quick review of some of the characteristics that companies with great Customer Service appear to have in common.

First, a Culture of Customer Service. By that I mean a company culture infused with the thought that serving customers is a primary mission of the organization and its employees. This culture is not restricted to the Customer Service department (if there is one), but rather that each employee understands her/his contribution to the providing of good products or services as well as backing up the delivery of those products or services with excellent support. This culture recognizes the business fact that it is less expensive to retain customers than to gain customers, and encourages loyalty by focusing on getting customers what they need to have a long, happy and mutually beneficial relationship with the company.

Second, Empowered Employees. This doesn't mean that employees can act unilaterally and impose their will on the company. It does mean that employees have a clear understanding of what they can do to help customers, and that they have been given the mission to provide great service. The employees' course of action is not defined by instructions telling them what they can't and shouldn't do, but rather what they can and should. Employees feel valued and respected, and make customers fell the same way.

Third, that there are Clear Feedback Channels. This means that customers have unobstructed ways to give the company their opinions, complaints and praise. There is little more frustrating than trying to give a company a compliment and having to jump through labyrinthine websites or phone trees to do so.

What do you think makes some companies—local, national, brick or click—real standouts on Customer Service? Drop me a comment.

Give it some thought.
December 06, 09:27 PM
Empowerment Doesn't Mean Safety

A story published by the New York Times tells the disturbing story of a business so unscrupulous that its owner views threats and abuse of customers as a revenue-generating tool. A comment about the story on Twitter prompted me to do some thinking about the Internet and what it does and does not do for consumers.

  • The Internet empowers shoppers
    • Check competitors' prices right from the store
    • Check online reviews of both product and seller
    • Find rebates or discounts the salesperson may not even know about
  • The Internet empowers businesses
    • Watch what your competition is doing
    • Listen to what your customers are saying
    • "Level the playing field" so small business can play big
So, what went wrong in the Times story? Shouldn't the Internet have protected the victim of the abuse? Short answer: Empowerment is not safety. Having tools only works if you use the tools provided to you. The Internet does not countermand the wise saying caveat emptor (buyer beware), but allows the buyer to access information on a scale unimaginable a generation ago. But the customer in the New York Times story did not use the tools. Now, don't get me wrong--there is absolutely no excuse for the greed-driven horror which a despicable person thinks of as "business." It was absolutely not the victim's fault that she was treated badly.  According to the story, however, she took a top Google ranking as a testimonial and never looked beyond it. This is the same as taking one salesperson's word for it when making a purchase—unless the salesperson is known and trusted.

Does the Internet empower? Yes, beyond a doubt. Does empowerment mean that you are protected from harm? No. It means that you have been given power. Whether you use that power or not is up to you.

Give it some thought.

Update: 12/1/2010


Google has implemented what they term "an algorithmic solution" to this problem. You can read the story on TechCrunch. Thanks to Jeffrey J. Kingman for bringing this to my attention.

Update 12/6/2010
The owner of the business described in the New York Times article linked at the beginning of this post has been arrested and charged with fraud and threatening, according to internet Retailer. Thanks to "hestika" @AngelosTzelepis on Twitter for the update.
October 24, 09:08 PM
The Power of Twitter for Customer Service
Twitter, smartphones, connectivity, flight delays, and Customer Service via Social Media.


Back in June, Sabine McElrath wrote about our rediscovery of each other via Twitter—after 35 years—in a post she titled "The Incredible Power of Twitter." This week, I used one of Twitter's other amazing powers to save a trip from becoming wasteful in time and money, and to gain peace of mind. (Yes, really.)

I was ready to fly home after a few days of business. In the airport, the info boards told me my flight would be delayed for about an hour. I connected to the airport's free wireless network and downloaded the Delta Airlines iPhone app, Fly Delta. I checked my connecting flight in New York, and it was scheduled to get off the ground about three minutes after my delayed flight landed. I checked repeatedly as I waited in the airport, and my outbound flight was drifting a few minutes later each time. Not good. It was evident that I would be stuck in New York after my arrival. I used an app called Direct Line to call Delta without  going through their phone tree manually. I spoke with a friendly representative who confirmed that yes, I was going to miss my connecting flight, and was puzzled when I laughed at the thought that she could find another flight later in the evening to my destination—Bangor, Maine. She found me a flight to Bangor from New York, leaving late the next morning. So, I would be hoteling it in NYC, or spending many hours in the airport. Downhearted, I switched the flight. I would not make it home Thursday night. We got off the ground about one and a quarter hours past our originally scheduled time, headed for my New York connection.

Thanks to my gogoinflight Internet connection, I was able to communicate with home and elsewhere via email from the plane in flight, and I checked into the Delta app to keep updated on the flights. Late in my flight, I decided to take one more look at my original flight, after an email from home suggesting that it, too, might be delayed. Sure enough, it was running about one hour late. So, my mission was to get back on that flight as rapidly as possible. Using the Birdbrain app, I found Delta's Twitter account and sent them a tweet asking how I could switch:
A few minutes later, I received a tweet from @DeltaAssist asking for my confirmation number and my desired change via Direct Message, which I sent (number removed):
And then, after about 5 minutes, I got the good news:
I deplaned in NYC, walked up to the gate for my departing flight, got my seat assignment, and was on my way home.

Now, let's not forget that the best Customer Service would have been to get me off the ground on time in the first place, and have neither flight delayed. But, Delta did a great job of responding quickly to my request and getting it done. Thanks JD, whoever you are, for understanding the urgency, for being empowered with the right tools to make the change happen, and for getting me home. I had peace of mind because I didn't have to run around talking to gate agents to make the switch in NYC, and a good, productive day the next day, instead of losing time, effort and money for extra travel.

Does your company have a good Social media strategy for Customer Service?

Give it some thought.


Note: I have no affiliation whatsoever with Delta, gogoinflight, Birdbrain, or Direct Line. They just happen to be the tools I used to accomplish these tasks.

August 15, 02:21 PM
Give It To Me Now, Give It To Me Straight
In this post, I'm going to talk about service from the customer perspective, stepping out of my role as a service provider. Let me state for the record that when I say Customer Service, I am not talking only about a Customer Service "department," or the handling of complaints or returns or problems, although all of these are all parts of the Customer Service world. I'm talking about a philosophy of service that is relevant across the company, and which doesn't lose sight of the fact that a business will only continue to exist as long as it fulfills the needs and expectations of customers, whether those customers are end-users or other businesses. Great Customer Service is evident in every step of the customer's contact with the company. It's useful, I think, to do a quick review of what I consider to be the essential elements of excellent Customer Service from the customer's perspective:

  • Timeliness - Service transactions and information are delivered quickly and appropriately
  • Accessibility - Customers can easily get information or ask questions or report issues through any channel the company provides without "jumping through hoops."
  • Directness - The Customer should always feel that they are getting correct information, and not just a tidbit or statement the company chooses to provide to make them "cool off."
Now for the examples.

Not So Good: A company well known for their Customer Service recently sent us an electronic coupon worth $10. The email stated that it could be used on their website, printed and brought to a retail store, or simply shown at the checkout on a smart phone. Armed with iPhone and coupon, we visited one of their outlets. We brought our purchases to the checkout. The cashier had never heard of or seen the promotion. The cashier's supervisor had never heard of or seen the promotion. They did not know how to handle the electronic coupon, and wound up turning it down because of their distinction between a retail store and an outlet store. This goes to Directness. We now understand  their distinction between one of their big, full-price stores (nearest one is 4 hours away) and their outlets. It should have been clear on the coupon, and the program should have been known to their employees. [Note: This was the first less-than-stellar interaction I've had with the company in 40 years of doing business with them. They explained why they could not take the coupon, but made no attempt to take any responsibility for the interaction.]


Excellent: One of the sites I use to post on the Web suffered a Denial of Service attack last week, and was effectively down. The company scrambled to get out from under the attack. As soon as possible, they sent out one of the best Customer Service communications I've ever seen. In this email, they
  • Explained in plain language what happened, what they did to solve it and how they planned to prevent it from happening again (no excuses, just information)
  • Apologized sincerely, indicating that they understood that the site was down, and what that meant for subscribers
  • Applauded the technical team that had worked without rest to provide a solid, working solution
The information was Direct, Accessible, and Timely. It does not get much better than that.

Give it some thought.





July 17, 12:20 PM
How Did This Get On My Plate?
It's a struggle. Every day, things are getting on my plate. Some of them get there because I opened the packages (work tickets, project requests, tasks from the boss). Some of the things on my plate are there because I wanted them ("Can you pass me that web update, please?"). But some of them, I just don't know. Something arrived completely out of the blue. Something else I envisioned as being an afternoon's work became a week's work because there were components no one had thought about, or because it tied into three other projects, or because I did not ask enough questions.

That one bites me a lot. I come from the technical side of the house, so much of my work has involved solving problems and fixing broken things—dealing with things that have already happened. It's a constant battle for me to turn my thinking around and deal with things proactively, even though few people feel more strongly that it's better to measure twice and cut once. Habits of thought are difficult to change.

In a business environment that is always time-starved, there isn't a whole lot of in-house mentoring. Sometimes seeking advice is almost impossible because of busy schedules. And If I don't ask enough questions in the opening round, I wind up having to do a lot of "catch-up" later. Here are some key question areas I've learned (the hard way) to cover early:

  • Stakeholders: Who else needs to be involved? 
  • Dependencies: What other work does this work depend on, and what depends on this work?
  • Communications: Who needs to know what, and when?
  • Scope: What can I say no to?
If you establish these quickly, you can be a member of the "Clean Plate Club."

Give it some thought.
June 27, 09:34 PM
Customer Service: Weighing the Options
Knowledge of—and confidence in—a company's culture empowers employees to make decisions and to seek out creative solutions to problems.


After 5 years of delivering newspapers as a kid, I got myself  a "real job" in a high-volume supermarket. I worked for that chain through most of college, and for a couple of years later on as I was getting my music career started. By then, I was a department manager, and had responsibility for minding the store one night a week and a weekend or two a month. As a bagger, cashier, and service desk worker, I had learned the company culture with regard to Customer Service: Stick by the store's reputation, do what you can to please the Customer, don't be afraid to give refunds - but be reasonable. Sometimes Customers are not reasonable, and we cannot help them. Escalate as high as you need to, including the owner of the store, and know that we trust your judgment. Now as a manager I would sometimes be tested.


One evening I was in the front office of the store, making sure the front end staff took appropriate breaks, making sure the shopping carts were collected from the lot, that cashiers got their rolls of quarters, and so on. Suddenly, a couple came in and slammed a package down on the counter in front of the woman who was on the desk that evening. "This is what you sell here?" she roared. "I wouldn't feed this to my dog!" I scanned the security cameras and the front end to make sure this was not a diversion, and then stepped forward as the woman at the desk turned toward me.


I unwrapped the package as I said something like, "What seems to be the problem?" The customer repeated her invective as I got a look at the contents of the package - a few hunks of cooked beef fat. The woman told me how their dinner was ruined by the amount of unusable meat had been in their roast. I thought it was quite a lot of fat until I looked at the sticker on the used wrapper. They had bought a very large roast, and should not have been surprised by this amount of fat. So, I applied my cultural lessons.

  • Stick by the store's reputation - I knew we had one of the best meat departments in the chain of nearly 200 stores, and had huge respect for the master butcher who ran the department and bought the meat. We sold good meat.
  • Do what you can to please the Customer - I immediately grabbed a pad of our refund forms. There was little doubt I would give the customer a refund. But I did not want to do so at the expense of our reputation.
I had a flash of an idea: I picked up the store PA microphone and paged a bagger to the office. I handed him the "package" the people had returned, after removing the price sticker. While I was writing up the refund, I had the bagger go over to one of the produce scales and get me a printout of exactly how much fat had been returned. He quickly came back with a weight that indicated that the fat was less than 3% of the weight of the beef roast. I spoke this finding out loud to the customers has I asked them to sign the refund form, taking extra care not to be accusatory or condescending.

The message: I know you're pulling a stunt to get your money back. You'll get your money back, but I'm telling you that we're better (and smarter) than you think.

The customers wound up thanking me for the refund (of course they did—they got a free roast out of the deal), but left quickly and somewhat sheepishly. I had spent the store's money, but protected our reputation. Having an unhappy, vocal customer on a busy evening was not my idea of good PR.

I wrote up the incident for the store manager, and wound up getting a pat on the back for being imaginative form the store owner a few days later when he visited. We had a conversation about it, and I told him why I thought it would have been the wrong call to refund the people only the price of the fat—it would have been an insult from their point of view, even though they were "putting one over" on us. He agreed. And that, for me, was enough.

Knowledge of—and confidence in—a company's culture empowers employees to make decisions and to seek out creative solutions to problems.

Give it some thought.
June 13, 03:16 PM
Customer Service Stories Are Everywhere
Recently, I flew to Colorado Springs for a weekend of meetings. Going from Downeast Maine to just about anywhere is not especially straightforward, but I did manage to find economical airfare from Bangor. There were three hops, and on the longest of these (New York City to Dallas-Fort Worth), I found myself sitting next to a delightful woman—I'll call her "Sally"—who asked where I was from, where I was going, and what I did. When I told her that I write about Customer Service, she immediately said she had a couple of stories for me, one "good" one, and one "bad" one, and said I could use them here if I wanted to.

I'll start with the bad one. Sally is living in Vancouver Island, BC, now, but is from the US. She and her husband share a cell phone, and use a pay-as-you-go service. The last time she went to add minutes to the phone, the site would not allow her to complete the transaction without a Zip Code. Since the address is BC, there's a different postal code, and the site would not accept it, nor put in a placeholder zip like 99999. She called the Customer Service number listed on the site. She was connected to a representative who went through the fields on the site with her, but stopped at the Zip Code, saying, "We can't process this without a Zip Code. I'm sorry but I cannot help you." Sally again explained that she was not in the US, and that she had done this before, and that she did not understand what the problem was. Again, the response was, "I'm sorry, but I cannot help you." Sally asked for a supervisor, and, reluctantly, the representative agreed. A short time later, the issue was resolved, but Sally was left to wonder what hurdles she would have to get over next time she needed to add service to the phone. Bottom line? Sally will drop this company like a hot potato as soon as she can find a replacement service.

My comment: If they accept Canadian customers, why not provide a way for the to enter the appropriate information on their payment site? This is not only bad Customer Service but also just plain bad business.

Sally's second story was of an individual act of service "above and beyond" the norm when a Customer Service representative at an airline stayed on the line with her for an hour-and-a-half, walking through all the possibilities to resolve a serious travel issue involving a very sick pet, her husband's schedule, and necessity to change flight plans fast. The airline rep brought other people on the phone, asked questions, explored possibilities, and eventually brought everything to a happy conclusion, at least travel-wise. Again, Sally asked for the supervisor, this time to congratulate the company on a job well done, and to make sure that the representative's efforts did not go unnoticed. Bottom line? Sally will fly this airline whenever and wherever possible.

My comment: Loyalty is built on good experiences. Making the Customer feel valued goes a very long way to creating repeat customers and advocates for the company, both of which affect the bottom line.

Give it some thought. (Thanks, "Sally," for sharing your stories with me!)

May 31, 09:46 AM
Customer Service Can Happen Anywhere

One of the traditions of Memorial Day in many families is going to visit cemeteries, and placing flags there to commemorate the service and sacrifice of those who served in the military. I hope that all of us have spent a little time this Memorial Day reflecting on the human stories represented by those flags.

My friend Cris Buckley told me a story about a very unexpected Customer Service experience this weekend. Cris was visiting a cemetery where a friend is buried. When she arrived, she was offered a questionnaire, and asked if she would fill it out and return it on the way out. She agreed.

The questionnaire asked questions such as:
  • Who are you visiting?
  • What do you think of the plot?
  • How can we improve it?
  • What do you think of the grounds in general?
  • How can we improve them?
There was also an area on the questionnaire to request more information about specific items of interest.

The words "Customer Service" and "cemetery" are not often seen together, but Cris felt like she'd had a great Customer Service experience. And why not? A cemetery is, after all, a business, and one that provides a service that can be very personally sensitive.

Great Customer Service can happen anywhere, at any time. All that's necessary is a relationship of Customer to any business or service. The quality of the service is determined solely by the Customer.

Cris, thanks for sharing your story.

Give it some thought.
May 16, 10:36 PM
The Other Side of Thanks
We all know how great it is to be thanked for doing something well—to be recognized for a job well done. And yes, it's important to thank people for doing the job that's expected, but especially so when people go above and beyond.

Some companies are legendary for excellent Customer Service: Nordstroms, LL Bean, Zappo's—each of us knows some that are consistently attentive, responsive, and courteous, and who understand what we are looking for in the way of service.

And each of us also probably has a list of those whose Customer Service is consistently abysmal, whose policies are byzantine and unfriendly, and whose "Customer Service Representatives" are there more to protect policies and assets then they are to help customers with issues or expedite refunds or replacements. We generally know enough to complain loudly when we are up against such a company, and it's important to do so.

But there's another side. We—equally loudly, I believe, need to sing the praises not only of the companies who do a great job, but of individuals who do a great job. That way, we are rewarding them for getting it right—whether they work for a great company or not—and we also bring to the attention of the company, large or small, the kind of service we expect.

Here are some ideas:

  • Next time you get great service in a restaurant, tip a little extra, sure, but also make the shift manager or owner aware of the excellent service you received.
  • When you get "above and beyond" service on the phone, ask for the contact information of the representative's supervisor, so you can send a thank you. If they won't give you that, do a Web search and get as high up the organization as possible to give kudos.
  • Sing the company's praises on Social Media such as Twitter and Facebook; or say that you ran into an individual at that company who exceeded your expectations.
Get good service on the radar, no matter whether it comes from a company that's known for it or not, and we can get Customer Service on more agendas at more companies.

Give it some thought.
April 24, 07:59 PM
The Customer Service Commitment
It's a strange thing: Businesses know for a fact that it's more expensive to get new customers than to keep existing ones, as I've mentioned elsewhere. Businesses also know that there are certain things they need to do to keep customers. Isn't it reasonable to think that most businesses would commit to making Customer Service paramount? As we know from our last shopping trip or purchase-related phone call, many businesses simply do not get service right.

Why is this the case? Why do companies—large and small alike—spend so much money on marketing to potential customers while they place so much less emphasis on getting the Customer Experience right? I suspect there is not one answer to that question, but that there are many. Here are a few:

There isn't time to do everything right.
How much time did you spend last year trying to win new customers and, more importantly, recover from Customer Service complaints or dissatisfaction? Get it right the first time, build a loyal customer base, and take the time to think about the way customers see your business.

We can't train people; it's too expensive.
"What if we train them and they leave?" is the wrong question. "What if we don't train them and they stay?" is the right question. You don't necessarily have to provide expensive training, either. Work with your new and existing employees to help them understand what you expect from them in the way of Customer Service, and explain how this contributes to their own success as well as yours.

It's hard to get good help.
This may be true, but it also might be worth it to your business to keep looking. There are people who are looking for entry level positions who do get it, and who will work with you if you show them the way.

Before any of this can happen, though, you need to commit to good Customer Service, like Leon L. Bean did, backing up his boots with a 100% guarantee and having to put his money up after the first batch failed.*

Your company, however small, might wind up being legendary for the service you provide to your customers.

Give it some thought.

*Of the 100 pairs of his Maine Hunting Shoes that were ordered and sent, 90 were returned because the tops had separated from the bottoms. Rather than give up his fledgling enterprise, though, Bean honored his guarantee and then borrowed $400 to redesign and perfect his boots (Bean also perfected his guarantee, making it unconditional and, in fact, the essence of Bean's customer service culture through the present day).
Source.

April 03, 07:16 PM
Expectations: How Consistent Is Your Service?
Recently I encountered a disparity of Customer Service that pointed up the necessity of consistency. I was on my way to the HDI 2010 Conference in Orlando, and had chosen to fly into Sanford, Florida, because I could get a direct flight from Bangor, Maine and save 4 hours and a connection. My plane arrived about 20 minutes early. (Yes, you read that correctly.) I had arranged for a shuttle ride from Sanford to the conference. I had the instructions on where to find the shuttle when I emerged from the terminal. I looked, but found no shuttle in the lot.

I walked over to the friendly-looking taxi stand and asked if they knew whether I was in the right place for the shuttle. They said that I was, and suggested I go to the shuttle company booth nearby. I did, and found a very friendly woman named Debbie. She was surprised I was early and suggested that I could get out of the wind and grab a soda or coffee inside the terminal. Then she said, "I'll come and find you when the shuttle gets here." Now, that's a good service attitude, I said to myself.

I didn't go inside, but sat out in the breeze and enjoyed the sunshine. A short while later, the van with the company's logo appeared and parked. I stood up to let the driver know I was there. Quickly, he put up his hand in the "talk to the hand" position and called across the lot, "We're not going anywhere yet," in a less than friendly manner. What a letdown!

We were apparently waiting for another flight to come in, and that one was running late. I say "apparently" because I overheard some other people talking, not because the driver informed me. I was very disappointed. Then, after I got into the van, the driver was missing some papers, and told (not asked) me to get back out so he could check the seat where I was sitting. (I knew there was nothing there and told him as much.)

So, the next time I fly into Sanford, should I take that shuttle? Would I recommend it to my friends? I don't think so. Did I get from the airport to the hotel? Yes. Was it a good experience? No.

Too bad Debbie wasn't driving.

Give it some thought.
March 21, 01:29 PM
Climbing

It was my great privilege this year to be one of the judges for HDI's Team Excellence Awards. The award is meant to single out IT support organizations which exemplify the very best in the industry.

The application process is rigorous, and the criteria are wide-ranging and numerous, covering three major areas: the people, the processes and the technology. Ergonomics, tools, team structure, use of metrics, and the volume of support tickets all count toward the judging criteria.

All the teams who made it to the final rounds were exceptional, and had many characteristics in common. They are focused, thoughtful, trained and dedicated; they know industry best practices. They work together.

Above all else, the very best teams are all committed to two ideas:
• Customers are their purpose
• Continuous improvement is mandatory

Notice I said that the teams are committed. (You probably know the line about commitment being like bacon and eggs: The chicken was involved; the pig was committed.) These teams have a laser-like focus on the reason they exist: To serve the Customer. Whether that Customer be a patient in a healthcare facility, or the user of a credit card, or a company needing data storage, or someone  depending on information from a lawyer, the teams all knew who was at the end of their support chain, and all knew they had to keep working to provide the very best support possible.

I saw the man who applied the HDI logo to the stairs shown in the picture. He took great care to make sure that everything looked right to the thousands who would walk up those stairs this past week. None of us knows his name, though we all know his work. And that's the other part of the lesson: It's not our name or fame or wealth that matters. It's the work and its ultimate purpose, which is to serve the Customer, and to keep getting better and better and better at it. We know we're climbing toward perfection, which is a goal we cannot attain. To climb, to keep climbing and to continuously climb, must be our mission.

Give it some thought.
February 28, 04:37 PM
A Little Human Contact
Even though I write about Customer Service and think about it a lot, I'm not really very hard to please when I shop or go to lunch or dinner. I'm only looking for a few basic things to happen, and it's only when I get none of them that I go away unhappy.

  1. Greet me somehow - When you see me, either say hello, or make some eye contact and maybe give a smile. I find nothing more disconcerting than doing business with someone who never looks at me, and only speaks to tell me the price or ask if I have any coupons.
  2. Help me if I need help - If I have a question, either answer it, or find someone who can. This sounds incredibly basic, but I'll wager you can think of an instance where you were brushed off, or told, "I don't think we do that."
  3. Give me a little space - Don't "service" me to death. If I have a question, I'll ask. There's a disturbing trend in the restaurant business to have servers ask, "Is everything OK?" about every five minutes. That tends to make things not OK.
  4. Thank me - Let me know that you appreciate my business. A bland "Have a nice day" doesn't really cut it, but it's better than the complete absence of acknowledgement.
If you make me feel like a human being through those four phases of our contact, I'll be back. If you get everything right and then some, I might be telling my friends about your business right now.

Give it some thought.
February 13, 10:25 AM
Last Minute Lunch Order: A Customer Service Quiz
A department of roughly 50 people was going through week-long training, due to end on Friday. The training was being held in two sessions—morning and afternoon—so that only half the desks would be empty at any given time. The morning session ran from 7:30 to 11:30 and the afternoon from 12:30 to 4:30. On Thursday afternoon, the heads of the department decided to buy lunch for everyone on Friday. Their question to the administrative assistant was:
Can you—at 2 PM Thursday—find someone to provide lunch for 50, delivered at 11:30 AM Friday?

The AA started making calls to caterers the department had dealt with before. The first said, "No way." The second conversation went like this:
AA: You might not be able to do this.
Caterer: Try me.
AA: Can you get us lunch for 50, delivered tomorrow at 11:30?
Caterer: No problem! I can give you the same things you ordered last time. Would that be OK?

The AA also made quick arrangements with the facility to have a buffet table and a cart for beverages brought in, and someone to escort the caterer to the location.

Wow. Big points on the board. The caterer said "Try me," indicating a willingness to work with the customer. The caterer said, "No problem," indicating a can-do attitude. The caterer also said, "...the same thing you had last time," highlighting an existing relationship to the customer, and good records.

Flash forward to Friday at 11:30. The facilities people came in with the table and cart. No caterer, no lunch. 11:40. 11:45. The management says, "We'll wait another 10 minutes and then break and go ahead with the afternoon session." At 11:50, the caterer arrives with the food. But there seems to be a problem. There are no plates, no utensils, no napkins. The AA is off and running, and arrives a few minutes later, breathless, with the missing components. (Note: The caterer said "...the same thing you had last time," and last time included plates and utensils.)

  1. What was the first link in the chain of events that could be changed to improve the outcome?
  2. How did the caterer set the expectations of the customer?
  3. What questions could the AA have asked that would have improved the outcome?
Leave a comment with your answers. I'd love to hear from you.

Give it some thought.
February 07, 03:44 PM
And Sometimes Ugly
Funny thing, Customer Service. We all need it from time to time. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad. And, yes, sometimes it's ugly.


Last week, our home Internet connection simply disappeared. Our Internet Service Provider (ISP) had an outgoing message on their support number that announced a statewide outage of all DSL service. (To me, an IT guy, this screamed "single point of failure" which is never a good thing.) Luckily, my iPhone gets enough signal at our house to keep my email, news and Twitter going. About 2 days later, our service was announced "restored."


None of my connected devices were able to obtain a useful connection. No email in or out, no Web. I followed the directions they gave on their announcement, but to no avail. Nothing worked. I called support.


After being polite and confirming some information, they got me back online when connected directly to the DSL modem, but that was it. (I understand this entirely. Support has limits, and they were making theirs clear. They would have to pass me over to their "advanced support group" to get any help for my network setup. Let's just say that that side of the call quickly got to "I can't help you."


What the heck—I was due for a router upgrade anyway, so I bought one and ran the setup. I still cold not establish a connection to the Internet. Modem worked. Router worked. Configuration went correctly. No net. 


So, I called the router company's support. I got some of the best support ever. The agent walked through every setting on the modem, suggested what some causes of the issue might be, and worked through the entire setup with me until I was satisfied that everything was working correctly.


The ISP's support was OK. Limited, narrowly focused, and just OK. They threw in the towel as soon as their job was technically done. The router company provided me with all the information and help I needed to get to the desired end: Everything worked.


Often, companies are ready to pull the plug on support because they forget that the object of that support is to get the customer happy with whatever product they are using.


The object of business is not opposed to the object of Customer Service. They are the same: Create and keep Customers.


Give it some thought.



The Think Zone
+

Profile

Roy Atkinson
Senior Writer/Analyst at HDI
Information Technology and Services | Bangor, Maine Area, US

Summary

“Roy is committed to adding value to people and making a difference. He's passionate about helping others lead and grow, enabling technology, connecting, sharing and encouraging.” Mike Henry, Sr. - Lead Change Group

• A background in small business consulting and enterprise support
• Emphasis on excellent customer service
• HDI National Conference Faculty 2008, 2011, 2012
• HDI 2012 Conference Track Chair - Technology in Action
• ITIL Foundations Certified
• HDI Certified Support Center Manager
• Experienced teacher and public speaker
• Proven leader

Professional Memberships:
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
IEEE
IEEE Computer Society
Association of Support Professionals (ASP)
itSMF-USA
Specialties: Providing information about industry trends and best practices in IT Service and Technical Support

Experience

  • Jun 2011 - Present
    President / Toastmasters Club 897
    - Preside over proceedings of the Club
    - Coordinate efforts of other officers
    - Serve as liaison with Toastmasters International, District and Area
  • Jan 2011 - Present
    Chapter Advisor / HDI Northern New England
    Serve as advisor to the board of directors
  • Oct 2010 - Present
    Senior Writer/Analyst / HDI
    - Writer for SupportWorld, Focus publications, white papers.
    In-house subject matter expert. Contributor to HDIConnect
    - Track Chair for HDI 2012 Conference and Expo, Technology in Action track
    - HDI 2012 Conference Faculty
  • Apr 2009 - Jan 2011
    President / HDI of Northern New England
    • Serve the board of HDI NNE as presiding officer
    • Contribute to organizational vision
    • Contribute regularly to publications of the organization
    • Coordinate and communicate with HDI Global
    • Coordinate the efforts of board members to achieve HDI NNE's goals
    • Served on HDI committee to create Manager of the Year award - 2009
    • Served on HDI Northeast Regional Summit Planning Committee -2009
    * Serving on HDI (Global) Local Chapter Officers Summit - 2010
    • Serving on HDI Northeast Region Leadership Council 2010
  • Aug 2003 - Oct 2010
    Supervisor, IT Desktop Support / The Jackson Laboratory
    ITIL Foundations Certified
    HDI Certified Support Center Manager
  • Aug 2007 - Apr 2009
    VP, Membership / HDI of Northern New England
    http://www.hdinne.org
  • Jan 2001 - Aug 2003
    Senior Consultant / Reliable Computers and Consulting
    Reliable (RCC) was an Apple Specialist retail and consulting business based on providing Apple and PC solutions to small businesses in eastern Maine. The main office was in Rockport, with shops in Bangor and Belfast.
  • Aug 1996 - Sept 1999
    Membership Data Coordinator/ Network Administrator / The Institute for Global Ethics
    Maintained a 4D-based data system containing records for memberships and contributions to this international nonprofit think tank. Maintained, specified and repaired computer and network equipment organization wide.

Additional Information

Websites:
My Alltop News, Blog, Company Website
Honors:
* #1 rated speaker at Toastmasters Leadership Institute, June 2010
Interests:
FIA Formula 1 racing Golf
My LinkedIn

Roy Atkinson is a writer and analyst, with a long IT professional career. Strong interests in Customer Service. Blogger, Speaker, Communicator.

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