Customer Disservice

AIDS, Nazis and franchise sports bars, these are possibly the only things worse than bad customer service. Friend and fellow blobber, Shaggerty, recently wrote about her bad experience with a local gym. It got me thinking about two experiences I had recently.

#1:

I bought a MacBook Pro from Apple and bundled MS Office 2007 into the purchase. Within moments of my purchase, and I mean 10 minutes tops, my coworker told me that employees get MS Office 2007 for, no lie, $19.99 plus tax. The discounted version I bought through Apple was nearly $200. Naturally I tried to alter my order online, just as my e-mailed order confirmation said I could. I couldn’t change the order, however, and so I called Apple.

The customer service lady was very nice, but she couldn’t change the order either. Turns out that the cannot separate the software purchase from the computer purchase, despite that they do not install the software but ship it separately. So, at the customer service reps instance, I had to go back online and 1) cancel the entire order, and then 2) reorder the laptop without the software. Complicating it further was that I had customized my Mac.

By the end of the day, I had about a dozen e-mails from Apple re: my order, my cancellation, and my second order. I had wasted about 1.5 hours online and on the phone and I was left with a nagging feeling that Apple’s talk about being more people-friendly than PCs was little more than talk. After time, that nagging feeling went away. Then a month later, my neighbor told me the story of his new iPhones and how he spent 18 hours trying to activate his phones (one for him, one for his wife). He commented how the Apple rep said to him, “Sorry, we’re overwhelmed. We never expected this many orders!”

#2:

I worked for a sizable multi-national organization. One of the major problems companies of such size face is ensuring continuity, consistency, and collaboration within the ranks.  When I came aboard, I learned that -before me- we had lost business to competitors because the customer wanted us to do work that we did not have the software, training, or personnel to deliver.  Or so we thought.  After making some calls, sending some e-mails, and trolling the Company’s intranet, I learned that was not true at all. In fact, the software, training, or personnel we required were -no exaggeration- 500ft. away in the next building. Honest.

So, thus began my obsession with optimizing our business by creating transparency and opportunities for crosstalk. In just a few months, I had built a large community of practice that exposed various portions of the organization to one another. I also introduced business units with needs to business units with solutions. Doing so, even at my level, facilitated an immediate increase in business opportunities. My bosses noticed too, and after explaining what I’d done and how I’d done it, they asked, “What’s next?” and I said: We need to fix this Company-wide. No one, however, wanted to provide the necessary resources. And before long, without support, I came to an impasse and the powers that be said, “We’re just going to have to live with this as a reality.”

Some time later, a senior executive came to visit. During his group conversation, he boasted about a fleet of vehicles we fielded to a major metropolitan city. He was proud of them because the Company and the customer could discover any one of the 500 vehicles’ operating stats remotely in real time: engine condition, fuel usage, brake life, speed, weight, etc etc etc. Okay, here’s the obvious question: I’m the internal customer, can you do that for me?  I wanted to ask him that question; unfortunately, he simply didn’t have time to take questions. When I asked someone later on, they said “No.” The reason? Someone had paid us to develop that system, it’d be far too expensive for us to implement it for ourselves.

Feedback? Experiences?

Two Things to Consider. One to Act On.

#1: “Le Mieux est L’ennemi du Bien.” Roughly translated, “Perfect is the enemy of the good.”

#2: Count how many times you hear the empty phrase, “Now more than ever” this week.

#3: Visit Deus Ex Malcontent.

The Visionary, the Bureaucrat, and the Hubris.

The ‘problem’ with visionaries is that vision is not quantifiable. Conversely, key decision makers substitute quantifiable data for a lack of vision. So when an idea is in bloom, a company immediately finds itself at an impasse. As a result, when this visionary foresees the need for, let’s say, a product to service a market that does not yet exist, the pursestring-guarding decision makers say precisely what they’ve been trained to say, “Build me a business case.”

The obvious problem here is, as Clayton M. Christensen explains in “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” markets that do not exist cannot beanalyzed. The visionary’s idea stagnates, while the market emerges and your competitors seize your market share.

Worse still, this paralyzing reliance upon business cases and ROI forecasts stifles the creative spirit where it’s needed most: at the visionary level. rest assured that your visionary’s next idea won’t find it’s way to R&D because either a) he won’t share it, or b) your visionary now works for your competitor.

Worse than that? The company is now missing out on an emerging market, forcing it to enter the market later (if ever) as a follower rather than a leader thus labeling it as a late-blooming follower lacking in vision. And while that characterization may be harsh, that does not make it inaccurate. That is because during the short term, to the customer and industry media, perceptions drive and solidify  long term reality. As such, all that will ultimately matter to the customer and the industry media is a) who makes it cheapest, and b) who makes it best.

Now leap forward and recognize that what began as Vision vs. Bureaucracy has become an entire company (perhaps industry) forced to make either a) price or b) quality their sole position. Neither presents a winning nor a sustainable advantage; price point alone being an indefensible position.

There is, however, a time for being methodical. Case in point, a few years back I was working as the Strategic Projects Manager for a medium-sized industrial manufacturer that wanted to a) go global, b) defeat three competitors, and 3) branch out from solely b2b into b2c. It also wanted to simultaneously transform its image from an industrial manufacturer to a “design & engineering” firm.

These are audacious moves, and ones which require sound market research & analysis, thorough strategic planning, and calculated tactical implementation. So when the Company’s president asked me to draft a marketing plan to cover the next few years, I asked for typical input data: the Company’s business plan and  Q&A time with he and the Director of Sales & Marketing.

“No can do,” he told me. “The plan doesn’t exist, and we don’t have time to chat. Just write the plan,” he said.

What. The. What?

Knowing that company’s president, were he to read this he would say, “We proved successful, even without your plan and that input data.”  He has my congratulations and best wishes; I’m not here to make myself seem indispensable or infallible.  However, I would ask a) is the scale of success maximized, or was it curtailed due to lack of research, and b) lacking foundational research upon which strategic decisions are to be made, how sustainable is that success and growth?

Listen, when an industry and its respective markets exist, the data to draft a thorough strategy exists. And when you want to make an audacious leap in markets and image, you make expert use of that data. To not have and use that data is inexcusable. Worse, it also means no one bothered to investigate the answer to the most obvious question: How do we successfully get from here to there?

It seems obvious, but many people forget: businesses are operated by PEOPLE; as such, businesses do not make poor choices, PEOPLE do. The most base human elements; i.e. pride, greed, and a fear of change and lack of control are quite often what ruins a company. Case in point: Rising gas prices, increased global competition, and the housing market collapse did NOT bring ruin to The Big Three. No, they had everything the required to succeed: An existing market. Example technology. Market research. What’s worse was, these critical inputs were handed to them for free. All they had to do was 1) pay attention, 2) act on it.

The Airlines? They aren’t failing for a lack of money or customers. Like The Big Three, the airlines have [our] money, an existing market, example technology, and market research. And, once again, it’s all free. But what did they do with it? That’s right, they ignored it. So, tell me, what’s killing the airlines? That’s right, incompetence.

Banks. Newspapers. Manufacturers. Non-profits. Universities. TV Networks. And on, and on, and on.

What is killing American business is the American businessman. And in regards to business, we are in the midst of what is possible the most target-rich lessons learned opportunity of all time. Never in the history of mankind has there been a clearer example of how interrelated global economics truly are. Economics tie back to business, which tie back to people and the decisions they make.  Question is, is anyone paying attention? And what will happen next? The devil, as they say, is in the details:

Senator Boxer & Brigadier General Walsh: A Non-Issue

There’s much said lately about Sen. Boxer telling Brigadier General Walsh to call her “senator” and not “ma’am.”

If you don’t know to what I’m referring, see this:

It sparked debate online and on television.

The reality: it’s a non-issue.

Sen. Boxer’s contention was that she deserves to be called “senator” because she worked hard to achieve that status.

Well, [most] military officers also work hard to achieve their rank.

Military officers, too, demand to be called by their rank. It’s law, in fact.

Hell, some military spouses LIVE vicariously through their husband/wife’s rank.

It’s a non issue, unless you’re trying to spark partisan controversy.

Could she have said it nicer? Yes.

Was it an ignorant thing to do? Yes.

Has a military officer (or NCO) done the exact same thing to me (though with far less courtesy)? YES.

Seriously people, grow up and move on.

BG Walsh isn’t in the Chair Farce; this was not the toughest thing he’s ever encountered.

BG Walsh’s BIO

Sen. Boxer’s BIO

The Shart Heard ‘Round the World: A Weekend in Shartlotte

**This is a long one, kiddies. Settle in and get ready to giggle. As always, all links open in a new window.

ACT 1

Over the objections of my lifelong friend –the world’s most highly-degreed barista– I found myself in a Charlotte, NC Starbucks, which he insisted on calling “Charbucks.” Call it what you like, Bret, but I got my damn Venti Pike Place.

We settled in and got to catching up. Just then, two plump and low-to-the-earth hillbillies waddled in. They were physical arguments in the theory that gravity is more intense in North Carolina. As I tried to convey this, something caught my eye: the male Hillbilly Gruff had sharted himself.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the “shart,” I’ve supplied a short informational video below:

It was ghastly. It was the human equivalent of the Exxon Valdez: a wide, putrid slick of greasy human waste that was quite obviously very fresh. It covered  a considerable portion of the Hillbilly Gruff’s asscrack. And Mrs. Gruff? She was just as oblivious as her walking colostomy-bag-of-a-husband.

As wretched as that was, it was also inspirational. Cindy labeled it, The Shart Heard ‘Round the World, and it led to an entire weekend of shart-related puns: Bon Jovi’s “Shot in the Shart,” 80’s TV show “Shart to Shart,” favorite color Shartreuse, went to a museum and admired the objects d’ shart, Bill Joel sang about having a “Shart attack-ack-ack,” favorite detergent Shart it Out!, at work we use flow sharts, I bought some new button-up sharts, favorite philosopher is deShart,  … well, you get the idea. If it even remotely rhymed with shart; e.g., shirt, short, part, heart, etc., we found a way to work it into the conversation.

After coffee, we made our way to NoFo on Liz, a nearby restaurant. OK, three things about this place: 1) It is where I learned that I do not like Bloody Marys, 2) The servers wear watches that SHOCK them when customers push a button at their table, and 3) They have crazy long straws.

Seriously, I’m not making that up. The straws are, well, see for yourself…

L to R: Corey, Bret, Cindy, and Mayellen

ACT 2

The next day, the four of us made our way into downtown Charlotte to enjoy the monumental clusterfuck commonly known as Taste of Shartlotte.  It’s an outdoor food festival that is as well-organized as America’s smooth and timely withdraw from Iraq. And if the stagnant streets crammed full of half-drunk Southerners quickly ripening in NC’s heat and humidity wasn’t bad enough, well…there were no bathrooms. That’s right, no bathrooms at a food festival.

Fucking. Awesome.

After we’d had enough of that, we  were headed out of the city when Mayellen spotted this gem (right). In case this isn’t obvious, let me explain.

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church ’s sign welcomes any and all. And just below the welcome sign is a No Trespassing sign.

That, my friends, is irony . . . it has to be, because it sure as hell isn’t divine intervention.

So we made our way to NoDa: Charlotte’s Arts District. While I was in Charlotte, I had to visit fellow blogger: Leah, author of Daily Piglet.  So we made plans to meet up for dinner, but in the meantime, we made our way to Revolution. This former Mellow Mushroom pizzeria is now a Mediterranean-inspired pizza eatery and pub. Why do you care? I dunno, but I care because it was at Revolution that I had my first Fat Tire beer since leaving Montana in 2005.  I cannot explain how wonderful of an experience this was. But it was closely rivaled by New Belgium Brewing Company’s [new-to-me] Black Ale: 1554.

Corey & Cindy @ Revolution.

Revolution's bar, which featured Fat Tire!

OK, so after consuming mass quantities, we went over to the Crêpe Cellar Kitchen & Pub. This is where and when things got a whole lot more, ummm, interesting? So we meet up with Leah -whose blog, Daily Piglet, is a must read- and her very cool husband, Dale. Almost immediately, things began to get strange…which is just how I like it. It all began with my noticing that Guinness was misspelled (see pic to right):

So, of course, I tell our waitress that someone should really ADD A FUCKING “N” TO THE GUINNESS! Our waitress, Allie, sheepishly admits that it was she who misspelled Guinness. This, I tell her, will require severe punishment. And thus it began. When Allie returned with our drinks, she dropped them. When she came back with replacements, the floor hadn’t dried, so she fell again. From my vantage point, all I could see was her little arm holding a beer in the air. God bless her, she saved the beer!

Oyster Po Boy & Guinness

Allie the Super Waitress

Leah & Corey: Blob Buddies

Skipping ahead . . . there we were: eating, drinking and being entirely too merry when WHACK! SMACK! CRACK! rings throughout the crowded restaurant, bringing everything to a complete standstill. We look up to find a waitress -not our Allie- has stuck a chair into the ceiling fan just above our table – thus creating a snow storm of dust. Clapping ensues. Drinking restarts. Food is consumed. The evening goes on with entirely too much rambunctiousness, mostly cause by Corey’s love of beer.

Things to know about me: Drunk Corey varies by the drink he’s consumed.  On beer & wine, drunken Corey is jovial, gregarious, and horny.  And there’s drunken Corey on liquor: horny and devious – a potent and dangerous mixture. And then there’s drunken Corey on Tequila…so very not pretty. Tonight it’s all beer, so Corey’s jovial, gregarious, and horny. But mostly jovial.

Cindy has to play the parent and shush me.

Leah syas, kindly, “Your project well.”

OK, I get it, I’m drunk.

Time to go.

So we leave and make it about a block before karma throws us a bone. You have to love drunken Agnostics roving about the Arts District in small packs. Because, look what we found, graffiti Jebus:

Corey, Bret & Jebus - Tongue action!

Corey & Jebus...not drunk enough to call on him

So we made our way home and called it a night. I mean, why wouldn’t we? Let me recap the evening: Eat, drink, be merry for …oh hey, it’s Jebus!

We lol’d. For more pics of the evening, see: Daily Piglet’s Flickr.

The next day we hopped in the car and TRIED to make it to the airport. Bret, however, choose to ignore his GPS. It’s all right HERE.

Anyway, once we did finally make it to the airport, I noticed to something …Let’s work clockwise from he top left.

US Air Emergency Procedures Card: WTF?

Do NOT open the aircraft’s door if Aircraft is in the air.

Do NOT open the aircraft’s door if Aircraft is on fire.

Do NOT open the aircraft’s door if Aircraft is in the water.

Do NOT open the aircraft’s door if  . . . what the hell is that? . . .  Cheddar cheese? Goldfish crackers? Pac men?  Seriously, what the hell are those little orange-yellow blobs?

I knew being attacked by Cheddar cheese Goldfish snacks was a longshart, so I paid it no mind.

Before I knew it, I was back home. And that, dear reader(s), was my weekend in Shartlotte.

What It All Means

verum et factum convertuntur = The true and the made are interchangeable. 

Okay, you non-intellectuals, that roughly means that “one can know with certainty only what he have created himself.”  

And said yet another way, a [mostly true] story is a work of [very] creative non-fiction.  

Also, “I’m not in this” is a polite way of saying Piss Off.

Candy Roads, Take Me Home Again.

Candy Roads is what my friend calls the sultry female voice of his Honda’s navigation system.  Oozing sex appeal, Candy instructs Bret to turn left or right; to make legal u-turns; and just how far he is from his ultimate destination. Candy is helpful, easy on the ears, and never wrong.

Of course, Bret rarely accepts her guidance. As a result, we were “misguided” in our way to the airport.  “Why don’t you let candy help you, Bret?” we pleaded. He begrudgingly did so, and Candy expertly guided us to the perfect parking spot in short-term parking.

On the drive home, Candy told Bret that she would not be ignored. And now Bret is constantly hounded by the now liberated Candy, who continuously acts out in defiance.

Candy: There’s a nice flower shop on the right.

Candy: There’s a jewelry store on the left.

Candy: Family-counseling center two blocks North, Bret.

 

Bret, of course, refuses to acknowledge Candy. And Candy, in turn, “will not be ignored.” There’s a bunny boiling in a stew pot back home, me thinks.

In retaliation, Bret has begun programming Candy to locate the nearest used car lots and junk yards. Candy does not think this is funny.

Candy: Sarcasm is the sad-man’s crutch. Don’t push me away, Bret.

Bret: Die, bitch. 

Last I saw, he was driving towards the cliff, like Thelma & Louise — minus one of the vaginas.

Strangled @ Work, Pt. 1

When I got out of the Army, I took a job with a certain home improvement box store. It was a brainless, shit job. In no time at all, I was a supervisor.

My job entailed compelling brain dead high school-aged stoners to show up for and actually do some work. And here’s what was super about that chore: I was saddled with an assortment of society’s saddest freaks: the retarded shopping cart pusher, the three-kids-with-different-fathers-at-23 cashier, and the bitter, man-hating Scottish woman who told me she’d sooner kill herself than listen to me. As though that weren’t, ummm, interesting enough . . . amongst all the small penis power-tool compensating, mullet-wearing rednecks was my boss, who can only be described as a flaming Queen. And my immediate supervisor was a female version of 80s rock star Kip Winger, only with manlier features.

The job afforded ample people watching opportunities; the quality of which was a socio-anthropologist’s wet dream. We had homeless crack heads wander in and shit in the showroom toilets, wannabe mafioso strong arm the kids in the lumber department, and DIY dykes with frosted boy haircuts and every item in Carhartt’s Fall fashion line. Still, the worst customers –besides the thieving Grandmas– were the shit-house-rat-crazy lunatics. Every once in a while, someone went nuts. For whatever reason, the dust, the heat, or the smell of paint, the crazies always showed up in the lumber yard. Sure, we had our share of belligerent psychos at the cash registers and curtains and lighting, but nothing compared those in the lumber yard

Oh boy, story time . . .

On one summer day, the craziness rose to a fever pitch as the old folks say. I was standing on the Front End, which Box Store-talk for the aisle that runs to the front of and perpendicular to the cash register area. So I’m on the Front End and I hear yelling coming from the Customer Service area. Before we go any further, you should know that Customer Service is also the Intelligence Dead Zone. Typically staffed by cute, younger girls — it is an area devoid of both common sense and advanced reasoning capability.  So what you’re left with is the creamy center of uneducated, young America; you know, idiots.

So  I mosey on over to get a looksie and there he is, the ‘roid rage retarded redneck. He’s screaming at another supervisor and this mousey twig of a girl from customer service. When I step in, all I’m thinking about is getting the oaf to stop scaring the hell out of the customers. What I get instead is a 200-pound Mongo lookalike who, without warning or reason, whips around and wraps two banana-bunch hands around my neck and begins a Homer Simpson reenactment. He literally lifts me off my feet and shakes me like a ragdoll. In the meantime, I’m making starry-eyed eye contact with the supervisor and customer service twit, both of whom are standing there like slack jawed yokels watching pa win the big pink monkey at the carnival.

For fuck’s sake, would someone please kill this guy?

No?

Okay.

“For some reason I thought of my first fight–with Tyler.”

I kicked the guy squarely in the cajones; he immediately dropped like any CBS sitcom during the past five years. He dropped me, and subsequently fell to his knees. So I threw a fist into the side of his face and sent him completely to the floor. Know that this surprised no one more than me.  I am all of 5′ 5″ and 155 lbs. and historically not a fighter. I mean, I was in the Army, but I was on a Tank. I never had to walk up to the enemy and punch him in the nose. No, we liked to do that sort of stuff from afar, at night, at high speeds. But there I was in downtown Frederick, MD in broad daylight eyeball-to-eyeball — trying to save my life from a complete stranger at work.

File under: What. The. Fuck.

I scrambled away and ‘roid rage retarded redneck chased after, only he wasn’t looking for blood. Apparently, some time between when my douchebag coworkers stood watching the troglodyte strangle me, and said troglodyte crashing to the floor, there was an epiphany to be had. It went something like this: Ooops, I’m committing assault & battery. So then ‘roid rage retarded redneck was chasing after me to apologize. I was not so much in the mood for that and said so, by hurling a chair at him. Chair hurling is a widely accepted form of non-verbal communication.

This went on until someone who wasn’t be chased (me) by a madman (him) decided to intervene. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s my old high school friend, Pat. This guy looks like the pudgy love-child of Jack Black and Kevin Smith, only hairier and uglier. Maybe dumber too. Anyway, Pat breaks the whole thing up, sends the guy away and  takes me into his office. Pat was the Lumber Dept. manager.

After telling him what happened, Pat went and checked the security tapes. I’m very trustworthy, when backed up by video evidence.

Pat asks, “What do you want us to do about this?”

Us? Fuck, my high school friend is now a “company man” for a second-rate DIY store.

The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Me: I think I’d like you to fire every employee you see on video who stood and watched me get beaten by Mongo.

Pat: We’re not going to do that.

Me: I wasn’t finished.

Pat: Sorry. Go ahead.

Me: Then I want Mongo arrested for battery.

Pat: We really don’t need that kind of trouble. Be reasonable; isn’t there something we can do to make this, you know, go away.

Remember, this is my high school friend. We’ve known each other, I don’t know, 8 years?  He just watched a video of employees letting me get my ass kicked for no good reason by the ‘roid rage retarded redneck, and no one’s getting fired or arrested. And, oh yeah, I need to tell him how to make this go away.

Here’s where, 13 years later, I shake my head at a missed opportunity.

Me: Then I quit.

I think we all know what I should have done.

Yea, I’d be standing in a Montana stream, drinking a Fat Tire, and pulling rainbow trout until the sun went down.

The bitch of it is, because I didn’t sue the living shit out of the company, 8 years later I got strangled again…by my boss. That’s next time.

Road Hazard (Post #100)

When a light flashes RED, you stop, look, and then proceed with caution.

When a light flashes YELLOW, you proceed through the intersection carefully.

When a BLACK chick flashes you numerous times during your drive home…what do you do?

Answer: I encouraged her, because I support minorities and she was a two-fer.

odds & ends [mostly]

[NOTE: All links open in a new page.]

An intriguing article about AMERICAN SUSHI that bridges a few interesting areas: the homogenization of culture via the business of food.

A Govt. program with a 99.9827% success rate AND zombies? Seriously, who could possibly ask for more? Read all about it in, STIMULUS CHECKS FOR THE DEAD.

What if your shoe company was so good at personnel and operations management that you could create a thriving side business in consultancy? THE ZAPPOS WAY OF MANAGING is worth reading.

Terminator Salvation’s imminent release makes PBS’ The Newshour with Jim Lehrer video story MILITARY ROBOTS FIND A PLACE ON THE BATTLEFIELD compelling.

Summertime means bbq grill time! This fun info-graphic delineates America’s grilling habits by the numbers…NATURAL BORN GRILLERS.