When each customer interaction counts

When I was 19 years old I saw an ad for a new portable cassette player that caught my eye. Sony Walkmans had been around a few years, but when the Aiwa T600 came on the scene I knew that was the one I had to have. It looked a lot cooler than the Walkman and was a smaller and included a 5-band equalizer. I spent the summer cleaning pools for my father and eventually saved up enough money to purchase it. hs-t600a

I was so excited to finally purchase my first good quality portable cassette player with “Auto Reverse”! I didn’t realize how hard it would be to find a place that carried the model I was after. I called around to a few electronic stores before locating one that had it in stock. I got my cash together and headed to the store which most sold higher end audio products.

The sales person made it clear that since I was only looking at portable units instead of high end audio he only interested in providing the very minimal amount of service. It took a while before he could locate the key to the glass case which held the Aiwa. I was not a priority and felt I was putting the guy out by asking questions. The quicker he could get me to leave the store the better. I bought the player and left the store feeling like crap due to how I was treated. What should have been a fun experience left me feeling like my business wasn’t appreciated.

That experience would turn out a lot different today. Although I could still be treated poorly, the end result would be different. I wouldn’t hand over my money to someone who didn’t value my business. But I’d be sure to take down the salesman’s name and blog about it when I got home. So instead of telling a few friends about my bad experience, my blog could reach hundreds if not thousands of potential customers. The salesman was in charge back then. The buyer is in charge today.

The internet and blogging have drastically changed the transaction process. It’s no longer good enough for merchants to display their wares and take your money while relegating service to the back burner. Those companies that provide poor service will be exposed and many will fade away while companies that provide excellent service like New Egg, Amazon and Starbucks will thrive. That means each customer inaction if more important than ever. Your bad sales people can no longer hide behind the counter cherry picking the big spenders. Conversely, those sales people who treat customers with respect and appreciation will be valued now more than ever.

Does your company value each customer interaction?

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How to get around NBC’s boycott of iTunes

Some brain-dead idiot at NBC decided that pull their shows off iTunes.

According to a statement from the company, NBC refused to renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple balked at paying fees that it said would more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode.

Apple said NBC’s demands would have raised the price of NBC shows to $4.99 an episode from the current $1.99 price tag.

Pure, unadulterated arrogance. Once again, a big media company wrongly believes they hold all the chips. Shows like The Office have always been available for download over Usenet or Bit Torrent. But when they came to iTunes many people like myself decided it was worth the $1.99 to get a good quality version without all the hassle of locating a reliable torrent site. I also felt like the networks were finally coming around and offering their programming in a format and over a network that consumers were already familiar with.

And then NBC decided their viewers were all wrong all this time and stopped offering shows like the Office and Heroes on iTunes after last season. They do offer most of their shows on the NBC website but you can’t download them to your computer or iPod and they include commercials. No thank you, NBC.

So here is a solution if you were you used to grabbing missed episodes off iTunes.

  1. Download Miro which is sweet video player that supports BitTorrent and RSS. This allows you to subscribe to your favorite TV program and have it automatically downloaded to your computer when it becomes available.
  2. Once you have Miro installed, all you need is the RSS feed to the program you want to watch/download. You’ll find a huge number of TV feeds at tvRSS including the The Office, Heroes, and 30 Rock.
  3. Once you have the RSS feed, open Miro, go to Channel and add a new channel by giving it the RSS feed you found.

It might find more than one version of an episode so you can go through and delete any duplicates. But once you have it setup, it’s easy set it and forget it. Miro will download the newest episodes automatically as they become available. And unlike the old days, most programing is recorded in HD quality which means they look as good or better than those offered on iTunes. The episodes offered at the NBC website look terrible.

When NBC pulls their head out and goes back to giving their viewers what they want I’ll go back to using iTunes when I miss an episide. But for now, Miro isn’t a bad alternative.

My favorite low carb wraps

I’ve tried a number of low carb tortillas and wraps. Most are pretty good, but a couple have had a weird texture and not much flavor. This week while at Fred Meyer, I noticed a display full of wraps from Flatout. For those who are watching carbs, they are a great alternative to bread. One wrap has only 90 calories, 6 net carbs and 9g of fiber and no sugar. They comes in packs of six for about $2 at Fred Meyer. 

Today I pulled out a wrap and put some cheese and pepperoni on it. After about a minute in the microwave, I rolled it up and was surprised at how much better it tasted than many of the low carb tortillas. The wraps are smaller than most of the tortillas but they are thicker and seem more filling.

I plan to roll up some turkey or roast beef sandwiches for work next week. Highly recommended even if you’re not watching carbs.

flatouts

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The Salad Bar

I can’t stand eating breakfast. I don’t know why but I’ve never liked breakfast and it’s all I can do to choke down any solid foods. So about a year ago, I stopped trying and decided I’d have a low carb Atkins shake each morning. They taste pretty good and they keep me from getting hungry later in the morning.

By the time lunch rolls around I’m ready to walk over to building 121 on the Microsoft campus and visit the amazing cafeteria they have there. They have five or six hot meal areas with foods ranging from pizza to Pho soup to a grill where one can order from over a dozen meats ranging from catfish to teriyaki chicken. I usually head over to the vegan area to see what steamed vegetable they have that day. Then I’ll head over the salad bar.

Microsoft has one of the best salad bars around. It’s better than most restaurants I’ve been to. It has four different types of lettuce and all types of fresh veggies and fruits for the taking.

But there’s one curious placement as I come to the end of the salad bar. Sitting just past the salad dressing are a number of desserts. I’ve been pretty good to walk by them. Only once in the last six months have I bought a rice crispy square. But I really wish they would move the desserts to an area that’s not so close to the salad bar.

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What happens when parents blog?

A few months ago I began encouraging my mother-in-law and my father to blog. Both are great writers and have interesting experiences that I felt would make for good blogs. Although it’s been a slow process I finally convinced them both by offering to setup their blogs on WordPress off my domain.

My father lives 900 miles away and my mother in law about 1200. I see them maybe twice a year. We instant message and have the occasional phone conversation. But there is something personal about their blogs that I’m not able to experience through other means of communication. I’ve learned surprising things about both of them. I feel as though I’ve been given a secret door into their lives that I didn’t know existed till now.

I hope both will continue to write so that my kids will have that record to look back on. My grandmother moved into a care center last week which my father blogged about. I’ve thought about how much better I would know my grandma had blogs been around in her day. Sure, I spent a lot of time at her house in my younger years, but I’m certain I would have learned a lot more had I been given the same insight into her life that I’m now getting with my father and mother-in-law.

–Link to Dave Nordquist’s Blog

–Link to Edna Henke’s Blog

The Purpose of the OS

Dave Winer nails what I’ve tried to explain to friends since Vista arrived on the scene:

An OS is still just an OS, the purpose of the OS is to stay out of your way until you need ithandraised

This explains perfectly why I can’t stand Vista. It’s like the annoying kid in class  who raises and shakes his hand to every question the the teacher asks. Vista constantly yells, “HEY, LOOK AT ME!!!” It’s in your face when you don’t need it.

Down boy, down.

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Running on Empty

It had big gold hinges. The outside was light brown and the inside was orange portableand black. It weighed about 15 lbs and was about the size of a smaller piece of luggage with the cover on. It was the first portable music device I’d ever seen. It was a portable record player. When I say it was “portable” what I mean is that it could be moved from outlet to outlet quite easily. This was a time before the iPod, Walkman or portable CD player. The year was 1977. 

And it didn’t belong to us. My father would bring it home from the school at which he taught which meant we were able to jam out to tunes during the summer months and over the occasional weekend and holiday when school wasn’t in session.

But it was a magical time when my father would show up with it in hand. I’d take it from him, run into the living room and pop the cover off and plug it in. I’d keep a stack of 45s in my room just waiting to be played. runningonempty

And my favorite 45, the one I played over and over until it wore out was “Running on Empty” from Jackson Browne. It was my favorite song that happened to have the coolest cover. I’d play it over and over. I loved the beat and the drums at the beginning and the crowd applauding at the end. It seemed like the perfect rock song to a 10 year old. I’d crank the volume as loud as a mono speaker could go until my mother would tell me to turn it down. If I was lucky she’d be in the basement doing laundry and I could get in a few songs at top volume. Had I been thinking I should have asked my dad to “borrow” a set of headphones from the school too.  

Nearly 30 years later, Running on Empty is still one of my favorite songs. But now I listen to it on headphones at my computer or on my iPod. The song is still relevant today. And that cover and drums are still pretty dang cool. “Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels…”

A few other favorite Jackson Browne songs of mine are The Pretender (YouTube) and The Loud Out/Stay (YouTube).