Customer service in real time

This morning I left some slightly negative feedback about a purchase on the Amazon website (the packaging overkill issue I blogged recently).

Within a minute (literally) of clicking submit the company that fulfilled the order called me to address the issue.

One of the most critical parts of delivering good customer service is to actually listen to your customers; that's the only way to learn about problems so you can fix them, and it has the added benefit of making your customers feel valued.

You'd be amazed how many companies don't get that (like the hotel I blogged about yesterday, who haven't bothered to respond to the email I sent them).

Onecall.com clearly get it. I'll happily order from them again knowing that if there's a problem they'll be on it faster than Usain Bolt.

What does guaranteed mean?

In the thousands of nights I've stayed in hotels I've never needed or wanted a room with two beds.Well once, about 15 years ago when I shared a room on a business trip with my good friend Raj, and he hasn't stopped talking about how restless I am (stillness is not my karma).

Hotel rooms are small enough without half the space being taken up by a bed that you are not going to use. So one of my pet hates is booking a room with a king bed and finding at check in that they only have rooms with two queen beds available.

This is annoying enough at hotels that primarily serve business travelers, but it is inexcusable at hotels that attract couples wanting a romantic get away, like the Fairmont Chateau Laurier in Ottawa which seems to have a constant stream of unhappy couples (yes, including us when we stayed there) checking in only to find that for 300 plus dollars a night (room only) they'd be sharing an old fashioned double bed instead of the king bed they'd requested.

One of the reasons I prefer Marriott hotels is that they track rooms with king beds and rooms with two queen beds as separate inventory, so that if they have a king bed room available when you make your reservation, they guarantee it.

Or so I thought. I received an email today from a Marriott that I was planning to stay at tonight saying "We wanted to let you know in advance that based on our occupancy, your bed preference might not be available today during your stay."

I'm sorry, but which part of guaranteed do I not understand correctly?

Facetime

I just tested out Facetime, the video calling technology built into the iPhone 4, with my friend Rob.

I've used a number of video calling technologies before (e.g. Skype) but this is the most natural by far. You immediately forget the technology; it just feels like a face to face conversation.

The only problem is that it's a closed system; you can only call other iPhone 4 users. Let's hope Apple open the technology up. Otherwise it will be the same old story; due to the network effect an inferior but open technology will come to dominate the market.

Fall winter storm

Steamboat was hit yesterday with what the weather service calls a winter storm. But there's a difference between a true winter storm and a late fall storm; the snow is much wetter and heavier than it would be in a true winter storm, and many of the trees still have their leaves (and berries), so it looks quite different. Still beautiful, just different.

The unfriendliest place in Steamboat is...

... the Post Office parking lot. Something comes over the fine citizens of Steamboat Springs when they are on a mission to collect their mail; they'd rather drive right over the top of you than stop than let you back out of your spot (even if you're 3/4 of the way out)!

Packaging overkill

I ordered a product online recently which arrived in this box.


Here's what was inside.


And here's the actual product.


Here's a comparison of the actual product and the mailing box. I calculate you could fit approximately 200 of these in this box.


If you are wondering what this is, I'll explain it in a forthcoming post. Hint: it fits on a helmet and I'm going to use it during the ski season.

First snow

To remind us that it's only 47 days until the opening of the ski season, Mother Nature delivered us our first dusting of snow on the mountain today.

Perfect rainbow

Driving back from downtown this evening we saw the most perfect rainbow I think I've ever seen framing the ski mountain perfectly.


Within the limits of my iPhone camera I needed to take two shots to get it all. You can see that my photoshop skills are limited!

Traditional publishers are idiots

Look closely at the pricing on Amazon for this book. The hardcover is $7.99 and the Kindle edition is $9.99!


Electronic books cost less to produce and distribute than physical books, there are no costs for inventory or returns, you can't lend them and you can't sell them when you are done. So they should always be priced lower than the physical book.

This is not Amazon's fault. The initial Kindle pricing model was that Amazon would set the prices. The publishers disliked that so much that they threatened to withdraw their books from Amazon with this very publisher, HarperCollins, leading the charge.

You might wonder what HarperCollins' agenda is. I can only surmise that they hope that they can sabotage the move to electronic books and maintain their current business model. Of course they would think that, because resisting digitalisation has worked so well for the entertainment industry!

When Amazon write "this price was set by the publisher" I don't know how they can resist adding "who are complete idiots and deserve to go the way of the dinosaurs."

Update: 6 October. I wrote this before I saw this article on the same subject in the New York Times.

The article discusses two specific examples and the publishers are quoted as saying "...those two books were the first they knew of that cost more as e-books than in hardcover on Amazon." Not only are they idiots, but they are either liars or completely and utterly clueless. I've seen dozens of examples on Amazon including some where the electronic book is more expensive than the paperback!

Hopefully enough pressure is building on publishers to stop this nonsense. By the way, I think the New York Times is much less imaginative with its headlines than I am!

Hiking Emerald Mountain

Marie and I hiked Emerald Mountain today. It's a 5 mile round trip with a 1,400 ft vertical rise, so it provided a very good two hour workout. Here's the route.


Emerald Mountain is directly across the valley from the ski mountain, so this is the view half way up.


And this is the view from the top!


There's also a great view from the top of the Flattops to the south.

Hard drive fail

The hard drive in my work laptop crashed yesterday. For some reason it was the only one of the several computers in my house that wasn't backed up. Yes I know, dumb, dumb, dumb.

It could have been worse. It actually happened whilst I was visiting the office, so Jeremy our IT guy did a great job installing a new hard drive so I at least have a working laptop, even if it is without my data (fortunately the most valuable documents were stored online.)

The other silver lining is that after a not so good day, I got to come home to Steamboat (and Marie). That's always good. Actually it's good squared!

Coffee as a teaching tool

Regular readers will know that I like things coffee and things geek. So I really liked this article I stumbled across today which analyses the production of coffee at Starbucks using standard information system design patterns; Starbucks Does Not Use Two-Phase Commit.

Illustrating abstract architectural concepts using real world processes is actually a very powerful teaching tool; for example, illustrating the concept of a correlation identifier by reference to Starbucks' practice of writing your name on the cup when you order.

It's a simple and effective solution, but I did have a little trouble with it when I was working regularly in the Philippines a few years ago. Filipinos are mostly accustomed to American accents; when I gave my name as Dan almost anything would end up on the cup. So I experimented for a bit until I found a name that the staff would always get right despite my Australian accent; at Starbucks Philippines I am therefore known as "Freddie".

It also reminded me of the Order Cappuccino Use Case that I used to teach how to write Use Cases; that was in South Africa where the "cappuccino with foam or cream" heresy originates.

Order Cappuccino Use Case

Basic Flow

1. The Customer asks for a cappuccino; the Waiter prompts for Foam or Cream
2. The Customer requests foam; the Waiter submits the order
3. The Barista makes the cappuccino
4. The Waiter collects the order from the Barista and delivers it to the customer
5. The Customer drinks the cappuccino
6. The Customer requests the bill; the Waiter delivers the bill
7. The Customer pays; the Waiter collects the payment
8. The Waiter returns with the change
9. The Customer collects the change and the Use Case ends

Alternate Flow (branch at Basic Flow Step 2)

1. A South African Customer requests Cream; the Use Case ends because that’s not a Cappuccino!

What a difference one letter makes

I've obviously been spending too much time reading and thinking about the Global Financial Crisis.

I say that because I was driving from the Gold Coast to Brisbane when I saw the following on a variable road sign: "Unsecured loads cause crashes."

My reaction was to ask "why is the roads department commenting on economic policy?". Because I read it as: "Unsecured loans cause crashes"!

What's Steve Jobs got against left handers?

I often say that left handers are the last group in America that it isn't illegal to discriminate against. And it seems that Steve Jobs is taking advantage of that fact. Here's an image from Apple's latest attempt to obfuscate on the iPhone 4 antenna problems showing how not to hold your iPhone.


As a left hander I'm wondering how else I could hold an iPhone with my left hand. I'm also wondering how the signal on an iPhone would be affected if I shoved it down Steve Jobs' throat.

Should I show this to my boss?

World Cup Cappuccino

In the past two years I've spent a total of about seven months in South Africa. In that time I've tried plenty of cappuccinos (including a "cappuccino" with cream).

Until recently the best of them were merely OK (and the worst of them, you don't want to go there.) About three weeks ago I discovered a really, really good cappuccino - not quite as good as the perfect cappuccino I found in Rome - but close. Here it is.


And this is the barista Clarence who makes this excellent cappucino.


Where did I find it? In the cafeteria at the Woolworths department store in Irene Mall!

World Cup Fever

I'm not a big soccer fan - in fact I've been heard to say that I don't like soccer - but with two teams in the World Cup (Australia and USA) and being right on the spot in South Africa, well it's hard not to get caught up in the excitement.

Especially so when my colleague offered me a ticket to the USA-Algeria game being held less than 30 minutes from where I'm staying.


So for a few hours I became that rarest of beasts, rarer even than the fabled unicorn, a one-eyed Australian-American soccer fan.

However there was no shortage of fully decked out USA fans in the crowd. Even Elvis was there supporting the US team!


To top it off we had seats right in front of the goal where USA scored the winning goal in the final minutes.

A builder's truck

The place we've been staying at in South Africa for the past few weeks has been having some remodelling done. This is the truck the builder uses to carry his materials and tools and his workers to the site.


Back home in the US anyone who needs to carry more than a box of tools seems to have a great big F250 pickup truck. We'll this thing could fit in the back of one of those.

Leave home without it

If you have a US-issued American Express card and you're planning to attend the Soccer World Cup in South Africa in June, I strongly recommend that you bring another credit card with you.

South Africa is following Europe's lead in requiring a PIN rather than a signature for over the counter credit card transactions. Credit cards issued by US banks don't have PINs. The South African banks are supposed to cater for that by programming their point of sale terminals to recognise a US-issued card (you can readily tell which country a card is issued in from the card number) and not ask for a PIN for a card that doesn't have one. Based on my experience in the last week they've done so for Visa cards but not for American Express (I don't know about Mastercard since I don't have one to test).

Given that Visa is a Soccer World Cup sponsor it all seems a little too coincidental to me. I wouldn't be happy if I was American Express.

Will I be attending a game if I'm here in June? I'm torn between the fact that Australia and USA (I'm a dual citizen after all) have qualified and the fact that I hate soccer!

Interesting* birthday

Yesterday was my birthday; what I had originally planned to do was ski on my birthday, but due to the fact that I'm in South Africa rather than at home, that plan didn't work out and I went to a bunch of customer meetings instead.

The day did end up interesting* though because around midnight I ended up in a South African emergency room. I'd had a stomach bug earlier in the week that I though was over but by Friday night I was double over in agony. Nothing some intravenous pain killers couldn't fix. It wasn't quite the high tech experience of an ER visit in the US, but it was quick and efficient and cost about 20% of what it would have at home.


* That's interesting as in the traditional Chinese curse: "may you live in interesting times".