Are we falling or flying ... and will we ever know? » customer experience

A Rose By Any Other Name….

andi — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 04:18:47 +0000

might smell just as sweet – but perhaps there is some truth to the school of thought that a person’s name does help define their life destiny:

From CNN, today:

Alleged Jamaican drug lord arrives in United States to face charges

White Plains, New York (CNN) — Alleged drug kingpin Christopher “Dudus” Coke was extradited Thursday from Jamaica to the United States, where he is to face drug and weapons charges

….”At Coke’s direction and under his protection, members of his criminal organization sold marijuana and crack cocaine in the New York area and elsewhere, and sent the narcotics proceeds back to Coke and his co-conspirators,” the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said in a statement.”

Or – a “coke king” whose last name really is… Coke?

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Zero Energy Homes Can Be Quite Amazing.

andi — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:30:30 +0000

The U.S. Department of Energy host the Solar Decathlon—a competition in which 20 teams of college and university students compete to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house. The Solar Decathlon is also an event to which the public is invited to observe the powerful combination of solar energy, energy efficiency, and the best in home design.

The Solar Decathlon brings attention to one of the biggest challenges we face—an ever-increasing need for energy. As an internationally recognized event, it offers powerful solutions—using energy more efficiently and using energy from renewable sources.

The Solar Decathlon has several goals:

To educate the student participants—the “Decathletes”—about the benefits of energy efficiency, renewable energy and green building technologies. As the next generation of engineers, architects, builders, and communicators, the Decathletes will be able to use this knowledge in their studies and their future careers.
To raise awareness among the general public about renewable energy and energy efficiency, and how solar energy technologies can reduce energy usage.
To help solar energy technologies enter the marketplace faster. This competition encourages the research and development of energy efficiency and energy production technologies.
To foster collaboration among students from different academic disciplines—including engineering and architecture students, who rarely work together until they enter the workplace.
To promote an integrated or “whole building design” approach to new construction. This approach differs from the traditional design/build process because the design team considers the interactions of all building components and systems to create a more comfortable building, save energy, and reduce environmental impact.

To demonstrate to the public the potential of Zero Energy Homes, which produce as much energy from renewable sources, such as the sun and wind, as they consume. Even though the home might be connected to a utility grid, it has net zero energy consumption from the utility provider.

I really do want one of these houses – but am still watching the videos to figure out which one ;)

Roku + Hulu = The Killer App?

andi — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:32:43 +0000

The Roku Channel Store will roll out 10 new (and free, at least for now) channels to users within the next two weeks: Pandora, MotionBox, MediaFly, blip.tv, TWiT.tv, Facebook Photos, Revision3, framechannel, flickr & MobileTribe.

More channels are promised “as they become available.”

Tip for Roku: adding Hulu would be a lot more compelling. How about a January 2010 release for that one? :)

A Netflix Stream in Hand…

… would be a killer app – and in more ways than one; streaming more than one movie would easily eat up most people‘s iPhone minutes package on AT&T without making *any* calls… Today, from TechCrunch, via Hacking Netflix: Rumor: Netflix Streaming Coming To The iPhone by MG Siegler on August 3, 2009 One big story …

Hello, Roku HD…!

When I still had cable tv, I love my Tivo, even though I never upgraded my Tivo 2 box the Tivo HD. Why not? Pricing. I had a lifetime (of the Tivo 2 box) subscription, so upgrading would have been very expensive for me – first because of Tivo’s high pricing …

Netflix, its Algorithm, My Neighbors, and Me.

I still haven’t quite figured out how Netflix‘s business model keeps it profitable - even with a paid subscriber base of 10,000,000, there are a lot of operational costs behind Netflix.com, from software engineering to shipping costs to and from that paid subscriber base; each queued title shipped as a DVD …

Hulu-baloo.

According to Silicon Alley Insider, with data partly from Comscore, 38 million people watched Hulu at least once in July - a viewership which easily topped Time Warner Cable‘s July viewership of 34 million. That same month, only DirecTV (47 million viewers) and Comcast (62 million) pulled larger audiences: While impressive, Hulu.com has a long way to go before reaching the cable companies’ …

Hulu-baloo, Part 2.

I seem to be thinking mostly in images these days, when not thinking in terms of databases… Related content: Help Wanted: Zookeeper with a Good Attitude. Most job postings are dry. Really dry. And – they usually include “must haves” which require skills and/or experience with everything but being able to both plumb AND …

It’s Official: “BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos” Team Wins Netflix Prize

Today Netflix Corp. awarded its long-awaited $1M Grand Prize to team “BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos,” which consisted of Bob Bell, Martin Chabbert, Michael Jahrer, Yehuda Koren, Martin Piotte, Andreas Töscher and Chris Volinsky. The 3-year crowdsourcing contest motivated self-forming, unpaid volunteer teams to compete for one $1 million dollar prize by creating an …

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow; or Redundancy, x 2

andi — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:55:48 +0000

Last week a “minority” of T-Mobile Sidekick users learned the “Rule of Data Redundancy” the long, slow, hard way – and through no fault of their own.

Sidekick users who stored their data locally (on the device) or backed up their data on a PC through a sync still have their data and should not be affected, but few customers purchased Sidekicks to sync their data with their pc.

Om Malik of GigaOm likens the Sidekick to a dumb terminal or “thin client,” since the device serves mainly as a display and user interface to each Sidekick user’s email, SMS messages, photos, address books and calendars, all stored remotely on servers owned and operated by Microsoft.

Last week, Danger / Microsoft hired Hitachi to do an upgrade to their Storage Area Network (SAN). That’s usually not a problem, as the owner of the data (Microsoft in this case) performs a backup of all the data in case of an issue.

Except in this instance. While Microsoft still tries to recover lost Sidekick user data, those impacted users were forced to recreate their contact list and calendars to effectively use their device.

For their time and considerable inconvenience, Sidekick customers will be compensated with a mere $100 T-Mobile gift card and a month of free data service. Two data loss lawsuits were filed this week; this “user experience” will linger for years.

PC World‘s David Coursey noted in yesterday’s TechInciter column:

In a letter posted on the T-Mobile customer forum, Microsoft’s Roz Ho, who runs the company’s laughably named “Premium Mobile Experiences” group, said only that a “minority” of Sidekick users suffered data loss. With a supposed 1 million Sidekick customers, a “minority” sounds small but could be up to 499,999 of them.

“We have determined that the outage was caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up,” Ho wrote.

“We rebuilt the system component by component, recovering data along the way. This careful process has taken a significant amount of time, but was necessary to preserve the integrity of the data.”

Those two paragraphs could be replaced by a single sentence: “We weren’t very smart, and we were very slow.”

All information on those impacted Sidekicks is now gone if the smartphone lost power had the battery required removal, or was fully drained.

T-Mobile has halted sales of the Sidekick amid the ongoing issues.

Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.

— Henry Ford (1863 – 1947)

“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.” — Henry Ford (1863 – 1947)

“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.” – Auguste Rodin (1840 – 1917)

Desperately Seeking 6Sigma.

andi — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:29:00 +0000

A local body shop’s (er, contingent staffing company’s) job postings almost always describe to their prime client as:

“The Software Giant, a well known Software Development Manufacturer, headquartered in Redmond, Washington,” which ” is committed to the long term mission of helping their customers realize their full potential.”

Yet, according to recent PCWeek, JoyStiq, and others, up to 54.2% of that Software Giant’s Xbox game console customers don’t realize their full potential due to the sky high failure rate of the those consoles.

As reported in Joystiq’s August 2009 post:

The latest issue of Game Informer contains a surprising statistic for anyone who’s ever loved and lost their Microsoft-branded home console – according to their survey, in which over 5,000 console owners participated, the Xbox 360′s current failure rate due to the Red Ring of Death, E74 or other hardware failure is 54.2 percent. They also calculated the relative death toll for PS3s due to the Yellow Light of Death (10.3 percent) and Wiis, due to … well, we’re not actually sure what color the Wii’s light turns to upon its demise (6.8 percent).

Unfortunately, for having the highest failure rate, survey participants also pinned Microsoft for having the least helpful customer service representatives.

In a 2008 Dean Takahashi VentureBeat post, the warranty program the Software Giant rolled out on July 5, 2007 for defective Xbox 360s exhibiting what it called the “three flashing red lights” has cost Microsoft up to $1.15 billion and counting – not including ”the loss of face and loyalty among gamers in the fierce console war with Nintendo and Sony.”

Despite all of this, Joystiq noted:

Not that it matters – later in the survey, only 3.8 percent of participants said they’d never buy another Xbox 360 due to its high failure rate.

Speaking of which, we’re not sure what future techno-utopia this poll was conducted in, but a 54.2 percent Xbox 360 failure rate sounds awfully low. Had the survey’s participants been comprised entirely of Joystiq staffers, it would have been a bone-chilling 100 percent.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: For thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;
Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.“

- 23rd Psalm

Customer Experience, Part II

andi — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:12:53 +0000

A t-shirt popular within the Apple Computer team building v.1 of Quicktime read “Apple: 80 hours a week, and loving it!”

So much for work | life balance.

At the same time, I think Steve Jobs gets a lot of things right – including not making decisions for the short term without fully understanding the long term implications of those choices.

Jobs also knows loyalty is a two way street; customers and employees will forgive an occasional misstep or two if they feel a product and company are worthy and relevant for the long term:

The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.
Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.
You hire good people who will challenge each other every day to make the best products possible.
When I got back, Apple had forgotten who we were. Remember that “Think Different” ad campaign we ran? It was certainly for customers, but it was even more for Apple. That ad was to remind us of who our heroes are and who we are. Companies sometimes do forget. Fortunately, we woke up.

I’m not yet ready to move Cupertino, especially since I think the Northwest can – and should – do better. After all -we’re also

“…the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Or – innovate or die.

Success – and Failure – Really Do Depend on the Customer Experience.

andi — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:47:44 +0000

And, customers experience your company in a lot more ways than you realize.

Every day, and via multiple mediums, customers receive some kind of experience, ranging from positive to negative; with customer experience being defined as the sum total of conscious events/experiences. A company’s ability to deliver an experience that sets it apart in the eyes of its customers serves to inspire loyalty to its brand, products, and services.

People are customers without yet having purchased or used a company’s product or service; word of mouth (both good and bad) is a very powerful influencer; it takes a lot of future customers to a new product or service “the new, new thing;” only a few unhappy ones can and will deter 4x as many others from trying/buying.

I was an extremely unhappy Hyundai owner during the first years they were sold in the US; fifteen years later, I still won’t consider ever buying another. I replaced way too many defective rubber engine seals on that manual transmission car, each time at an out of pocket cost of $500 (in 1990′s $$).

On the other hand, my aunt loves her Lexus, and my cousins adore their Hondas; each which incurred very minimal maintenance expenses.

Hmmm. The only way I’ll ever own another Hyundai is if it was free *AND* came with a free 100% parts and service warranty for the first 10 years of ownership.

Similarly, several years ago a friend was in the market to purchase a new Volkswagen. The dealer nearest her house assured her over the phone they had the exact model, color etc. she sought, and that car was available for her to drive home that day as she went with a certified bank check in hand to pay for the car in full.

After arriving, she discovered the sales rep did not have that model or color in stock, that day or even recently.

Even worse, that sales team strung her along for several hours, first trying to locate that desired car from other dealers; then trying to persuade her to purchase one of the cars that was in stock, but not at all comparable to the model she’d researched and already selected.

End result? She purchased her new Volkswagen from another dealer, and also spent exactly the same amount of time sharing her experience with that dealer with her friends, co workers, and others. Including travel time, the dealer had wasted approximately 3 1/2 hours of her time. And, she knows a lot of people.

I used to work in corporate staffing orgs as a recruiter, almost always in the role of headhunter/outbound recruiter. Depending on the company I worked for, I sometimes faced substantial resistance from potential senior candidates, who ten years before had worked together on an Industry Standards committee with several of that company’s employees.

Their interactions with those folks were so bad ten years later it was a serious uphill struggle to persuade them to consider a job opportunity with a totally different, and really good team.

Similarly, I already know my next smart phone won’t be the same brand I currently own; not because of a bad customer experience with the product, but because of an unprofessional experience I had while being recruited to work for that company.

People think elephants have amazing memories; but unhappy customers do too. And sadly, too few companies realize how broad and how powerful a customer’s experience is or can be; or understand almost all of us are customers in some way – either past, present, or future.

Thoughts to ponder, compliments of Customer Focus Inc.:

95% of senior business leaders believe that the next competitive differentiator is customer experience.
Eighty percent of companies believe they deliver a superior customer experience. But only eight percent of their customers agree.
Only 22% of respondents agreed that companies “currently provide an excellent customer experience.”
Almost every U.S. consumer surveyed (96 percent) had a negative service experience in the past year, with 80 percent subsequently severing the relationship.