I was asked recently to write a guest blog entry on the excellent 1-to-1 Media Blog. I chose to write on a common misconception by business owners: that good intentions somehow translate into happy customers. In fact, your best intentions don’t matter to your customers. The only thing that drives customer behavior and customer behavior is the experience. You can read more there.
Archive for November, 2009
Check out my 1-to-1 Media blog
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009Apple – my iPhone had a fatal coronary, but I’m still happy
Thursday, November 12th, 2009My iPhone crapped out on me last week. I marked the time of death as 2:10 PM Thursday. It’s tombstone would say: 2009-2009. It was the day before I was heading to Boston. I called into the service line twice and, despite everyone’s best efforts, it would take a couple of shallow breaths and then, quickly, dash any hopes of resucitation.
Ironically, my 18 year-old college son, who has a Zune, scoffs at my Apple products. Maybe he has a point about their planned obsolescence, but maybe it’s just my bad luck.
So anyway, the next morning, I went into the Apple store in Oak Brook, Illinois, where I met with a “genius.” Not sure if that was an accurate description, but he looked smart enough. The long and short of it was he was pleasant, listened (as opposed to acting like he was listening) and tried a couple of possible solutions. When those didn’t work, he took about 90 seconds of rummaging and programming, and handed me a new iPhone. The whole process took about 10 minutes. No paperwork to speak of. All my contacts and apps were right there – a freakish clone of my first iPhone.
I tried to imagine the same thing happening with T-Mobile, and I laughed to myself.
Simple but compelling customer “don’ts”
Monday, November 2nd, 2009This is a great list of “don’ts” for restaurant staff, describing how not to serve customers. It’s written by Bruce Buschel, a New York Times writer and more who’s opening a seafood restaurant.
It’s a great list because so many of the items go to the heart of great customer experience, seem so obvious, and yet are constantly violated by waiters, waitresses and others. For example: “Never serve anything that looks creepy or runny or wrong.” That’s something my 12 year-old son would understand, and yet it still happens. Or what about: “Do not curse, no matter how young or hip the guests.” Duh.
Of course, there are more subtle suggestions as well, but the fact that many of these don’ts need to be spelled out is a hint at just how bad service is in many restaurants.
Have you had a horrible dining experience lately? Let me know.