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  Dealing with Customer Complains

  Some time ago my wife and I went through the drive through at the local Taco Bell. I don’t know if the person making the food was new, mischievous, or just inept but what we ended up getting hardly resembled the burrito we ordered. If I’m member correctly they were pretty rude in giving us the food as well. So I called the 800 number that was printed next to the drive-through window and explain the situation.

  They apologized, took our name and address, and send us a free five dollar coupon in the mail. I consider this a nice gesture but when I later tried to use the coupon I discovered it was only good at corporately own taco bells. But the Taco Bell where I had the problem wasn’t corporately owned, so I couldn’t use it locally. We were traveling a lot at the time so I figured it would be easy to use the coupon somewhere else. It turns out that virtually none of the taco bells we encountered while traveling were corporately owned businesses. We eventually gave the coupon to someone else and wish them luck with it.

  From a business standpoint, giving us a five dollar coupon was probably more detrimental than simply giving us an apology. Every time I would use the coupon and was denied it reminded me of the original negative experience.

  The thing that made this stand out so much in my mind was how much it contrasted with another experience I have had. Several years before we were waiting to be seated at a Max and Erma’s in Michigan. Half of the restaurant had empty clean tables, but we were still kept standing for 20 minutes. I wrote them a letter explaining that this was frustrating as a consumer.

  They sent me an apology and a $10 gift certificate to Max and Erma’s. I set the gift certificate aside and did not use it right away. About a month later I got another letter from them further apologizing with another $10 gift certificate. Evidently they were tracking to get certificates to make sure I visited the store again. When I didn’t come in after the first one they sent me another one to try to get me back.

  I was impressed with the amount of effort they put into making sure I returned to the customer. If the first experience had upset me so badly that a $10 gift certificate wasn’t sufficient to make me return, they sent out another one in order to get me back.

  While there is obviously a limit to how much effort businesses can expend on dealing with unhappy customers. Max and Erma’s business seems to have a very good, low effort system that makes worlds of difference for the consumer.

  11 days on
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  Eco Tourism

  There is always something of a delicate balance between nature tourism and trying to keep humans from causing damage to nature.  There are definitely some strong arguments for getting people out close to nature, but people tend to do damage–particularly in large numbers. Even when people are trying to help, then end up doing things like “feeding the bears” which doesn’t take long to start causing dangerous problems–for both the people and the bears.

  Eco-tourism has the goal of minimizing these negatives. It is partially an issue of educating people and partially giving them ways to experience nature and wildlife that doesn’t cause damage. It is naive to assume that you can bring a bunch of tourists into close proximity of wildlife without having any type of impact on the animals, but this can be minimized through careful planning. One of the biggest aspects is education.  People don’t naturally think about the long term effect of their actions–particularly when dealing with unfamiliar things like wildlife. Just explaining how feeding the wildlife can upset a delicate balance of survival can make a big difference in people’s behavior because it isn’t something they are going to think of on their own.

  Their are a number of tours that try to do things in a way that benefits the animals through increased awareness and still provides the full entertainment benefit people are looking for. It is amazing the diversity that exists in this type of vacationing.  Whether you are looking for a Uganda gorilla safari or want to spend a week living in tents on the African Savannah, there are a growing number of responsible options.

  Some of the most effective eco tour operators have found that they are able to provide a form of edu-tainment that gives people a great experience while leaving them with a lasting impression on how conservation efforts are helping to keep a good habitat for wildlife and balance human needs for consumption with preserving a natural environment.

  12 days on
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  Leadership Quote from Truman

  To be able to lead others, a man must be willing to go forward alone.
  ~Harry Truman

  This leadership quote by Truman really highlights a lot of the problems with people who attempt to lead today. Someone who leads because they want others to do what they say is vastly different than someone who leads because they have a vision–a vision so important they would pursue it entirely on their own if no one chooses to follow them. There is a big difference between wanting to be important and wanting to accomplish a specific important goal.

  13 days on
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  Zoos, Safaris & Gorillas

  When we visit a city, the zoo is one our top family activities. While on one hand it seems like the animals might be happier being in the wild, but on the other their quality of life in a good zoo is much higher than running free. Zoos also seem to serve a pretty important function in keeping people aware of wildlife in parts of the world they are unlikely to ever visit.

  While I’d love to take my kids on a a gorilla tour or some other type of safari, the fact is that they probably wouldn’t have seen a live gorilla without a zoo. There is something amazing about being able to get within a few feet of an animal and see them up close.  Speaking of gorilla’s, the St. Louis Zoo has a bald gorilla that is pretty amazing.  He looks like Gollum from Lord of the Rings.  The zoo keepers say he is fine–he just has no hair.

  Some time ago, some people taught a gorilla how to use sign language. What has been interesting is the new word combinations the gorilla came up with on her own.  She made up things like “water bird” to refer to a duck and “finger bracelet” to refer to a ring. The researchers were trying to get a male gorilla around her in hope that he would learn sign language as well and then they could reproduce and teach the baby, but so far that hasn’t worked out.

  15 days on
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  Toothpaste Sales in China

  Brushing your teeth isn’t as common in China.  From what I understand, part of the logic is that, “Tigers don’t brush their teeth and look how healthy they are.”  It may sound silly, but much of what we do is based on our cultural heritage and it doesn’t always have to make a lot of sense. In the US, we think of fresh mint as being what a clean mouth tastes like, but in China their is a strong culture of green tea being the sign of a clean mouth.  Companies like Crest are taking advantage of this with tea flavored toothpaste.

  16 days on
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  Technology and Education

  Most people are focused on how technology is enabling online classes, but there are some huge steps being taken in using technology to help make the educational experience more efficient outside of simply taking courses online.  For example, there are a number of sites that let you compare courses to get a better idea of what classes you might want to take. Not only do these sites give you the general idea of the content of a class, but you can get reviews by other students, course rankings and even good reviews of entire academic institutions.

  I know that when I’m looking for a product, Amazon reviews factor into my purchase decision–even when I’m not going to buy the item from Amazon.  We are getting to a point where the same thing is going to happen with college courses–students are going to be making their decision based on what other students experienced.  Eventually this may lead to a lot more competition for good teachers.  Students are going to be able to do detailed comparison of all aspects of their education and choose an institution that is best suited for their needs.  Colleges that attract the best teachers are going to attract a greater share of  students and with modern technology and online education they can scale a single teacher many times beyond what can be done in a traditional classroom.

  Beyond simple course comparisons, there are some opportunities to leverage technology to really drive continual improvement in education.  What if test scores were constantly compared to course content?  You’d be able to identify which teaching approach is most effective for any piece of knowledge that needs to be taught to students.  You could also find which teachers are most effective at teaching each specific area of a course.  It may be that three teachers working together to teach biology–each focusing on their particular strong point would produce much better students than by teaching three separate classes.

  Technology is also making it easier to get the out of classroom experience students need.  Software engineers can volunteer for open source projects and get valuable experience while still in college–even on high profile projects.  Students looking for apprenticeship programs can find opportunities that would have been nearly impossible to locate without an internet search engine. Students studying Arabic can use Skype to talk with other students in Iran and get real conversational experience on their own without leaving their dorm rooms.

  The opportunities are growing rapidly and technology is enabling a number of things that would have been impossible just a few years ago.  Our children are going to face a very different educational environment that what we experienced.  The technology will enable a number of opportunities, but it still comes down to having motivated students.  An opportunity is just that–an opportunity.  It takes a good student to turn an opportunity into a great academic experience.  This is something that has been true in the past and will remain true in the future–regardless of technological advances.

  19 days on
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  Moon Pup Productions

  Just had a great conversation with Jackie Hobbins of Moon Pup Productions. Jackie is a graphic designer in Salt Lake City, UT. She focuses on print design but also does some web work as well.

  Be sure to checkout her portfolio.  I particularly liked her spring concert series poster.

  20 days on
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  Silver Dollar City and the Customer Experience

  If you aren’t familiar with Silver Dollar City, it is a 1800′s themed amusement park build on top of Marvel Cave in Branson, MO. They have a mixture of rides and period crafts and artists. This week I was noticing how they manage the lines at their rides.

  We were there during the off season so the park wasn’t overly full. However, the lines still seemed to take a very long time. Waits of 20 minutes to an hour were common. I notice that many rides were only operating at 1/4 capacity. 75% of the cars were sitting idle.

  I realized that Silver Dollar City must know exactly how few rides they can run before people start getting upset. The fewer cars they run the fewer people they need to operate them, so it saves them a little money. I’m guessing they know exactly how poor of an experience they can give people before it starts hurting their profits.

  On the other hand, they have people paid to walk around and encourage people in line to squish together–so the line doesn’t look so long. Of course the line is still just as long. If those workers were deployed running the rides the lines might actually be shorter.

  Now perhaps I just happened to hit all the rides at exactly the wrong time, but I know there were a great number of people in the same situation I was in. The extra cost of adequatly staffing the rides would have been minimal and would have created a much better customer experience.

  20 days on
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  Bill Gates on Education

  This video has Bill Gates talking about the future of education. He talks about the way that motivated students are going to be switching to the web for their college education. He thinks there is still a role for place based education in K-12 because it is partially a babysitting service for parents.

  He also made the point that to really take inner city kids and make them see learning as “what they are about” requires that you occupy about 80% of their waking hours.

  20 days on
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  For Profit Schools

  For profit schools are running into problems again. This time they are getting charged with massively over charging. In one case cited by the Government Accountability Office, a school was trying to charge $14,000 for a massage therapy certificate when a nearby junior college offered the same thing for $520. The for profit school was touting the $14,000 investment as a great value.

  Sometimes you pay for the reputation of your school, but it is hard to imagine that being a big deal when it comes to a massage therapy certificate. Even then, I don’t know of any for profit institution that has a better reputation that a junior college when it comes to non-degree programs.

  20 days on
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  Juggle Media in Wichita

  Today I met Ryan Cole the owner of Juggle Media who does Social Media in Wichita Kansas. We talked for awhile and I was impressed with how Ryan tries to help businesses make use of social networking tools.  He seems to really have his clients best interest at heart and tries to focus on a coaching model where he can help enable them to use the tools rather than making them dependent on him for everything.

  Its a great model and he seems to be having some good success at getting small and medium sized businesses online and connecting with their customers using a bunch of the different social media platforms that are out there.

  24 days on
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