Anyone can have a bad day and despite the best culture, processes , hiring, and training, things occasionally fall through the cracks. A key is to make it right with the customer and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

If there is a mistake made, take responsibility and attempt to make it right.  If there is a process issue that causes the customer inconvenience, apologize, let them know you’ll  address it, and do it.  And above all, treat your customers as though your business (and livelihood) depends on making them want to do business with you, because it does in the long run.

Where I lose my tolerance is repeat incidents and dismissive attitudes.

Recently, I’ve experienced both of these at one business in three separate incidents. To be sure, I’ve written off the local business and most likely the parent company’s products.

I ordered some touch-up paint for a newly purchased used vehicle. The parts desk person took my order, (with phone numbers) and told me they would call when the part is in.  After the second week went by,  I called to check on the order. “Oh, that order came in last week”.   When picking it up, I asked if they normally call when the part comes in. The parts clerk assured me they do call, and said “I don’t know why no one called”.

A few weeks later, I called to inquire about a Service Bulletin in which a defective part would be replaced at no cost to me.  I supplied my VIN and confirmed the repair was covered and there would be no charge.  The part was on backorder,  they asked for, and I provided my phone number (again), and was told the part would arrive in about 2 weeks and they would call when it’s in to schedule an appointment.

You guessed it…  After about a month, I called and the part had been in for about two weeks.   Since they were replacing the part free of charge, I bit my tongue, but certainly noted the repeat issue.

When dropping the car off, I was notified that the charge was more than $500. I explained that the “Service Advisor” told me the service was to be done at no charge.  A very dismissive “That can’t be right” from this Service Advisor clearly tried put the blame on me.

There are so many things wrong in this series of “service experiences”, I’m convince the problems are not with an individual or a single process. It’s throughout the local dealership attitude and culture and by extension, because of lack of oversight, the parent company.

After picking up my car, that evening I received a call from a survey taker, asking how satisfied I was with the service. I explained that I was so upset, I thought it best not to talk about it right now. Never heard from her again.  A few weeks later. I received a nice email noting that “Nissan Values Your Opinion” attached to an online survey. We’ll see if I hear back from them.

They probably think they are customer focused since they ask how things are after the fact while paying little attention to the day-to-day business of doing what it takes to make customers want to do business with them.

It’s the meat not the sizzle that matters.

There are many software applications for mind mapping that do fundamentally the same things.  Over the years, I’ve used my mind maps for brainstorming sessions, meeting agendas and note taking, weekly to do lists, product launch activities, an information manager (keeping track of miscellaneous pieces of information), training course development, planning and activity tracking, and project management.

I’ve found the tool particularly well suited to Project Management because among other things it:

• Acts as a central point of management and control
• Provides a high level project status dashboard
• Can manage and track tasks
• Can filter and display only project items matching certain criteria (unfinished items for example)
• Easily links to other project supporting documents
• Is naturally suited to developing a Work Breakdown Structure

Information in the MindManager mind map can be exported to Microsoft Word, Project, Power Point.

Mind Manager has resource and scheduling management capabilities, integrates with an add-on GANTT chart module and can be used as the primary Project Management tool for small projects.  For medium to larger projects it doesn’t replace other project management software tools but complements them, by providing a consolidated view of the project that can include the project schedule, project planning documents, resource and risk matrices, etc.  All of the project artifacts are only a click away.

If you have used mind mapping software for project management, I’d like to hear your comments and additional tips and uses. If you’ve not used mind mapping software, I’d highly recommend you read a bit about mind mapping concepts, look at some of the tools and take one for a test drive.

A few mind mapping links:

Mind Mapping basics – http://www.mindmapping.com/index.htm

Mind Mapping software – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mind_mapping_software

Mindjet Mind Manager –  http://www.mindjet.com/

Tony Buzan (a thought leader in mind mapping) – http://www.thinkbuzan.com/us/

AAA Insurance Claim
Recently I’ve had to file an insurance claim with my insurance carrier, AAA.  Filing insurance claims is never pleasant, but I will say that AAA made it painless and met or exceeded my expectations on all aspects of their product and service.

First of all, everyone that I spoke to 1) knew their processes and were articulate and crisp in their communications, 2) made commitments and kept them, 3) the resolution was fair and they documented how they arrived at the resolution, 4) followed-up to ensure I was satisfied without being intrusive.

Discount Tire
The second great customer service experience was dealing with a tire retailer. I had a slow leak and needed it repaired.  I stopped into Discount Tire without an appointment and they promptly scheduled my truck in to investigate and repair the tire.  They told me there were two customers before me and they should have my truck done in about 45 minutes. I walked down the street to have lunch and 45 minutes later I returned to see my truck waiting for me.

I had just purchased the truck and it had new tires. They knew they couldn’t sell me new tires anytime soon, but looked at the longer term relationship and provided this service at no charge.  They are a discount retailer but don’t rely exclusively on price.  They acquire customers on price and keep them on service.

Customers for Life
I immediately thought of an outstanding book I read on Customer Service called “Customers for Life” by Carl Sewell. Carl Sewell and his family build famously successful car dealerships in the Dallas area by looking at the long-term business relationships and providing services that impress and keep customers for life. It’s over ten years old, but the lessons still apply.

Dropped the Ball
The last case, involves a local Nissan car dealership where I ordered a part. At the time of the order, they asked for and I provided my phone number and they said they would call when the part came in. One week passed, two weeks passed and no call.  I called the dealership and was told the part was in.

It’s a small thing, but whether it was human error or a process problem, it left an impression with me. Of course I wouldn’t write off a company because of one mistake, I will pay attention to the next transaction I have with Nissan service.

One final note, I’m encouraged to see many companies not only maintain their focus on customer satisfaction through this recession, but actually step up their customer focus.

The article can be found at

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineFeature/0,296894,sid5_gci1377767,00.html

SAS drive benefits

• Transfer Rate – The 6Gbps transfer rate of SAS 2 has leapfrogged FC’s 4Gbps transfer rate.  (SAS 1.1 transfer was at 3Gbps.)
• Interface – SAS 2 now has the most advanced and fastest disk interface.
• Cable Length – SAS 2 supports longer cable lengths for more flexibility in rack configurations.
• Simpler HBA requirements – SAS and SATA can be supported by a single interface chip.  SATA and FC required separate interface ICs.
• Environmentals – SAS drives have smaller power and cooling requirements than FC drives.
• Cost - While SAS drives are less expensive than FC drives they are still considerably more expensive than SATA drives and will be for the foreseeable future.

SATA drive’s limitations

SATA drives were designed to replace PATA drives in the desktop space and do not have the technical capabilities for enterprise high performance applications. Some of these limitations include limited command set, lack of dual porting, shallow queue depth and limited diagnostic and error handling. It’s not to say SATA drives will not hold a place as tier 3 storage in the enterprises, but they will not be able to compete with SAS or FC drives’ delivery of high performance, reliability and manageability.

Seagate’s Nearline SAS

In an effort to extend SAS’ application into the SATA space, Seagate has designed nearline SAS drives that use the same media as SATA drives but improved interfaces. These drives benefit from the lower cost of the slower media but benefit from the SAS interface achieving better performance from the interface (dual porting, error handling, better queuing) and lower costs from the media). This achieves about 30% performance increase but also about 30% higher cost over SATA drives.

Conclusion

SAS is likely if not destined to replace FC drives in the enterprise storage market, but it will take years for this transition and to some extent nearline SAS drives will increase market share in the SATA enterprise space for some applications. There still however will always be a place for the lowest cost storage drives which are currently the SATA drives.

In the article, Dan Ariely presents evidence that tends to support the idea that emotions influence future decisions even after the emotions have subsided. Previously published research supports the idea that the brain looks for precedence from past actions without regard to emotional context when confronted with a decision making situation. Dan Ariely and Eduardo Andrade conducted a study to further test this idea. Dan’s article “The Long-Term Effects of Short-Term Emotions” is in the January-February 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review at http://bit.ly/6KfmtN presents the results of their study.

In their study, they showed subjects 5 minute videos, each video selected to elicit different emotional feelings. One video generated negative emotions, and the other was intended to, and did, result in more upbeat, positive emotions. The subjects were then put in a situation in which they needed to make a decision.

After watching the video that caused negative emotional responses, the subjects made irrational, emotionally charged decisions. After watching the emotionally positive video, the decisions made were more rational and had better outcomes.

Decisions made based on charged emotions may not only cause you to make a poor decision regarding the issue at hand, but can have lasting effects causing you to unwittingly make irrational decisions in the future.

I’ve read several books on Social Media, attended many presentations and done a fair bit of research. Several common threads have emerged.

1. Develop a strategy that defines what you want to achieve through Social Media. What you want to achieve will help you decide what Social Media tools and technologies you will want to use. Your strategy must define your approach to Reputation Management. If you have a business, it’s likely that conversations (good and bad) will be out there.  You need to know how you’ll deal with the comments. (Hint: Don’t bury your head, and don’t get into a defensive debate).
2. Engage with online communities and provide something of value. If you provide something of value, others will acknowledge your contributions and reciprocate.
3. Don’t sell yourself or your products. Online communities see this as SPAM and quickly write you off

I’d made a mistake with a transaction that could have been very expensive for me had it not been reversed, and called to see if they could help. Here are the things they did that made it a truly exceptional service experience.

1. They were polite and articulate.
2. The first person I spoke to was knowledgeable, empathetic and solved my problem.
3. Even though I caused the problem, there was no derisive attitude.
4. They followed up with a call the next day to ensure my problem was solved and I was satisfied.

So, there are still companies that provide top notch customer service, but unfortunately they are the exception. The things they did are not secrets nor revolutionary. They are fundamental aspects of customer service delivery that they did exceptionally well.

Great Job Fidelity!

5.  “Pin” files to applications -.  If you have a spreadsheet ( or other files) you use frequently, you can pin it to the Excel application.  To launch it, you right click the application and the spreadsheet will be listed.

4. Snap files on the screen –  Prior to Win 7 to work with two files side by side, you had to manually place and size then side-by-side.  Now, you just drag the open file to a side of the screen and it “snaps” in place taking up half the screen.  Drag the other open file to the other side of the screen and it “snaps” in place.

3. Smarter networking – The system automagically found a network printer, identified it and installed the correct driver.

2. Improved task bar – rather than having the launch task bar and another area for open applications, the launch task bar serves both purposes. Click on an app to launch it, and shading of the app icon indicates it is open.  Also, mouse over the icon of an open app and you can see a thumbnail of the open file(s).

1. And my number one thing I like about Win 7 is the ability to Restore Previous Versions of files or folders. Right click on a file or a folder and you can restore previously saved versions of the file or files in a folder. Windows uses a snapshot technology to do this automatically and under the covers. Very slick.

Business drivers of simulation

The business drivers that make the use of simulators attractive are varied as well.  When the stakes of non-performance is loss of life as it is with airline pilots, using simulators to bridge the training/performance gap is critical. The development and integration of high stakes simulation in airline pilot training is justified because not using it borders on immoral regardless of cost.  Other simulators are valuable because they enable the learner to experience scenarios that would require access to expensive environments such as computer networks for IT training.  And yet other simulators enable learners to use simulators in an ongoing manner to reduce the cost of ongoing refresher training for infrequently used activities.

I’ve heard it said that “experience is the best teacher”.  I understand the sentiment but my problem with that is that wrong decisions and actions on the “test” will likely have negative impact on the business and possibly your career.  While the value of experience cannot be understated, gaining experience without real-life consequences is an effective bridge to on the job performance.

Value proposition of Project Management simulation

Project Management simulators help the learner experience scenarios, variables and consequences that wouldn’t be feasible without simulation due to the large number of people, variables and the time involved in managing a project.  Project Managers can, and many do learn the practical aspects of Project Management through on-the-job experience, taking smaller roles on projects and gradually taking on more responsibility as they gain experience.  This is effective but can be a lengthy process and can adversely impact projects.  The use of well designed Project Management simulators can reduce the time between training and effective Project Management performance by forcing the learner to respond to a variety of real-life scenarios, time, budget and scope constraints, personality dynamics and experiencing the impact of decisions inherent in Project Management.

While using Project Management simulators can be done on an individual basis, the learning can be made even more effective and efficient by working in teams, having the sessions guided by a facilitator or both. The greatest benefit to using simulators is that you learn from your mistakes in a safe, no impact setting.  The understanding acquired through Project Management simulations also makes subsequent training more effective because the learners have a deeper understanding of interactions and linkage of Project Management processes and practices.

Compelling supplement to Project Management training

Well designed Project Management simulation used in structured settings that 1) provides real-life scenarios requiring time constrained decisions, 2) incorporate the impact and consequences of decisions and actions, and 3) facilitate the review and explanation of correct and incorrect decisions and actions is a compelling supplement to Project Management training.

Too often people get caught up in their job tasks that they lose sight of the fact that it’s all about the customer. It’s easiest to see this in customer-facing jobs such as airline counter staff, servers in restaurants, and technical support staff for example, but it applies equally to backline workers that support customer facing staff whether they are in product development, IT, marketing, accounting, or most other jobs. They are, or should be, all working towards one goal; to satisfy the customer through superior product, ease of doing business, or exceptional customer service.

Those are the three primary means you have of satisfying customers. The degree to which you accomplish each of those determines whether you have customers that never return, might return, or not only always return but recommend you to others.

While it is easy to get caught up in the day to day activities and pressure, it’s important to frequently remind yourself of the reason you are doing your job. So the next time you are asked about your job, remember that first and foremost it’s about getting customers and making them loyal evangelists.