Those Pesky Offers

You know those subscription offers magazines that come on a postcard size piece of paper? I just opened my latest Wired magazine and, like I always do, thumbed through and pulled them all out. I've been doing this for a long, long time. Do you remember Omni magazine? (Yes, despite previous posts, I do like Wikipedia, I just don't want kids thinking it's the only truth out there.) It was the precursor to Wired, and covered science fact, the paranormal, and more.

Anyway. One day, I called Omni and complained that I'd had to pull out 11 -11! - subscription offers and I thought that was just way too many. Shortly after that, Omni stopped publishing. Wired only had five, but I can't help but feel that so many has an air of desperation about it. What's the perfect number of these things?

Fork in the Road: Citizendium from Wikipedia

A few months ago, I wrote about Jimmy Wales wanting to burn Wikipedia to CDs and distribute them to kids in developing countries. While a worthy thought, I was and am concerned that poor kids are going to get poorly vetted information that they will take as fact. There's a reason why colleges and high schools are banning the use of Wikipedia as a source for papers.

Citzendium plans to fix this with a different model of open source knowledge. Fast Company has a nice, concise explanation of Citzendium's objectives.

(On an aside, Slashdot reports that Jimmy Wales has stepped down as Chair of the board; Wikipedia confirms it.)

May I Introduce Ms. Dewey?

Oh, oh, oh, too, too, too wunnerful: I was introduced to Ms. Dewey by a DCWW Web Women post. Ms. Dewey is a flash-powered, smart alek interface to the world of search. Ms. Dewy must be named after the dewey decimal classification system (which, yes, is alive and well). Never mind the search results, with which some people seem to have a problem. Or the fact that the results are sorta hard to read. At this point in the experiment, let's just enjoy the show. Visit Ms. Dewey, then get the inside dish from David Ewalt of Digital Download on this Microsoft Live project.

"Automatic Renewal"

I've always seen "automatic renewal" as a service provider saying to me, "We're not sure if our product is all that great *in the long run* so we're going to hedge our bets here a bit. Therefore, we will put the responsibility on you, dear customer, to take action to stop payment and we hope you'll forget, be too busy, etc. to stop it."

In truth, when the service I am receiving is awesome, I the consumer don't think twice about stopping a service. Indeed, just the opposite occurs: I make sure that I have no interruption of service.

New York Times Pre-Roll Ads

I've noticed in the last month or so that the New York Times has begun inserting ads between the blurb of a story and the actual article. In other words, when you click on a link to go to a story, occasionally an ad is fed between the link and the article.

What I've also found is that about 1 out of every 3 times my Firefox browser gets hung up and I have to hit the back button (reload doesn't work). (I have my browser set to not show ads. ) So I contacted the Times to ask whether a subscription to their TimesSelect product would eliminate these ads. (Yes, I'd pay $30/year to get rid of those things, along with the other benefits of TimesSelect.) After filling in the form, selecting 'Other' as the problem I was having, this is the email I received in response:

Subject: NYTimes Other

We regret the inconvenience you experienced accessing our Web site.

There are a few possible reasons why you were asked to log in to our Web site, the most probable being that the 'cookie' that stored your saved sign-in information on your computer expired or was deleted. Reminder: You must accept cookies from NYTimes.com in order to go beyond the log-in screen.

1. If you remember your Member ID and password:
For the quickest solution, please go directly to the following web address (URL) to log out of The New York Times on the Web: www.nytimes.com/logout

Then click on the link to "Log in."

Now on the page that follows, look at the right part of your screen for the section marked LOG IN NOW and enter your Member ID and password.

Next, click on the LOG IN button to submit your request.

2. If you have forgotten your Member ID and/or password for the quickest way to gain access to our site please visit:
www.nytimes.com/forgot

Or, if you wish, you may reply to this message (include the e-mail address that you originally registered with, please) and we will reset the password for you. To speed things up, please write "Reset Password" in the Subject line of your e-mail message.

Thanks for your interest in NYTimes.com.
Regards,
NYTimes.com
Customer Service
www.nytimes.com/help

After the salutation and first sentence, I wanted to look over my shoulder to see if they were talking to me, because clearly this email did not address my question.

However, several hours later I received this email:

Thank you for writing to The New York Times on the Web.

You will still see normal ads on our Web site, but as a TimesSelect subscriber, you will not see any "intrusive" advertising

while you are accessing our TimesSelect content or features. If you go from a TimesSelect column to a regular news article

on NYTimes.com, you might encounter an advertisement that is more intrusive, such as a pop-up ad. We do limit this type

of advertisement to one per Web browser session.

We hope this helps. Please let us know if you have further questions or concerns.

Regards,

NYTimes.com

Customer Service

www.nytimes.com/help

I thought, "That's more like it," though of course I wasn't happy with the response. It seems that if I'm going to pay $49.95 "automatically renewed" every year I ought to be able to avoid intrusive advertising.

Podcast Expo: Amazing Job

I am back from the Podcast Expo, where I had the chance to meet Tim Bourquin, the founder. I bumped into Tim on Thursday morning, and again right after the Expo came to a close. He was as calm, cool, polite and unflappable at the end just as he was at the beginning. There appeared to be no customer service issues throughout, and everyone seemed to have had a danged good time on top of it. Tim and his team get a big-time thanks from me for all their hard work.

tags: podcast expo, podcast and portable media expo, tim bourquin

Personal Political Attacks on Sen. Lieberman

Sen. Joe Lieberman's blog was inundated with unbelievably nasty personal attacks, forcing the campaign to turn off the function. The comments came from supporters of Ned Lamont, who is running against Lieberman in Connecticut, but disavows any involvement. Nonetheless, I somehow think less of Lamont for it. You can see a representative sample of the comments here.

I think it's time for candidates to be pro-active about this (after all, this happens regularly, whether it's blogs or other type of media). Sending out Rules of Engagement to their supporters would be a good start.

Wikipedia vs. Britannica

At a meeting last month of Wikipedia contributors, founder Jimmy Wales emphasized quality over quantity, and the Wall Street Journal follows up by asking, Will Wikipedia Mean the End Of Traditional Encyclopedias? This is a 12 Sept. interview between Mr. Wales and Dale Hoiberg, editor-in-chief of Britannica.

I swear this isn't a blog about Wikipedia, but I just find this discussion on quality fascinating. And yes, it is directly tied to consumer-think: Wikipedia will thrive only so long as non-posting users believe in the quality and value of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia Banned from Class Papers

In November last year I wrote about Wikipedia's desire to burn its entire website to CD and make it available to schools in the developing world. I didn't like this idea, only because I feared that since there is no official checking of the facts, Wikipedia could (and would) spew bad information. Isn't that a great way to keep the poor down?

Anyway, Frank Ahrens at the Washington Post writes that "many teachers and professors have forbidden their students to use, or at least cite, information found on Wikipedia and similar user-generated sites."

Reviews Come to Real Estate

It was bound to happen: now you can post your review of that over-priced bungalow you looked at in the Bay Area or wherever you currently lay your head. Check out ZipRealty and Reply (beta).

Maybe owners will be brought to their knees (or at least their senses).

Consumer Reviews Giving Small Business Big Internet Space

Sometimes small retail businesses (pilates studios, designer t-shirt shops and the like) find it hard to find elbow room on the internet. But online reviews at a growing number of consumer review sites are giving them new space - whether they like it or not.

Small Gestures Create Big Rewards

A few weeks ago, I talked about my horrid experience with the Comfort Inn near JFK airport. On that same trip, I also stayed at the Ramada Inn New Yorker. When I arrived,the King bed I had reserved 2 months ago was not available, nor were 2 doubles. When lightly pressed, the counter person fetched the manager, who worked her magic and "found" a King: I felt appreciative of the extra effort, but a bit jaded as I figured I'd gotten an upgrade, or a downgrade to get that bed. The Front Desk man was so irritated (why, I wondered) that he all but threw the key at me and shooed me on my way.

The room was cramped, and on a floor that had not yet been renovated. (The hotel is slowly renovating, and on a reconnaisance mission, I found many other floors were in the same level of shodiness.) Indeed, the place was so run-down I had decided to take photos and post them on Yahoo, suggesting that travelers wait until Ramada had completed its renovations before staying there. every time I looked at the room, I felt a lingering sense of irritation with the Front Desk man, not understanding why he was so put out. I was only there for the late evening and much of the next day, which would be spent running around SOHO and Midtown, so I was ambivalent about wasting time putting up a post.

In the end, I decided to give Ramada a break based on one, small, unrelated incident.

I ran out for coffee and doughnuts, and juice to give me sustenance for the long trek up to MoMA. As I approached the bank of elevators, both hands full, a cleaning woman sweeping the rug for bits of flotsam saw me coming, stopped what she was doing, and walked over to hold an elevator door open for me, which had just disgorged passengers. It was a good 7 seconds for me to traverse the space between us, and I was grateful to be able to slip into the elevator, with her having pushed my floor button for me. That small rush of gratefulness was enough to tip me into not bothering to write my initial traveler's post, but this one instead.

What did I learn from this? Good customer service comes from small gestures; maybe great customer service can come from accumulated small gestures. It was not the grand, sweeping gesture of finding a King bed (which clearly they had anyway), but rather the tiniest of courtesies - and discourtesy - that had the biggest impact on me.

The manager should take note that it wasn't her finding a King bed, but rather, the courtesy of a cleaning woman that made a customer happy. I wonder if that manager knows the name of everyone on her staff.

Tags: customer service

Homemade Cafe: Really Hot Food

I've just had breakfast at the Homemade Cafe in Berkeley, California, for the thousandth time.

The Homemade Cafe's food is rock-solid good, but lots of cafes have good food. What makes their food fabulous is that their unusual set-up means that your food arrives at your table hot - with curls of steam rising from it, as if you - or someone - made it in your own kitchen.

How do they do this? They do not have waiters assigned to tables. Everyone serves everyone - seating patrons, taking orders, refilling water glasses, serving food as it comes right out of the kitchen, and issuing checks.

The result? An all-for-one atmosphere amongst the staff, fast service, and - best of all - really hot food delivered to your table!

First TIVO Mention?

I'm not sure, but I think I've just heard the first time a show announcer has mentioned their schedule and TIVO in the same breath:

Scott Budman, the host of NBC's Tech Now! ended the show Sunday saying,

That’s going to wrap things up for this show. We are back next week at the same time, 8:30 PM on Sunday, so set your TIVO accordingly.

Tech Now! probably knows from Nielsen data that a lot of its viewers have TIVO (me being one) and that they watch the show time-shifted (me being one).

This is Blingin' Bad Buzz for TIVO!

Comfort Inn Misnamed

Consumer service is such a delicate thing, so easily ruined. I've just come back from a trip to Canada. The travel part involved flying out of Oakland airport to New York city, staying overnight, then hoping Amtrak to Montreal.

For reasons beyond my control, I missed my original plane reservation, which would have had me landing in New York at 6 in the evening and staying at the Comfort Inn near JF Kennedy airport. While sitting in the airport waiting for my new flight, which would get me into JFK airport just 2 hours before the train departed for Canada, I realized I needed to cancel my Comfort Inn reservation. I quickly dialed the toll-free number and got a nice lady who told me I needed to call the hotel directly to cancel by talking to the General Manager.

While making the call and looking at the email from Comfort Inn confirming my reservation, I saw that reservations needed to be cancelled 24 hours in advance. As Michelle answered the hotel's phone, I realized why I needed to speak with the GM.

The ensuing conversation made my blood boil! I now knew that I was in the wrong, but since the original customer service rep I spoke to - and who had given me the direct number to the hotel - had told me I needed to speak with the GM to cancel my reservation, I thought I might have a chance of not being charged.

Ha! It was a downhill situation from the beginning. I explained I was stuck in an airport, it was out of my control, and that I wouldn't even be in New York to stay in a hotel, that I wasn't trying to stay at a competitors' hotel, etc.

Michelle answered the phone, and was rude and obstreperous from the beginning, She showed no empathy for a traveler's plight, said that I would not be speaking to the GM because he wasn't in and she didn't know when he would be (implying maybe never), and generally telling me to pay up and go away. When I pressed to find out when the GM would return, she proceeded to lie, saying she didn't know. When I asked her if she was willing to be held accountable for saying she didn't know when the GM would be in, she started waffling and wiffling, trying to back-pedal on her statement. I told her I understood that she did not have any control over this, and that I was simply asking to speak to her manager.

I got nowhere.

In the end, I asked that the GM call me, but figuring that she would not bother to pass the message onwards.

If Michelle had showed empathy (e.g., "I'm sorry, I hope the rest of your trip goes better") I would have been perfectly amenable and understood. (I am a former government employee and have respect for the place rules play in human getting along.) She could have had me off the phone in two minutes. But her rude behavior put my hackles up, and I dug my heels in, deciding I really wanted to try to get out of my reservation.

Did I get a call back? Nope: instead, in my mail box when I returned from a wonderful trip, I found a form letter - photocopied, with my first name written in ink in the appropriate space - that was a travesty of professionalism. All in all, a horrid experience - Comfort Inn at Jamaica Station near JFK Airport is missing a "dis" in their name.

Tags: customer service

Floyd Landis and The Tour de France

Floyd Landis is an American racing in the Tour de France, perhaps the biggest and best known bike race in the world. Floyd was touted to be a favorite to win the 3-week race.

Landis was leading by a few minutes Wednesday morning. As the day played out, Floyd went from protecting his lead, to bonking - and in the process, losing over 8 minutes to one of his competitors.

By Wednesday evening, everyone said he was finished, that he would "never" make up the 8+minutes he trailed the new leader. This was a disaster in the making for Floyd Landis, and the team he rides for, Phonac. But on Thursday, he rode the ride of his life, and as many are saying, the ride of the Tour de France of all time. Bat that is the beauty of sports: you can come right back, the very next day, and prove that yes - you really are all that.

Companies ought to adopt the same mentality. Don't let the bad stuff stew; counter it with a strong showing within 24 hours, even if it means the ride of your company's life.

Bausch and Lomb: Stick In The Eye

I hope, especially if you wear contact lenses, that you've heard about the serious eye infections tied to Bausch and Lomb's ReNu with MoistureLoc.

According to Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and others, Bausch & Lomb (B&L) said it was alerted by Hong Kong health officials to eye infections in users of its contact lens solution in November 2005, though problems reared their head in June 2005. I remember this, because I emailed my brother who, like me, wears contacts. But I also remember thinking that it must be something peculiar to the formula used in Hong Kong (and Singapore) , since B&L never issued a warning in the United States.

For several months, I heard nothing more in the U.S. news.

Now, however, B&L has a crisis on its hands, as people begin to question why it took B&L so long to let contact lens wearers know about the problem. What I see now is that many news reports are not making a clear distinction between B&L's ReNu product line in general, and the specific product causing the problem: ReNu MoistureLoc. How many B&L customers have completely abandoned B&L products because they do not know which ReNu product is tied to the horrible eye infection? Or out of fear that B&L is just not coming clean about the company's other products?

CEO Pay

Many corporations are starting to run afoul of their publics due to what many call the excessive salary and benefits granted their CEOs. The average raise of CEOs for the S&P 500, for example is now 430 times more than the average workers' pay [AP].

I haven't seen much of a response from these companies. But maybe CEO pay is commensurate with CEO pain.

A CEO of a publically traded company may experience unique physical and mental stresses. They may be thrown in jail, for something they did not knowingly condone. They may have their name besmirched simply because someone doesn't like the way they are handling a division of a company. They may have to suffer personal attacks on their character. They may attain the rarified air of CEO only once in their lifetime, and because there are relatively few CEO jobs avaliable, may never have the opportunity to be CEO again. All jobs may seem of secondary interest and/or importance to them from then on.

Maybe the real problem with CEO pay is not that they get paid so much. Maybe the challenge is figure out how to adequately articulate why a CEO is actually getting paid what she's worth.