Yelp: Tools for Business Owners

Yelp is helping business owners provide better customer service. A new suite of tools allows you to to: send a message customers who have reviewed their business; see how many have viewed the page of their businesses; update information like when they are open; and get instant alerts when their business is reviewed - key to instantly joining the conversation about your business.

There's also a business owner's guide that is very useful.

Although the rants on Yelp get almost all of the press, according to Yelp, 85% of the posts are neutral to great (3 stars and up, as of Sept. 2008).

Scream and Shout

The voice of the consumer rings loud on Yelp, and it strikes fear in many consumer-facing businesses. Many beginning entrepreneurs ask what they can do to control what customers say on Yelp.

But you can't.

If you make a mistake, own up to it. If you didn't (but someone thinks you did), explain your side respectfully and show you're always open to making your customer's experience better. Whatever you say, no matter how loud the screams directed at your business, don't shout back.

Vote!

I know I've been quiet for several months, but it's only because I've been crazy-busy. However, I will NO WAY be too busy to vote, as I've done even when I was living abroad.

Go vote!

Microsoft Xbox 360: Open Sesame

Reading Patricia Seybold's Outside Innovation post on Microsoft opening the Xbox to the world's coders, I had a thought that maybe this will be Microsoft's path to the living rooms of America.

How? Women dominate casual gaming. Yet Xbox games created by Microsoft cater to a different crowd. It may only take a few totally sick casual games (Diner Dash on steroids?) to get the CHEO (Chief Household Executive Officer, AKA Mom/Wife) to move the Xbox front and center.

Anyone for a little gaming before dinner?

Adios CompUSA?

I found out in December that CompUSA was closing its doors because it's losing money. I am not surprised; I've been in my local CompUSA and watched employees actively avoid engaging with customers who clearly were looking for help.

Really. I'm not kidding: I've watched employees in their red shirts almost run the other way. The Emeryville, California store is notorious for this.

Much to my surprise, however, was that I also discovered (when doing a bit of research on the supposed store closings) that the company was purchased by Mexico's magnate, Carlos Slim. So it got me wondering: could CompUSA's poor customer service -by American standards, mind you - be the result of cultural differences in customer service standards?

The stores appear still open, so now I wonder what's really going on.

Personalized Starbucks Card: Final Thought

This is a bit tardy, but just to wrap up ... the card looked pretty good, but most importantly, me mum appreciated the thought. And enjoyed her cuppa joe.

Wikipedia External Peer Review

I've written a few posts on the quality of Wikipedia and its move to make the entire wiki available to developing countries free, and my concern that we (those of means) provide high quality information to students who don't have access to competing information.

I wasn't alone; Wikipedia continues to draw attention from others who want to compare its content to other sources like Encyclopedia Britannica. Now you can track all the articles written about this on Wikipedia's External Peer Review.

Personalized Starbucks Card: Round 2

I just went through customizing a Starbucks card - I can't tell you who for because it's a family member. It wasn't quite as much fun as I 'd hoped. There were quite a lot of choices, but frankly, I was hoping to upload a design of my own creation.

Oh well.

My second issue - and this is more of a beef -you don't find out until the very, very last page that there's a $4.00 customization fee. This is in addition to loading the card to buy coffee. And that's my other, related issue - you can't load the card for less than $15.00. Yet without a doubt, if you send this card to someone who goes to Starbucks regularly, they will load and reload this card. The gift should really be in taking the time to create a cool card.

Of course, for Starbucks, that means that each order is a minimum $19.00.

I won't be giving too many friends a $19.00 card. And that's too bad, because I'd take the time to design a LOT of these if the total amount I had to pay was, say, $10.

Next up: how the card looks. Stay tuned ...

Apple Leaves A Customer High & Dry

Last Sunday, while standing outside on the patio at the end of an event, my partner brought our friend Susan over to me then delicately beat a hasty retreat.

Susan's hard drive had crashed. And her back-up hadn't backed up properly in a year. (Note to self: check your back up every now and again.)

She'd been trying to get some assistance from Apple and it wasn't going well. Even though she'd bought a replacement Mac, she still needed her hard drive salvaged if at all possible. When she asked at the Apple store how to do this, they gave her a handful of companies where she could take her hard drive.

That's it.

So Susan was reduced to asking me - a non-Apple user but, okay, a bit of a geek - what I thought she should do. I might add that she was fairly spittin' mad at this point, and talking about returning the Mac she'd just bought. She felt ill-used, in fact; a non-geek amongst the scary techies.

Many of you may have followed Heidi Miller's and Shel Holtz's experience last year when her hard drive failed. Believe it or not, that was the information I drew on to give Susan some advice (with all the appropriate caveats, of course).

Uh-oh: we have PC people repping Apple!

I haven't spoken to Susan since regaling her with all the horrors she can expect from Apple's infamous customer service, but I'll be seeing her in a few days and will get the details then.

Personalized Starbucks Card

I can't wait to give this a try: Starbucks is now letting customers design their own card! I've always appreciated the Starbucks cards designed by employees, but really -- aren't we all designer wannabes?

I'm going to take the plunge and try it. I'll let you know how it turns out.