Tag: whack

Categories
Uncategorized

What does Halloween have to do with Customer Service and Satisfaction? Quite a bit actually…

Max as Master ChiefAs I mentioned previously, our taller son decided on dressing as Master Chief from Halo for Halloween, with his younger brother adopting the persona of a Pokemon Ranger. And, as luck would have it, both costumes were made from scratch, as neither are mass produced.

So we completed our first (and last 😉 Pepakura model, this of the Master Chief’s spartan helmet. All it took was sixteen sheets of card stock, white glue, a roll of Scotch tape and a week’s worth of after-the-kids-go-to-bed patience.  And don’t forget the epoxy resin with fiberglass, camo spray paint, foam inserts and electrical tape.  

CJ is a Pokemon Ranger, not Michael Flatley ;)As for Pokemon Rangers? Let’s just say if my wife never sees a sewing machine ever again it will be too soon.  That and the hot glue gun, fabric tape and the late nights searching for just the right images in the Internet. 

What does this have to do with customer satisfaction?

Everything.

I found that for every piece of research done at the hardware store, craft shop and fabric supply, we found nothing but helpful staff ready to assist us with ideas, guidance and how-to’s.  On the web we found plenty of examples and detailed step-by-steps written by people eager to answer our questions, either with suggestion on how to scale Master Chief’s helmet to a fourth grader’s mop top or the best hi-res Pokemon Ranger images. 

And all this at a time when stores are brimming with people searching for many of the same things: help, direction and assistance.  It amazes me that the customer service staff at the craft stores are able to keep from shutting down and locking the store when the storm of last-minute shoppers come in search of that perfect accessory or pattern for a full on Valkyrie costume. They’ve heard the same question asked a thousand times, and generally answer it each time with a smile, often taking you by the hand to the exact place in the store where you’ll find the tube of Styrofoam glue you have been searching for since September.

Of course, as a result of all the effort we put into these projects, we met and exceeded the needs of our core customers: our kids.

It strikes me that online and telephone customer service agents go through much of the same thing: answering the same questions, taking the same information and dispatching the same answers each and every day.  Sometimes the mere action of having someone to walk through the steps helps to solve the problem.  And just like the store staff at our local plastics speciality store, they love it when a tough problem comes in the door: something to dig into and tackle a problem that hasn’t been seen previously, or solve a problem that’s been plaguing a customer for far too long.  As I work with our customer service representatives and escalation engineers, I’m reminded of this and happy to see the passion in their interest to solve customer issues… er, I mean problems. 

And speaking of customer satisfaction, let me also say this: knowing your customer and meeting their expectations is key to winning their hearts and minds.  In the case of Hallowe’en, this includes knowing just where to take your kids to maximize the candy benefit and allure of visiting dad’s office… what kid doesn’t like tagging along to where your parent’s work?  This evening, the kids not only had the chance to trick or treat with their friends in the neighbourhood after dinner, they had the chance to visit me at the end of the day and hop from office to office gathering candy as so many squirrels gathering nuts.

And the employees in our buildings got a kick out of it as well: taking pictures, decorating offices, donning costumes and laying our candy for the munchkins roaming the hallways.

Happy Hallowe’en.

Tags: Microsoft, Customer Service, Customer Support.

Delicious Bookmark this on Delicious Bookmark and Share

Also available via http://bit.ly/3wqLdi

Categories
Uncategorized

Sometimes, you should fire your customer

It has been a good but busy week (complain, complain) between work and home. 


One evening I returned a purchase at a local big box store, without a problem — the clerk was friendly, helpful and fast.  Whilst in line, I overheard a discussion (it was difficult not to hear) a return transaction gone wrong, where the clerk could not say anything to appease the customer attempting to return something for cash without a receipt.


Hello, McFly?  Where have you been?  Return something without any receipt?  Surely, you’re joking.


Then I thought that sometimes, the customer is not always right. 


And it’s OK to fire your customer.


BusinessWeek has an article on how one small firm did just that… and made for more profitable business.



“Not every client can be your favorite. That’s what Debra Brede, an investment adviser and owner of five-person D.K. Brede Investment Management in Needham, Mass., used to think about one of her most demanding customers. For 20 years, the woman showed up at appointments with bags stuffed with every slip of paper connected with her investments—proxy statements, annual reports, dividend notices—expecting Brede to go over each one with her. Brede did. She wanted to offer good service, and this woman had a $1 million account. That’s a healthy amount for Brede’s company, which has about $1.7 million in revenues each year.”


The article notes that when customers begin costing you money, then it’s time to cut the cord… a move that may even boost revenues. In this case, the investment manager ‘fired’ about a dozen of her clients (less than 2% of the total customers) and found that “profits rose 25% last year, compared with about 9.5% in each of the past few years.”


Last year, Seth Godin wrote that sometimes you have to fire a customer.



“Politely decline to do business with them. Refer them to your arch competitors. Take them off the mailing list. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, don’t be rude, just move on.”


Our own Heather Hamilton looked at this in her blog last year, garnering several comments, one noting that…



“I think one can fire customer if and when it makes sense. Best Buy ranks all of its customers by profitability. They “fire” the lowest ranking customers by not sending them direct mail that contains promotions or special offers. They are not overtly telling the customer to go away; they just aren’t encouraging them to come back.”


So, if you want to fire a customer, just don’t call them back. 😉


Tags: Microsoft, Customer Service, Customer Support, whack.

Categories
Uncategorized

Time is a precious thing. Never waste it.

There are times when we hear that something isn’t possible, that a schedule can’t be met, that there’s not enough time, there aren’t enough resources or that’s not my job. (I’m saying in general, not at Microsoft 😉 

There are two stories that I have followed over the last few months and years, respectively, stories that make you think and put things into perspective.  When I drift into thinking that something is too hard or I think that I don’t have enough time, lately I’ve thought of these stories.

The first of a little girl, Gloria Strauss of Seattle, with the weight of a horrendous disease balanced by the love of her family and a community, meeting every day as best she could with grace and strength. The stories ran and can be found in the series linked to A prayer for Gloria | Gloria was more than just a story (Seattle Times series) from last Sunday (September 23, 2007) by reporter Jerry Brewer. “The series has been an authentic portrayal of one family’s fight with cancer. Gloria succumbed to neuroblastoma, a confounding and vicious disease, but her family rejoices despite their sadness.

The second is of Sam Sullivan, the mayor and native son of Vancouver, who is paralyzed but not confined by the bounds on his wheelchair, and works hard each day to make his corner of the world a better place… from the article in the Times, Maverick Vancouver, B.C., mayor faces Olympic-size challenge, by Greg Bishop today (Sept 30, 2007). “Sullivan is very visible as mayor, and residents have few reservations about stopping him for a word or two. Sullivan struggles each morning to get out of his bed and into his motorized wheelchair…”

Yes, there are many stories that can inspire, frustrate, frustration, disappoint and enlighten. Not necessarily about faith or beliefs, but about what can be accomplished. As Jerry Brewer, the reporter that chronicled Gloria’s effort to battle cancer, wrote…

“I’m so sad that Gloria is gone. She’s helped me re-examine my own spirituality. She’s helped me learn how to love better. She’s shown me what true commitment is.”

Given the recent untimely passing of Marc Olson from the Office team, old friends such as the truly irrepressible Christopher Bock and far too many others, I remind my kids (particularly my nine year old) that time is too precious to waste. 

Make the most of time: I often quote the throw-away line from Willy Wonka “Time is a precious thing. Never waste it.”

I’m going to help the kids with homework now, and make the most of this rainy afternoon.

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, DST. DST

Delicious Bookmark this on Delicious Bookmark and Share

This post may also be found by linking to http://tinyurl.com/494veb  

Categories
Uncategorized

New study out from Ken Blanchard on customer service, which is really everyone’s job

I have a couple of quotes that I hang on my office cork board, one of which is this one from the customer service guru, Ken Blanchard:



“Customer service should not be a department, customer service is everyone’s job.”


Customer service is everyone’s job. (Repeated for emphasis 😉  It’s not just the job of the customer service agents or the field sales representative, it’s everyone’s job.  We all serve customers of one sort or another, whether they’re internal (as the people in my product group I work with and for every day) or the more traditional external customers and partners who use our products each and every day.


Forbes has a link today to a news release [link updated 012809] to a new study from Blanchard’s company on customer service and customer loyalty, surveying nearly a thousand line managers, human resources and training executives.



“Blanchard research over the past five years places customer loyalty as the fourth most important management challenge. In the same studies, customer relationship skills were cited as the second most important employee development skill, ranking just behind managerial skills.


“Most participating organizations agree that customer loyalty is a powerful driver of organizational success and one that ties directly to the bottom line. Statistics show that it can cost six to seven times more to gain a new customer than to retain an existing one. Expenses related to customer losses cause many companies to recognize the need to channel resources toward retention.”


Blanchard’s research showed that skills that were in most need of improvement were…



  1. Developing systems and processes that make it easy to do business with the organization

  2. Improving the skills of customer-facing employees to diagnose the customer issue

  3. Improving problem solving skills

  4. Empowering people to utilize their scope of authority

All good points. I maintain that you have to go farther, and do more, which I refer to a jumping through hoops for your customer.  It’s all of the above and more, the extra effort that people take because it’s the right thing to do, as noted…  



“The findings from the customer loyalty survey support earlier Blanchard research which documented that there is a direct connection between leadership, employee passion, and customer devotion.


There’s a Web site I refer to from time to time, customer service manager.com (aka CSM), edited by Ian Miller, a former (you guessed it) customer service manager. Mr. Miller has an interview with Ken Blanchard here, and in which he talks about how customer service leaders put others before themselves…



“What needs to happen is for the pyramid to be flipped over, so that frontline people – the people who are closest to the customers – are at the top. Leaders become servant leaders and are responsive to employee’s needs and allow them to accomplish the company’s goals and create Raving Fans.

“… I had one final question for Ken: “I understand you deliver a voicemail each morning to every one of your three hundred employees. If I asked you to send a voicemail to the readers of this article, what would it say?” Ken thought for a moment, then left me with this message: “You become an adult when you learn to serve others not yourself. Look at the job you do and think, who can I serve today?”


I make an effort to focus on that each day, to think about the people I can assist. And it’s something I work to improve upon.


Here’s a recent example.


I invited a customer to email me (using the email link at left) as they left a comment on my blog post about Xbox 360 repairs. (They had a poor experience with their Xbox repair and return.)  I haven’t heard from that customer (yet) but I have heard from others and I answer their mails (to the best of my knowledge) and pass their mail onto our customer service staff for formal responses if it involves a product issue or repair. 


It doesn’t solve all the problems that customers run into — and as a customer service line I certainly don’t scale very well — but I trust that it helps.  As a group example, Windows is nearing the release of Vista SP1 which will address areas we identified through our customer feedback channels, including improved reliability and performance, support for new hardware, and generally offer a better/ improved customer experience. 


(For more on contacting support at Microsoft, see this past post. And to contact Microsoft Customer Service, visit http://support.microsoft.com/.)


Additional links: You may download copies of Blanchard’s most recent white papers…



  • “The Key to Customer Loyalty” that looks at how customer loyalty can impact success, and the often cited notion that it’s much more expensive to acquire a new customer than to hold on your current customer.

  • “The Leadership-Profit Chain” which outlines how leadership skills are closely tied into to an organization’s P&L: “The key to organizational vitality is creating an environment that allows employees to win and be passionate about what they do. By taking care of employees, leaders establish an environment in which the employees take care of the customers at a level that causes the customer to want to return year after year.”

Additional Microsoft support options:


  • Contacting Microsoft – Phone Numbers, Support Options and Pricing, Online Help, and more.
  • Microsoft Customer Service – For non-technical assistance with product purchases, subscriptions, online services, events, training courses, corporate sales, piracy issues, and more.
  • Microsoft Newsgroups – Pose a question to other users. Discussion groups and Forums about specific Microsoft products, technologies, and services.

Tags: Customer service, Ken Blanchard, customer feedback.


Delicious Bookmark this on Delicious   Bookmark and Share


http://tinyurl.com/bu9z3t

Categories
Uncategorized

Seattle Times’ article on the post-Gates era, plus ThinkWeek and the need for “more cowbell”

Benjamin J. Romano has an insightful article in today’s Seattle Times on the preparations “for the post-Gates era” at Microsoft by the leadership.  

“Building a bank of collective wisdom is one part of the preparations going on at the highest levels as Microsoft prepares for a momentous shift to the post-Gates era.

“For the past year, and really the better part of the past decade, Gates has been downloading the institutional knowledge of Microsoft and the software industry stored in his head to the leaders who will handle his responsibilities at the company he co-founded 32 years ago.”

On Think Week:  The article also touches on Gates’ much-heralded Think Week. If you haven’t heard of Bill’s week-long retreat to go through many of the dozens (or usually hundreds) of papers submitted, Think Weeks are semi-annual opportunities for employees to submit the best ideas that are bubbling up in Microsoft. As Gates’ said, Think Week is an opportunity to “read the latest Ph.D. theses, try out new technologies, and try and write down my thoughts about where the market is going.”

Bill reads and comments on the papers supported all the while by what the Journal termed as “a steady stream of Diet Orange Crush.”  I recommend the coverage a couple of years ago by Robert Guth here in The WSJournal and Dare’s good write-up in an old blog posting. 

Past Think Weeks used to be one of those things that people talked about in hushed tones and references, almost like some sort of secret ritual, but no longer.  That’s good, as there’s a tremendous benefit to expose the ideas to a larger set of employees.  It’s not so much “done by committee” as Romano wrote in his article: Ray Ozzie, quoted in the article today…

” ‘Think week’ has been transitioning from a single ‘Bill thing’ to something where a broader audience gets the chance to comment on submitted papers. The tradition of think week is incredibly strong,” Ozzie, who replaced Gates as chief software architect, said in an interview earlier this year with the Wharton School’s online business journal.”

That’s also good, as The Journal reported in 2005 that there were nearly 300 papers for his week’s review: having more eyes looking at the papers benefits us all.  People should be encouraged to take the initiative and be exposed to the insight and ideas of the incredible talent at the company. They can also see an evolution of different areas, technologies and thoughts over the years. 

On technical leadership: Switching gears for a moment… and thinking about a “post-Gates era”…  Brad Silverberg, ex-Microsoft exec and strategic consultant to Ballmer, was quoted in the article that Microsoft is “a notoriously difficult place for outsiders to come in and be successful.”

That’s true. It’s also a place where Ozzie has been able to capture the attention and respect of employees in the company. 

And we need more Ray.  (Said with the same emphasis as in the historic SNL quip of “more cowbell!”) 

IMHO, it’s important that he also espouse on what he believes we should focus on, improve upon. As mini-microsoft blogged in this post on “random unconnected things” back in February… 

“Where’s Ray? I’m sure Ray Ozzie has been busy being the wizard behind the connected services scene of the future, but he’s just plain running too silent for my comfort. And I’m sure with Mix07 he’s going to go through presenting some new technology we’re thinking about… perhaps even add single 2007 entry to his unloved blog. But if Ray is the bridge to the connected future from the present Gates, we all need more obvious leadership infrastructure getting us there, and more engagement from Ray and his brigade about what’s happening and what kind of coherent vision is coming about. Silence makes me edgy.”

I agree. As I posted previously, Ray’s external blogs may not be updated regularly, but it appears that Ozzie gets it, and is working on being more visible.  He is in the press more and more, thankfully, and increasingly visible, more communicative and thoughtful on the big issues that impact the company.  He’s positive on the focus needed on the customer experience: “the most important person is the customer or integrator that understands how to match the capabilities of a specific technology to what’s needed.”

Again, IMHO, this is an area for improvement, an area that Gates has mastered. It was noted in the Times article (by Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft) that Bill has the “automatic respect of every Microsoft employee.”

IMO you have great, articulate and technically astute leaders in people like Bob Muglia, Jeff Raikes, Jon DeVaan, J Allard, Satya Nadella, Soma, Steven Sinofsky… the list goes on.  These leaders also understand the importance of providing a great customer experience with our products and services. 

Ray is from the same mould. And I believe that Ray can also help — along with the rest of the company leadership — fill the need for insightful, public technical voices at a global level as Gates departs.

More cowbell.

Worth reading also are the sidebar articles on Craig Mundie and Ray Ozzie…

  • Craig Mundie: Company envoy will keep that role
  • Ray Ozzie: Collaborative leader has “coaching style”

    • Tags: Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie, customer satisfaction, Microsoft.