Customer service vs instant gratification

It’s been awhile, but this situation stirred me to the keyboard. It’s time to take my little fun car in for an oil change. When I bought the car it came with 3, count em, 3 free oil changes, what a lucky guy I am.

So I bypass my usual minute lube place, an experience that would normally take 10 minutes and cost $35 ish and take my ride to the dealer for its scheduled 7:45 appointment, yes I will wait for my car thank you, after all its an oil change.

Here is where life stepped sideways. I park the car, hand my keys over and ask… “How long with this take?” a simple question I thought. The fellow looks as me as says “half an hour, once the guys start at 8am” Pause, really? Why book an appointment a week ahead that I’m waiting for when it’s going to sit for 15 minutes.

Ok, I’m game; I’m in the market for a replacement for my daily driver, so to the showroom I go. I look at cars, smell interiors, have a cookie, check my email and facebook, flip the pages in a magazine. It’s about 8:25, let’s check on my vehicle, it’s probably ready to go. I peer out the window to the parking lot and see my car sitting right where I left it. I look over to the shop, its near empty. You’re kidding me? Sigh…

Ok back to the lobby, more sniffing, another cookie, more facebook,take another look, ahh the car is finally in the shop.

Now, have you ever changed oil? I have.

If you include a 10 minute coffee break it should take about 25 minutes. Zippy the mechanic du jour took 45 minutes. I’ve watch documentaries on tree sloths that moved quicker. So the car finally gets back in the lot, zippy hands the girl the papers. I wait a further 15 minutes… standing at the counter mind you... waiting to get my key.

Now remember the 3 free oil changes? Well the bill comes to $85ish (good lord, I realize it’s synthetic but really) the counter girl informs me that my 3 free oil changes equal 1 because my car needs synthetic oil.

Stunned silence.

Ya know, after an hour forty five, I no longer care, let me out of here.

So the upshot is Ill never go to this dealer again. Yes they got my money for a car, but the service work they will not get. More importantly they won’t get the next car. Forget the fact that a simple oil change was made took far longer than it should, and as a result wasted my time. But all of the good effort in trying to win my business through promotion is wasted by aphetic and uncaring staff.

Rule 1 in business is customer service, Forbes Motors and you’ve been around long enough to know that, perhaps you should tell your staff.

Busy, busy times

They say that, on their deathbed, no one wishes they spent more time at the office.
When I ponder that statement I imagine I'll recall this summer. It has been such a busy time with a number of projects all coming to a head at the same time. Armtec, a long time client had us redo their website, Bessey Tools, a newer client is just launching their North American site to followed by Quebec, Germany, the International and other European sites. We just launched the UA’s training site, while prepping for the world skills show in Calgary. We took best of show for our short film GOYA at the Ed Video 2009 24 hour film festival. And of course all the other regular work our awesome clients send us.

So it’s been busy, and that’s why no blogging of late.

But I have no complaints, I love what I do, the people I work with and the clients we do it for. So while a little time off would be welcome you have to make hey while the sun shines.

More blogging is in the works, I promise.

Live in the moment

One of the most anxiety filled things people dread having to do is speaking in public. This I know for certain, I was one of them. There was a time I’d rather have chewed my arm off to get out of having to give a presentation to a group of people I didn’t know. But sometimes life has other things in store for you.

Over the last few years I’ve had to speak to larger and larger groups, selling Digital North’s services, client updates or extolling the virtues of the unionized construction industry. Well if you have to do something why not do it well, and towards that end I did all the reading I could.

One book in particular stood out, The 7 Principles of Public Speaking, written by Richard Zeoli. The book presents well, being easy to read and straight forward in the concepts you want to learn. The style is conversational with antidotal stories illustrating how others conquered their unique fears and issues. Each section has a lesson plan based on the direction of the chapter and is targeting to different needs, depending on the reader (Executives, Teams, Beginners).

The 7 principles are easy enough; perception, perfection, visualization, discipline, description, inspiration and anticipation. Each of these section builds upon the previous with reader learning tools and techniques to help put together a better presentation.

I had to present this last week to a large group, about 50 people and update them on work we are doing for their organization. Many of the concepts covered in the book rolled past my mind, fear of making a mistake or not having an answer. What I find though is in presentations slowing down and speaking passionately is always the right way to go.

And it doesn’t hurt to know what you talking about either.

It’s a good book, and if you’re working towards having an easier time presenting to large groups definitely worth the read.

Cant you kids take this outside?

So here we are in the middle of the biggest recession to hit our global economy in the last 50 years. All signs point to an upswing, or so the radio pundits, TV gurus and my investment guy tell me. That’s good right?

You would think that our government is busy working hard to roll out programs to keep the economy moving. Well a quick watch of the tele will banish that bit of fantasy. So what is our conservation lead government working on you ask? Getting that infrastructure spending out early (the projected date is 2011) No, no… how about the usual smear campaign. Yeah that works, lets do that! Sigh, this old song gets so tiring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aiGNvhgv9s

The problem is this sort of marketing campaign does have an effect. Though I hope Canadians are smarter than that.
The big issue they are going after is that liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has spent many years abroad, working and living in other countries, most notably, the US and England. What the campaign focuses on is that Ignatieff is just visiting and really is not invested in Canada, thus is not a suitable leader. (I won’t point out that Trudeau did much the same thing).

Forget for a moment that we are talking about a multimillion dollar ad campaign here. The reason they are running the campaign is that they desperately need to change the popular focus in everyday Canadians minds from the economy and the deficit they are responsible for, to something else.
If you look at the trend of voting in this country, the numbers of Canadians that vote continue to drop. In part it has to do with the ongoing game of politics played in Ottawa and across this country. The average Canadian is tired of the ongoing one-upmanship that seems to plague this country’s politics and that fact is reflected in the voting turnout.

Now you could ask what the Liberals are doing about it. Taking the high road? Well, kinda, the only reason you don’t see counter commercials is the Liberal party is nearly broke. They did produce a very elegant response, posted on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGifqWMeZIA

So where is this all heading…. You guessed it another election. Back to the poles kidddos and do try and get out and vote.

Save me CRTC

This week and into the weekend has seen a full court press by CTV and local CTV affiliate, CTV.SWO.ca (Or CKCO to those over 12 and living in the big K-Dub) pushing the save our station campaign. This includes banners on the CTV and local affiliates website, open houses, online petitions and a direct radio address from Denis Watson, General Manager of CTV.SWO.
Take a watch http://watch.ctv.ca/news/save-local/ctv-atlantic/#clip171289

The issue is one of fairness.

The present laws allow for cable companies to repackage and resell television programming without compensation. This is an issue that for whatever reasons the CRTC (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/home-accueil.htm) has allowed to go on for far too long. In a time when big business is asking for handouts, all the networks are asking for is a level field.

Please take a moment and visit http://www.savelocal.ctv.ca/ and find out more information. If you’re ready to sign the petition click here http://www.petitiononline.com/cgi-bin/petition_html.cgi?saveltv

Failure is a good thing apparently

I recently finished Seth Godin’s “the Dip”. This is a very quick read; you will be through this in an afternoon. Seth has a wonderful way with prose and can deliver a meaningful and concise message without dragging his readers into slumber land. The intent of the book is to challenge the concept of that old catch phrase “winners never quit”. The Dip focus’s instead on the idea that we should quit more often, thus winners quit alot.

The dip is that decline in success or joy after the initial start of something. Take for example learning the guitar. After the initial euphoria, the new users “happiness” declines rapidly as they struggle to learn the fingerings and chords. However, it they keep at it and practice, they come out of the dip and surpass the initial point of happiness. Obviously the more you practice, the shorter the dip. You can see how this could be easily applied to business of course.

The thought to take from this concept is that you need to look ahead and ascertain if the dip ever comes back up and is the return on investment worth staying in compared to quitting and moving onto something else that may be more successful.
It’s a great book, and well worth the time.

Over packaged

So as I fly my way home via the ever intrepid Air Canada, the flight attendant comes past to offer refreshments. A glass of ice water? if you please, thanks. With this cup of aqua comes a curious pop up box from Toblerone. The box is a contest invite, the usual go to the website and enter to win, blah, blah. Inside the box is a tiny chocolate, wrapped of course. Now I do love chocolate, especially the good stuff but I do have to pause and wonder about the waste of materials used on this promotion.

Now you may ask what is the intent of the campaign. Possibly to bring about the user to try the product. With that comes the mantra 3 trials to conversion, and whamo, you have a new regular client. But I really question the overall effectiveness of this. Even if I registrar, and they manage to keep my attention on the product name that little bit longer, will this really bring me to grab a bar next time in the grocery store… I’m thinking not.
I’ll have to check out the site and see.

So the site (http://www.tobleronetiny.ca/) is the usual fare. How did you hear about us, how often do I eat toblerone, when will you buy another one (like people plan that) fill all this in and you could win a trip. To be honest nothing to really move the brand or make me want to buy again. So this is simply a research trip for the Toblerone company, a chance to garner some market statistics.
In the end, they got my email, and my answers, and if I win the trip yeah me.

Oh, and I did eat the chocolate.