Problems happen. If you ask most people it is not the problem itself, but in how it is resolved. To achieve this, there is commonly a process involved, and depending on what vendor or company you are working with, they will have their own method of a resolution process. In most cases this method is customer-centric, focused around not only resolving the problem but ensuring the customer or client is satisfied with how it was resolved. In those rare but abundant cases, it is merely a process of closing tickets in a queue, which does nothing for the customer.

As I am writing about this, you can guess it has happened to me a number of times over the years. A recent series of occurrences with a vendor has had this thought simmering in the back of my head, only to have it come to the forefront when I found out the lack of customer interest permeates other departments within this vendor, and finally I am putting fingers to keyboard on it.

The Customer Doesn’t Care What’s Behind the Curtain

Does it always seem that you, the customer, have a better handle on a problem than the vendor? Whenever you connect with the vendor – by phone, email, etc. – does it seem like you are going back to square one with them? And if you ever bring it up to them, they will certainly blame it on things you have no control over – their problem reporting system, the fact that one of their staff on a different shift did not enter all of the information, and so forth.

Note these are their problems, but now that you have to reinvent the problem with them, they by default become yours too. The missing piece here is the overall concern and caring on the part of the vendor’s staff. I would bet US$1.00 that whenever the tech support person is documenting a problem report, they do not add to it there is missing information or the customer is disappointed in the resolution process. I would double the bet and say they do not fire off an email to a manager for them to review the case, with concern the customer may take their business elsewhere. It is often the personal interactions with staff which cause someone to go elsewhere – think about offshored customer service and you really know what I mean.

The specific issue which caused me pain with this vendor was with a tech support issue. I had logged a ticket on a Thursday, did not reply on Friday and when I went to on Monday, I got a returned email message stating the problem ticket was closed. What? When I called and confronted the support staff about this, I was blatantly told they set all tickets to expire after 72 hours, and they felt there was no reason to keep a ticket open in their queue if it really didn’t need to be there. When I told them the issue was neither resolved and that this policy was the stupidest thing I had ever heard, I was simply told to submit a new ticket.

As Long as the Customer Thinks They Are Right…

Legendary retailer Marshall Field is quoted in saying the customer is always right. I am sure Field did not mean that the customer is always, 100% correct and the vendor is in the wrong to question them. Rather, this is a call to action for the vendor to hold in high regard the concerns of the customer and strive to resolve any issue they may have. If you feel like you are being treated well, you are then a happy customer. If the opposite, you are looking to spend your money elsewhere. This opposite must permeate your organization, especially to those on the front-line who deal with customers.

As the Holiday Inn Express sign stated in an earlier post, it’s the little things. When you think in this detail you realize what type of business you are truly in. If it isn’t obvious, it is not about the internal process, but about the external customers, the ones who provide you with the money to fund your internal process. Your customer doesn’t care about your processes, just their problem. And you should be thinking like them as well.

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I always wanted to put this disclaimer on a Web site, “No stock media was harmed in the creation of this Web site.” Where there is some sarcasm in the message, it also shows my preference to not use stock media, whether they are drawings, photography or video. Why you ask? A major reason is that somebody may notice, which only gets magnified if it is shown on national television! This video below is from The Jay Leno Show where someone sent in print advertisement with the same stock photo of a family used for different companies.

If you don’t see the above video, you can view it with this link.

There is demand for stock media as it is much less costly than custom-created media. Depending on the purpose, it may make perfect sense to use stock media. Do you want to use the skyline of a particular city on a Web site? It makes more sense to pay a few dollars for an image than to hire a photographer and an airplane to take the shot. For other “generic” items the same reasoning can apply. You most likely will not find specific items, such as brands, available as stock media.

So why is stock media much less expensive than custom media? The reason is non-exclusivity. This means you purchase the license to use the media for a particular purpose, such as on a Web site, and somebody else can do the same for their Web site, or brochure or other display purposes. The reason the family was shown in the video for 3 different insurance companies is because it was probably categorized as such, and when a search was performed it came up under the insurance category.

As cost is a deciding factor, stock media is often chosen if the budget does not allow for custom media. Note I am not criticizing the quality of the media itself – it is most all done by professionals and is of high quality. However as it is created to be used for many purposes, it can look very generic and not specific to a locale or industry. As Web users become more sophisticated, they can often recognize a photo that doesn’t look like it completely fits on the Web site. A good example is when a company shows photos of its management team, yet none of them are in the photo of people sitting around a table on another Web page.

In addition to the photos themselves appearing in multiple places, many times you can even recognize some of the people in other places. At a former employer stock photos were used on the Web site. Shortly after I saw one of the women from the Web site in signs in CVS and Staples stores! Granted I worked on the redesign of the Web site that used these photos and was much closer to them as well. For our budget, we could have taken photos exclusive for our use, and they would have also been more realistic looking as well.

When it comes time to design or redesign your Web site, think about the media you will be using as much as the content. If you can afford it, go with custom media. You will get greater control of the scenes as well as have a completely unique user experience.

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As I recently upgraded to a new notebook, it is time to find a new home for a perfectly good workhorse, my Sony VAIO V505EX Notebook PC, which is up for auction on eBay through next Sunday, October 18. The notebook is pictured below.

This PC was a workhorse for me, as I ran my little Internet consulting firm off it for the first several years. You can view the V505EX specs in PDF format here, and full support information is available here on Sony’s Web site. In addition to the specs I upgraded the memory to 2 GB and the hard drive to 100 GB. It also includes a port replicator/docking station and the restore CDs.

Bidding starts at a penny for this great buy in a notebook PC.

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Today, October 12, is Columbus Day. Where it commemorates Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the New World, it is also a day to celebrate Italian heritage. As a 100% Italian American, it is a time to think back reflect on my heritage and what it means to me, and now to share it with my daughter. It is a holiday in the US, but not everything is closed – even my firm Dunkirk Systems, LLC is still open for business today.

In my effort to keep it light today, I am sharing a picture of a sign I took this summer when on a getaway to La Porte, Indiana. We stayed at this Holiday Inn Express and seeing this sign with its message, “Service is no Big Thing, It’s a lot of Little Things,” obviously caught my attention.

Just a little food for thought today. Other food to have today includes my favorite pasta, gnocchi! To my follow Italian Americans, salute!

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Imagine a journal where for an entire year where each day is chronicled by somebody different. If you can envision it, or even if you can’t, you can follow it starting in January, 2010 with the3six5 project.

The idea for the3six5 came from Daniel Honigman and Len Kendall, 2 fellow Chicagoans who come up with a lot of great ideas. When I heard they came up with this, I had to get in on it.

In their own words, this is what the3six5 is all about:

Everyday for 365 days, a different person will write an entry about their experience that day. It doesn't have to be about a specific topic, the key is that it somehow relates to what is happening in the world that day and how it relates to them. By doing so, starting from January 1 to December 31 of 2010, we will have a snapshot of the entire year, told from the perspective of 365 individual voices. 365 days will be made available and volunteers from across the country will be able to pick a date of their choice. There is no guarantee that any day will be better than others, because no one can predict the future. Regardless if the selected day in 2010 brings something newsworthy, everyone has a short story to tell that will help create the experience of living through a year in this country.

Each author will write a 250 word reflection which will be posted to "lifestreaming" site Posterous. Posterous.com was selected over a typical blog or website because of its simplicity and its ability to distribute content across all the major social networks. You can access this page by simply going to www.the3six5.com. If all goes well, my dream would be to publish the posterous stream as a book. I suppose you could call it a crowdsourced journal of 2010.

Where it’s first-come, first-serve for dates, each day of the year means something different to different people. By people, located in all parts of the world, writing a short reflection after that day happens, in the end there will be a unique journal for the year.

I will be writing an entry for August 19, 2010. I have also made a contribution – US$5.00 – to the fundraising to make a book of all the entries. I will not receive any compensation for this project, which is fine as money is not why I am involved in this. Being one of 365 people contributing to this body of work is thrill enough. There are still dates available, and details on the project and information to signup is available on the site.

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