Adelphia Cable got carved up when its founder whet to the slammer. Time Warner bought large parts of LA. They promised a lot. Today, on the phone, trying to resolve a bill, (naturally) we reached the bottom line. Theirs. A similar package to the previous one now seemed unexpectedly is now more expensive. Much.

"People with one tier and one premium package found us cheaper; Sir"

"But I have four premiums package ('the extreme') because the way you cut up the digital universe, I need to buy four tiers, to get the five or six channels I really want"

After an hour and a half; back, forward; discussion argument; case, counter case; money off here, overcharge there; it came down to this.

Being changed to Time Warner cost me at least 18 bucks more a month for an 138 dollars a month total. For television. On top there's a Tivo charge of 12 bucks a month or 150 smackers all up.  At least five dollars a day. Quite a lot, really.

It seems thebigness their promises was what it cost me. If nothing else, in my time and sanity.

I came across this article on a blog written by a Special Forces operative who has just returned from Iraq. Excerpt here....

Makes me think about how corporate customer relationships with American companies work. For two years I saw a very similar culture within an American company. That is one which is about command and control from a centralized headquarters where there is very little connection with the marketplace and the customer. Ultimately any brand, any product becomes a service. And it is no good to tell your customer that you actually know what is best for them, and they should do things the way you tell them. It is imperative to listen to the market and to socialize the product as a service that is specifically geared to their needs. Otherwise you may as well pull up sticks and go home, because your customer will come to resent you and will spend a good deal of his waking time figuring out the strategy to exit you.

Just finished looking around a major company's website. Mainly their stats page. This included their keywords, visitor details, pages accessed. Everything. Our client is a direct competitor. These days when search engine optimization is everything; page ranking paramount; to leave a business back door open, then put a neon sign on it inviting you in, is stupid. So lets call them Stupid Corp.

See, we now know that despite Stupid Corp spending a fortune on google keywords, that their visitor rate, unique visitor rate and page view rates are less than our clients.  Cool eh! So, whatever they are doing, their web presence doesn't cut it. We know who visits them, when and why (pages landed and traveled)

We know what words move their search dial. And, by gee, we've inserted those words on our guys site. Prominently. He now comes out on top of the enemy in virtually every search. Nothing like eating the other guys lunch.

And how did we find the Gates of Heaven? Backtracking through our guy's search returns, we found a link right into their website, which we would never have found otherwise, or even thought to look for. Incredible. Someone had come from 'there' to 'here' and left a highway. You wonder if their executive's even know anything about the internet. Forget hackers. This is self inflicted.

So, Toast of the day; Stupid Corp; giving away money to go nowhere. Fast.

Dell was slammed on the NBC Today show about exploding laptops. The report was carried in the NY Times. It all developed from picture taken at a conference then posted to a blog. Another blog picked it up. Analysts wrote about it. Dell has a spiraling problem. They didn't get on top of it soon enough.

The exploding computer touches a cord because netheads have claimed that Dell's been cutting corners with service and quality. Real world consumers have noticed. Now this. A perfect confluence of  blog, newspaper and television has once customer service famed Dell running for cover.

So Dell's launched a blog, one2one to try and claw back ground. It might work. Better than doing nothing.

Have you ever had your dinner interupted by a telemarketing phone call?

I seem to get people wanting me to buy either a new American Express service or a new phone service.

Anyway - when next it happens to you, try following this script I just stumbled upon (see earlier post). Its pretty ingenious. Should get you off their call lists in no time and could be fun.

Why don't airlines blog? They're in the customer service business. They transport hundreds of thousands of people every hour, every day. They have an urgent need to communicate. But, they don't. Either communicate. Or blog.  In fact, most airlines attitudes rival the Kremlin under Stalin.(that often includes their flight attendants, but that's a different story)

Enter Flyertalk. It's a powerful idea. A community bulletin board for Frequent Travelers covering all airlines, rental cars, hotel chains, and travel situations. Certainly,  the most informed community  about airline travel today. Main stream media journalists automatically turn to FlyerTalk for traveler or airline stories.

People contribute to FlyerTalk because they travel a lot. Like the woman who did 18 return US-Australia trips last year. In economy. Qantas should have tracked her down and put her in an ad.

Like the big range of people who are UGS on United. UGS?  United special privilege club they award to very heavy travelers who contribute huge revenue to them each year.

Some of these people wrack up huge post numbers. 35,000 or 26,000. An average of ten posts a day. 4000 a year. Over years and years. Heavy travelers. Heavy writers.

Consequently, FlyerTalkers spot nonsense a mile off. Can rip the pretensions of the airlines to bits in seconds. Have analyzed every seat on planes. Every last bit of service. Can remember when service was good. Comment immediately on anything and everything.

Its part of their love/hate airline relationships. Example. FlyerTalkers turned out in large numbers, on their own money, for a meeting with the Continental Chairman and CEO (and execs) about that airline when Continental thought it'd be a bust. Just to get things better.

Interesting isn't it? So much good will and involvement in an independent community. All there for the taking by the airlines. Yet the industry can't see its there for them to pick up and use. That the day of the one way newsletter, email, ad, website; doesn't cut it anymore.

That what travelers want, and airlines need (or basically any business in the customer business) is the immediacy, constant contact and instant feedback of a blog or bulletin board community to sharpen their business and improve their viability. And in the vacuum the airlines have allowed to develop, FlyerTalk is flourishing. And filling a need.

Ever bought a new car? Not pleasant is it, usually ? The last unreconstructed bastion of sleaze bags with asymmetrical information; ie they know what cars cost. You don't. They know how that disparity can cost you a lot. They sell every day. You buy irregularly.

Here in LA cars are king. We drive a lot. So car dealers? Emperors.

But the old car was almost dead. I got referred to Longo.Called. Spoke to the lovely Chris. Turned out she was Mr Penske's personal assistant; as in Penske the owner. Cool.  Five minutes Jules later called. Set up a time to meet. An hour later, Chris called back; "just to make sure things are happening the right way".

Next day, on one of the test drives, I ask Jules how many cars he sells. "450 a year". Gulp. Nine a week eh? "Yep". Of course that's down from the 650 he used to sell when he was on the lot. We know immediately this cat's smoking. At seventy. Probably that's why he's Longo VIP Manager. (Everyone wants to be a VIP in LA) 

Longo sold 28,000 plus Toyota's last year. From this one location. They also sell Lexus and Honda. At 20K average per car, they sold 560 million dollars worth of Toyota. Jules sold at least ten million bucks worth on his own. These are numbers to impress.

Jules is very smooth. He allows the car and customer to sell themselves, just chips in with enough info to shape the conversation and clinch the deal. Three hours later I own a new Toyota. Congratulations everyone says. All the way off the lot.

Since then, (three days)  I've had two letters and two calls. This include the helpful Chris, who is 'just checking that the process went as it should'. Longo want smooth, hassle free. excellent. In fact, excellent was the mantra through the day.

Oh yes, Longo asked me to a new car owners dinner (dinner!) with  car wash, free coupon for oil change and touch up tin of paint as the come-on. Interesting eh?

This is a huge business. All  totally focused on making the customer feel good about their decision; not on price. They don't sell on price. They sell on service. Brilliant. Longo are three times bigger in sales than any other Toyota dealer in LA. Obviously they're a huge business on their own. All built on customer service. Very impressive.

From answering random referrals, through VIP managers, through speedy processing, through enough product to make quick decisions, through after sales contact, Penske, the owner has built a great concept machine that sells cars. Its easy to see now why many friends will drive 45 miles to get their car worked on there.

Service. 

I have just had the most screwed up experience I have ever had with a travel agent and/or an airline...

Went to Sydney airport to catch a United flight to the US. Flying business as usual.

At the airport find that United's global computer has crashed so all the flights have been put back and the lines are not moving and seem endless.... Well, that's fine. Listen to some podcasts on my iPod, stand in line and be patient.

An hour and a half later the computer is back on line and I am now at the check in counter..... Where I find that my travel agent has not issued me with an E-Ticket - and by the way has not got my frequent flyer number in the system. (This is the 3rd or 4th consecutive time that this has happened - and I am not feeling forgiving any more - particularly because I am now at "Global Services" level in United which is like 1K on steroids. And normally when you flash your Global Services card people at United stand to attention and salute).

So I get on the phone to the travel agent and ask them if they can please get onto this IMMEDIATELY and issue an e-ticket....

Twenty minutes later.... and nothing has happened. No e-ticket issued, no action....

So I get onto the agent again (Stage And Screen Travel in Sydney). They have been trying to figure out what has happened to the ticket and trying to get hold of the people at United and consequently have done absolutely nothing. UNBELIEVEABLE!

So time goes by and the ground staff from United are trying to get the flight closed and away so that they don't have to pay any more ground fees to Sydney Airport.

The ground staff receptionist is sitting there with boarding passes issued and ready to go as sooon as the e-ticket arrives in the system. And in the mean time the head of the ground crew announces that the flight is full, no more room aboard and the gate is closed.

So I am on the ground and going nowhere and I still have the agent on my cell phone trying to talk to the head of the ground staff to negotiate something or other.

I was a tad cranky.

So I am now heading home and advising the agent that I am now going to miss an important meeting in Vegas and it is now not my problem but his, and I am looking for him to solve it.

The reality is that he is not going to get me to that meeting regardless of what strings he pulls. That is a given. So I am going to have to just like back and take it easy in Sydney for one more night - which is not a hassle.

So I speak to Rozanna who is looks after travel in the Sydney office and tell her what has happened. She starts looking into it with the agent. And guess what she discovers - They forgot to issue the ticket! They wrote it up in the system, charged it to my credit card, but then omitted to do anything more!

So we have United with their global computer system down at pretty much the busiest time of the day on the west coast of America on the one hand, and an incompetent travel agent on the other, who not only forgets to issue a ticket, but then can't get it together to convert the ticket into an e-ticket.

Well, it is going to cost them. (1) They have now offered to fly me out tomorrow morning 1st class on Qantas (a much better airline these days than they used to be - getting right up there with Cathay Pacific and Singapore) which I will accept, and (2) they will lose the business as I am going to take my account to Ken O'Brien at Moves travel. He has always taken very good care of me in the past.....

So on it goes.... I will be blogging from the CES show in Las Vegas if I can get there!

Swimmers are fanatical. They need that great fix daily. Wherever they are.Swimmers know that Swimmers Guide  is the indispensable bible of every swimming pool  worth swimming in globally. There's nothing like it in any other sport.

The Swimmers database contains 14,978 listings or 15,946 year-round, full-size pools in 8,830 communities and 155 countries. Once only U.S. pools, it now  has 10,816 listings in 154 other countries or 72%of the total.

And  get this. Its old style. Just  information. Bill Haverland, the brain behind the Guide, by himself, built the website  listing by listing, pool by pool, night after night, starting in  the early nineties.

Originally he published information as a book. after sending out thousands of questionnaires. But the internet is its natural home. Bill ferrets out new pools in new countries using Google. He uses Adsense for a small return on what he's put into the site. Entry's are built using Excel, transcribed to Access, so that the server's Cold Fusion database can read it. Then there's a lot of live/ not live playing around. It's all time intensive. Laborious. Prone to error. Tough to operate. But refreshing.

We keep talking about the new, the change, but here's one guy with one great idea who keeps doing it for almost no return. Why? Just because he thinks its important. It's that attitude that built the net. It's building blogging (which The Guide and Bill ought to look at)

You can wonder why International Swimming Associations or commercial organizations like Speedo, don't try and buy the website from Bill.  Use the comprehensiveness of the Guide as a base for a drive to promote or market the sport, gain new swimmers or lobby politicians and governments for new pools.

Whatever. They haven't. And that mindset is why swimming, despite being superb exercise, is still only a niche sport. 

Still. One guy knows how big swimming is. His website shows it. And for that reason, his users love it. The web at its best. 

Here at Perceptric we're now running a competition to ferret out the worst things, (disguised, of course, as the "really" helpful) you can say in customer contact. It starts today.

Take this; as you step though the door of any LA commercial art gallery  you routinely hear;  "Do you have any questions".  Now how can you follow up from that statement?  And what does it mean? Except; 'don't speak to me'. 

I mean, could you ask "Is this framed in black, small sheet of white paper, priced at 2,000 dollars with the only graphic, the  words "I can't draw", written on it in pencil (I kid you not), a piece of good art?" Are questions like that encouraged?  Thought not? Well, lets face it, essentially, the opening statement is used to hold people at bay. It intimidates people and cut sales. I appreciate that. More for us who have iron skins. But why gallerists think its a good thing to do to potential customers is unfathomable.

And why do people still close out letters with '"Please don't hesitate to contact me with further comments or questions"  If you think that clearly means; see ya later bud, this is it, take a hike or drop dead, never call again, and, if you do, don't think you're going to get me to speak to you, except in unpleasant shout mode, you're right.  I laugh when I see it now on communications to me. It's like an open invitation for mischief. To others? You cringe for the person writing it. Its nasty.

You hear all the time about customer focused companies.Usually from that company's execs. Yet you'd be surprised how many times, the language, tone, and nature of common communications and speech actually tell the customers quite a different story.