Have you ever had bad customer service? Of course you have! We all have. So you can understand how valuable good customer service can be. It's rare and hard to find and in fact, it's the burden of large business.

The worst customer service usually are for big companies. The reason for this is because the people answering the phones are normally about 10 rungs on the ladder below the CEO. In fact, customer service is usually in a different city, or in a different country! "My names is Pragnesh, can I helps you with your cell phone service today sir? Did you perform a hard boot de phone?"

 

For me, the best customer service is no customer service. If you can't get it done right, do it yourself. I do not like to talk to people because normally, the people can't help me with what I want; they aren't authorized to. For this reason, I love the internet. I love having full control of things and being able to do things myself. As a result, I LOVE DirecTV. I really really do. I can do everything online. Buy a new receiver? Sure! Schedule a move? Why not!? How about turn on and off HBO and Shotime? Of course. Yeah, you heard me, I can add and turn off premium channels without talking to some ass hole in India. I won't recieve a call on why i should keep it, i won't have to say no. All I have to do is click "cancel" and because it's a computer, it automatically does the math then pro-rate my account for the month. Awesome!

 

Now, let's flip a bitch. I recently received a new store card from Express. I spend a shit load of money there and now they upgraded my card from the normal card to the "A-list" card. Okay, it's more than just a marketing gimick. I do get better percent off and i get a lot of $10/$20 off in the mail. Literally monthly. It's nice because when i actually want to shop, i get around $50 off of whatever plus a percent off for using the card... which i go home and pay online right away.

 

Anyway, It says on the card "Call to Activate." So I call. As soon as i hear "this call may be recorded" I know two things: 1) This is not automated and 2) I'm going to have to say no a lot. I have been through enough of these calls to know that everything is a number and It can be automated via a phone or internet, it has before. This must be a marketing sales ploy. I am immediately on the defensive.   

 

 "Express Card Customer service how can i help you?" I explain the deal, and we exchange all the nice pleasantries. After everything has been exchanged, the nice lady says "Ok, your card is being activated now and while we wait, let me explain something else you can consider." So the nice lady does her best to tell me for $7 a month I can have protection on my card. Just in case it's stolen, I go over the limit, late payment forgiveness, etc... and I say "Nope not interested today" to which she has obviously heard before because she starts to say "No problem but let me also remind you this can benefit blah blah blah..." to which i really don't care. I say again i don't care and no and she says that's okay the card is active and to have a nice day and that was that.

 

So here is my question, if something is so fucking important, why the hell is it an option and not standard? I mean, if i lose a lot with out it, why the hell would i ever want your damn card in the first place unless this came with it?

 

I understand that this upselling must make money, but at what cost? How much more could you make if you include that value and the current price? How many more customers could you have? How much more could toy make? The moral of this story, don't nickel and dime and make sure the people interfacing with the customers have as much authority as you do. If they don't, they are worthless. 

 

Walhalla

-PZ

 

Boy I can't wait for Black Friday. I'm gonna tear some shit up! I can't wait to trample an old lady to death so I can get my hands on a $40 Blu-Ray player. It's not my fault she's old and slow. I'll be laughing my ass off watching the sweet new Indiana Jones movie in high-def when she's dying at a nursing home with a broken hip. Black Friday isn't decided by who wins the battle, but rather the war. I put together this handy guide of necessary gear so you can be a retail warrior. Nay a retail mercenary!!

Just follow these steps, unless you want to camp outside your local Best Buy just to save $50 on a laptop. Man, then you'd feel like total fucking jackass!

Onward:

First you need to think about what you are going to wear. This isn't a beauty contest, it's a fight to the death. Prepare yourself as if you were stepping into the ring with a 400 lb bull. For this reason I recommend the El Mariachi model from Mundo-Matadores. Just like a real Matador its tight, nut-hugging chaps will prevent any unnecessary snags on annoying children and errant shopping carts.

Since you will be waiting in line at 3 AM in many cases. (Early bird gets a $10 karaoke machine), I recommend the delicious beverage RedBull™ to keep you awake. It has enough caffeine and sugar to snap someone out of a heroine overdose. So to be safe that you are alert enough, I'd drink 7. (Disclaimer: Don't drink 7, I read a dude died after drinking 3)

It's probably a good idea to have satellite internet service available for when credit card machines get overloaded and break down. A working knowledge of the Circuit City internal computer software would be helpful.

Along those lines I also recommend bringing several credit cards, for when you max out your limits buying shit your family doesn't need that you'll never be able completely pay for. I hear WaMu has good rates these days---just what a little bird told me--right before he jumped off a building into truck full of starving cats. Ahem. Moving on.

Lets be honest. You won't be the only muchacho in this rodeo. Are you prepared to dispense justice on some sorry asshole who comes in between you and that coveted 70% of digital camera? I fucking hope so! I recommend you obtain a large wooden dining room table leg and superglue thumbtacks to it. Nothing says that Playstation 3 is mine better than a blunt object with spikes on its barrel. Ikea has good deals this time of year. I highly recommend.

If you do dispense justice and there are pesky witnesses nearby, you might want to talk to my friends at Goldman and Thomas LLP. They are great attorneys and specialize in assault charges. They've kept me out of the klink after several kick ass thanksgiving shopping weekends! Tell them I sent you.

Also if you are thinking about buying gift cards this year, I recommend you get a giant burlap sack with a dollar sign painted on it, so you can deposit and arbitrary amount of cash and give it directly to credit card companies or merchants. We wouldn't have this wonderful day of violence and discount electronics without them, so lets show them how much we care! After all, gift cards are great for their economy. They only made $8,000,000,000 in profits from small unspent balances last year alone. I'm confident we can get them up to $10,000,000,000 if we all stick together on this. YES WE CAN!

Oh...and one final thing. If you think Black Thursday is complete bullshit too then I recommend participating in "Buy Nothing Day." Hands down the easiest form of civic action: inaction. That's right, you can make a difference by sitting on your ass watching Maury Povich. Check out their website for more info.

And please, be safe this weekend. Happy Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

Ten years ago, web sites were easy. Anyone could make them for you. In fact, only one guy did make them for you. He was your "internet guy." Hell, I was that guy once upon a time.

Today, you don't have a guy, you have an army of guys, and they all specialize in one thing and think they specialize in the others. Your SEO wants to edit content, your developer want to design, your designer wants to develop, IT wants to run the whole damn thing, and your marketing guy who came from some random marketing firm who has never worked with hte internet before is trying to tell everybody you're wrong and he's right even though he's never done this before and you have. 

Welcome to the modern age of complication. Everyone is a critic, everyone is write, no one is wrong, and everyone wants a say. You have to balance the needs of 20 people, work with 20 different people who disagree with the needs of the 20 people, and you're in the middle. What to do oh what to do.

 

 

Remarkable is something that causes a remark. It's a resume where you list you used to hunt unicorns in Cambodia, it's a website that ranks the fastest lawnmowers in the world, it's an airline that doesn't nickle and dime. Remarkable means something worth talking about.

So, Cuil launched today with much fan fair. It had the lead on CNN.com and was published on every site ever. Cuil is a search engine designed to beat Google. It is being completely developed by ex-Googler Anna Patterson (who went to UIUC thank you) who developed the index system for Google in 2004.

I went and i tried this new Cuil which is being called a possible Google-killer and i must say, these people fucked up good. This is single-handedly the worst launch i have ever seen. Most the links are broken and the servers keep going down. Who would have a site where you can't view an about us or privacy page, especially a brand new search engine? I am not impressed at all. Definitely not to the level of service i provide.

As for the search technology, total crap. I can't find the moon on this thing and the results are about as relevant as a Danish hooker in a monastery. The layout is new. I'm not really opposed to it, but I

I was given an article to read at work. "http://conversationstarter.hbsp.com/2008/07/why_i_underwent_psychoanalysis.html" It's by Paul Michelma and about him and Jerry Zaltman. The article is about the psychoanalysis of how people "really" feel about a brand. Commenters relate this to helping better run an organization and facilitate things such as "being innovative in your organization."

To be quite honest with you, this entire thing just pisses me off. In school, i took classes on how the subconcious process things in advertising. I also did the exercise talked about here, and believe it or not, on the same brand. I even set out a marketing campaign for that brand. The issue here is there is no relevant and accountable way to properly identify the emotions of a person as they relate to a brand. This is just not something i think isn't possible now, it's something never possible.

Based on the assertions made in this article, how he feels about a brand, what in the hell are we supposed to do with it? Coke apparently makes Paul think of his childhood with grandma. So what? Coke makes me think about the boat we used to have. The main issue we have is that even if you interviewed ever last person on the earth to find their emotions on a brand, you still would not be able to create an affective advertising campaign. Every person is different. We have different life styles, different up-bringings, and different emotions towards everything.

 

So, after a long night of Age of Empires, a handle of SoCo, and of a handle of something else, me Jonesey, and a few buddy's were pretty rilled up. So much so that a hole manifested itself in my wall in the exact shape and size of my buddy's right ass-cheek.

This is not that big a deal. It's really not. However, it is "a deal" and needed to be dealt with. After trying to repair the hole myself, the landlord decided to call in a professional dry-waller. Well, the guy she call is the first name in the phone book. She reaches him on his cell phone and he is between jobs on the road. It just so happens that my place was on the way to his next job so in less than 5 minutes, he's at our door.

Sonny walks in, takes one look at the patch job i was in the middle of and replies, "hey that looks pretty good. Looks like just a normal repair between the second and third coat of wall compound." Sonny then asked me what i was using and I show him the little jar from Ace hardware with Ace branded stuff. He looks at it and goes "I've never heard of this stuff before in 15 years. I can show you what I use. " I'm like, alright and then Sonny says "Actually, i might as well just fix it while i'm here cuz it will only take a second; no charge." I was like, Umm, hell yes. Sonny didn't charge me because he was here and it would take 30 seconds.. or 10 minutes. He wouldn't accept money and didn't try to screw us. He could have charged $15, $50, or even $100 to fix this, but he didn't. Hell, the guy didn't have to fix it at all. Sonny did business the way it should be done. Sonny will be paid in a way that is more valuable that money. For one, he has my utmost respect. For another thing, he will be my dry-waller of choice and recommendation for as long as i live around here. Considering the guy is doing the top end homes in town, I see this tactic has been working for him well.

I was looking at getting satellite TV and HD. DishNetwork has a high charge and almost no HD channels. DirecTV shows you a price but above it in small print says this is a 12 month price and real price is damn near 60% more. They trick you into one price to charge you more next year. They also both screw you on cable boxes. Dish Network charges more for "DVR Service" which is essentially the same receiver just with the DVR feature turned on. It just amazes me these shoty business practices. Sure, Sonny is small time and these fuckers are big time, but what happens when good competition hits the market? These boyz are fucked and Sonny will be retired on a nice little tract of land with his family. Rock on Sonny. -Walhalla

I've seen a lot of conferences and trade shows come across my desk. I don't go to these. Conferences, trade shows, anything like that, are nothing more than people who have no idea what they are talking about trying to sell an "idea" to someone who has no idea what they are talking about.

My personal favorite ones are the ones were you get to learn how to make money on the internet. Or perhaps the ones that are seminars that discuss using web 2.0 to increase your site's customer interactions. Right! Like there is a silver bullet with this shit. C'mon people. I've been saying it a lot recently, if you don't know how to run a web site, all the fucking conferences and seminars in the world won't show you.

Another point is that when i got into this game 10 years ago, if you wanted a web site, an e-commerce site, or anything, you went to a guy. One fucking guy. That guy, knew everything. He could code, do graphic design, internet marketing, the whole nine yards. Now, there isn't one guy. There are like, 10 guys. All those guys don't take into account the other guys and marketing just gets fucked up. Marketers today have no web experience but think it's like any other media. How much they have to learn.