Rock and a Hard Place

I do a lot of webcasts -mostly as the point of contact for content, logos, slide format, bios, photos, etc ...  In the past almost three years, I've worked on about 30 of these - each with 3 or more panelists - adding more than 100 new points of contact for me in the publishing/education/library world. A vast majority of these people get it. I provide them with a clear plan with deadlines and details, and know that by hitting the mark, they will get the best quality webcast and promotion possible. But then there is the very occasional 'special' client - no deadlines for them, no respect for anyone's time, no clear direction to speakers or moderator. And you know who is running those imminent disasters?

CEOs. Control freaks. That can't live without their suffering assistant who apologizes for the prince's behavior and tries to make everything right. Oy. Tomorrow's webcast is supposed to be 50 minutes of presentation with 15 minutes of Q&A - my bet? 65 minutes of presentation, 5 minutes of Q&A. A bunch of drop-off at 61 minutes.

This is not good customer service. In fact, it exhibits a kind of arrogance that I detest.

Another Good Reason to Love Gmail

How many times have you done the Homer Simpson 'doh!' after hitting Send before realizing that the very important attachment was not attached at all?

Guess what gmail does for you now?

Your email text is scanned and if words like 'attached' are found, and you don't have an attachment, a dialog box pops up that says "Did you mean to attach files? You wrote "Find attached" in your message, but there are no files attached. Send anyway? OK or Cancel' - is that genius?! To me it is. Thank you Google.

You'll be asking for a ticket with these cops in charge

The Maniac lives in a a pretty quiet suburban neighborhood with several irrigation ditches and walkways criss-crossing the neighborhood. These are great areas for getting the dogs off leash and expending their energy chasing squirrels and playing with other dogs. But technically, no dog can be off leash in our 'hood. So the other AM when a certain unnamed black Lab decided to doubleback over the street to us, she got snagged by the sheriff in the Animal Control vehicle that happened to be coming down the street. A voice called out - Hey, would you guys come over here for a minute? Two smiling officers beamed down at the dogs (not us) from the truck. We knew we were busted, so complied. Before they ever asked us for our names, they asked about the dogs' names. And asked about the coyotes that have been running in our neighborhood and recently brought down a deer. Then mentioned that the coyotes are having pups now and might consider dog to be a reasonable substitute for deer ...

Fortunately, both dogs had up to date licenses, so it all came down to severity of the crime. The Lab had a previous off leash offense in the last three years, so that meant a ticket. The indeterminate (the officer originally said 'indescribable") breed dog with the Lab had no priors, so just got off with a verbal warning.

Now this is where the love comes in - when the Lab's owner asked the friendly and sympathetic officers ("we wish there was a dog park for you guys - so many great dogs in this neighborhood!") where the $30 for the off leash ticket would go, we were told that about 80% of that will actually go to the county animal shelter. Which is where both the Lab and the indeterminate breed dog came from. So .. no losers here. Almost makes us want to get a ticket. Because our offense is actually full of goodness for dogs that don't have people like us.

Next time, see what the asterisk is for

This Sunday's coupon insert was unremarkable, except for an ad and coupon for Head and Shoulders new Hair Endurance products. Here's the headline - Thicker Looking Hair in 1 Week* Guaranteed**. That first asterisk? Vs. unwashed hair. Think about it ..

Excellent customer service is the best kind of marketing

The product is in place, and meets expectations. But service is needed and an appointment is needed. The service is promised for a certain day, yet the confirmation call never comes. So you call customer service. And rather than them call the service provider to confirm the appointment (which is their job) they ask YOU to call. See anything wrong with this? I do. I look for excellent customer service every day, and by virtue of that, I often find very poor customer service. The blog will cover the highs and lows of the customer service experience as well as looking at the marketing that is used to entice these same customers to purchase or use your product and service.