Fresh Eyes

Customer feedback is a good thing (really)

How is your customer support staff viewed in your company?

As the clean-up crew?

Hopefully not.

They are, in fact, stewards of gold.

The information they have from customers - if you choose to use it in this way - can provide you invaluable information about current products and services and how they really work (or not).

The information they can collect - if you seek it - can also provide great ideas for future products and sources of revenue.

Here's how others see customers' perspective and the information they can provide:

In the end, the customer doesn't know, or care, if you are small or large as an organization...she or he only focuses on the garment hanging on the rail in the store.
Giorgio Armani

Our business is about technology, yes. But it's also about operations and customer relationships.
Michael Dell

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
Bill Gates

I think we're having fun. I think our customers really like our products. And we're always trying to do better.
Steve Jobs

Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.
Zig Ziglar

How to give a gift that the giftee loves

Searching for just the right gift for someone?

Here's a bit of advice from one of my best friends: "The best gifts are treasures and experiences," she says.

I like that gift-giving plan.

I've received gifts that hit the mark more than the giver ever guessed they might. The signs of a gift that is adored?

Laughter, hugs, tears in the eyes.

And the best clue for the other kind?

The very slowly unfolding laugh trying to mask the thought, "Hmmm...what can I say? Is there any way I'll use this???"

The rule in our family is that if the giftee really won't use the gift, they can - without hard feelings - return it. We hope not to need to use the rule, but on occasion, it comes into play.

And kids, if you want to know the gift that will warm your parents' heart more than you might ever guess, it's still the one...no matter what age you are...that you made yourself.

Perhaps, as parents, we should remember that advice, as well.

Finally, there's the gift of shared, attentive time (which means, of course, time that's Blackberry, phone and Twitter-free).

It's always a wonderful gift.

Not service excellence

Not service excellence, originally uploaded by jcgr.

Normally top-notch suppliers, one particular online store and one particular shipping company collectively created this particular customer experience.

It was very different from the great service they normally provide.

It's hard to say where things started to go wrong.

My guess is that it was when the package was packed.

And it's hard to say at what points the problem grew to become this way.

My guess is that there were multiple points along the way when someone chose not to correct it...or, well, worse...aggravated it.

Images of Jim Carrey in "Ace Ventura" as a shipping company employee who uses packages like basketballs come to mind.

It doesn't take much for things to go very wrong.

And that's about the same amount of time it takes for things to go very, very right.

It's beautiful. Does it work?

I'm replacing a few well-worn, well-loved items. Or trying to.

They're just purses, but this experience is an example of principles covered in the book, "The Design of Everyday Things," written by Donald Norman a few years ago.

The purses I'm trying to replace had a clean, classic design.

Just the right size and shape, nice leather, they didn't have a lot of flourishes, logos and doo-dads.

More than that, though, they WORKED. Perfectly.

Just enough pockets, in all the right places, and all the right sizes for a phone, pens, and a few other oft-needed retrieved and stored items.

Finding a replacement for a few simple purses should be easy, right?

Not so, I discovered.

And, it turns out, this is a more common problem than I suspected. A client has a similar problem, unfortunately. It's just a hassle neither of us needs or wants (I liked shopping at one point. Not anymore).

And because of that, I bought one recently that seemed "perfect enough."

I should have taken it for a test drive.

It was beautiful, elegant, and vaguely intriguing, with a slightly unusual shape. And it was on sale.

The problem with that beautiful purse? For all its surface elegance, it does not WORK. It's a junker, a clunker, in use.

It's too deep, too subterranean in design and yet, too compact to find things easily without unpacking and then repacking it, multiple times a day. (It's a bit like having a tightly-packed grocery bag that has to be completely unloaded just to retrieve one simple thing).

This beautiful-but-it-doesn't-work bag reminds me of something my mother used to say about beautiful buildings.

"This probably won the architects an award, but they clearly didn't have to LIVE in the building they designed!" she would say in exasperation when something created more hassles than it should have, in use.

Do you know the feeling, too?

Think back to the last product or service you bought that fit solidly in the category of, "It's beautiful, but it doesn't WORK."

- Was there a simple design change that might have made all the difference in usability of the product or service?

- Did your experience change your likelihood of recommending that brand to other buyers in the future?

Traffic lanes...on the sidewalk

Traffic lanes at UCSB, originally uploaded by jcgr.

Skateboard-dedicated lanes reduce the chance for accidents at UC Santa Barbara.

One can only guess at the mishaps that created the need for a skateboard lane.

Imagine pedestrians, bicyclists, skateboarders, and rollerbladers all trying to share a single concrete path without some traffic separation.

Singing while you work

I had an omelette this weekend prepared by a singing chef.

It wasn't his job to sing. It was his job to cook.

I soon realized he was the type of person who couldn't help but sing when fully invested in his work.

I heard the singing first. And I wondered if he'd get the order right.

But for some reason, since he was singing Italian arias, I decided the odds were high he was a passionate guy. And that meant to me that, as heartfelt as his singing was, his cooking was probably heartfelt, too.

I was right.

The omelette was perfect.

It was artistry on a plate, a perfect melody in every bite.

The experience made me think about singing while I work - at least in spirit.

When - and why - have I most often felt like singing while I worked?

How about you - when was the last time you felt like singing while you work - and did you actually do so?

What made you feel that way?

And is there some way that you can bring those circumstances into your work today?

Conducting rapid-cycle user tests

Seeking user or reader feedback?

Just give it to someone who's ready to go out the door soon. Pre-arrange it, though, so you don't just spring it on them.

Watch how they read, react, and interact with the product you've created.

Listen to their words.

Try to understand what they're not telling you, as well as what they are.

What I discovered in two recent tests was a bit amusing. And the users' feedback was far more valuable than they knew.

Quick tests and fast-cycle feedback are representative - more than we might guess - of users' work and attention environments in the busy lives that people live now.

Give it a go.

"Zappo" is a verb

I realized today that the word, "Zappo," is now a verb.

I'll tell you in a bit what the process, the action, "to Zappo" means to me.

A bit of context is in order, though.

At some point yesterday, for a variety of reasons, I realized I needed new navy flats to go with a staple of my wardrobe, navy pants.

Yet, I was busy with many deliverables for clients and my own business, as well. So going to the mall? Searching store after store for my narrow shoe size? In navy flats?

It was not likely to be a successful shopping trip.

And so, Zappo's was the answer.

When the process of buying and getting those navy flats was so fast, so pleasant, so convenient, I realized that "Zappo" is a verb. And then when the shoes arrived in time to wear them to a dinner meeting tonight, well, my inclinations on that word, "Zappo," were confirmed.

"To Zappo" is to:
- Provide elegant, seamless, superior, customer-partnering service when a product is ordered
- Provide SUCH elegant, anticipatory, customer-partnering service that no-fun-for-anyone heavy-lifting, correct-the-problems-we-created, if we can, type of customer service is rarely, if ever needed, on the back end of the purchase
- Respect the customer, the company, and its employees so much that the company designs, manages, and continuously improves processes for making shopping and buying elegant, light, effective, and cost-effective (service excellence is no accident).
- Create such goodwill that the customer thinks, "Hmmm...I’m going to give that company my business whenever I can!"

And no, I am not paid by Zappo's to say what I am.

I am just a satisfied...MORE than satisfied…Zappos customer who knows an excellent, customer-focused shopping and buying process when she experiences it.

And yes, I will be Zappoing more in the future when I can.

"You're using that website wrong"

"What does better mean?" a recent blog post by Seth Godin, almost made me laugh. I definitely understand his point about "Who gets to decide?"

He asked if zippers on jeans were "better." For him, they used to be. And now he likes buttons. So, for him, buttons are now "better."

I'm amazed that the issue of who defines "better" even needs to be discussed. Is it really a debate about who gets to define "goodness," the creators and producers of products and services, or the consumers of them?

It reminds me of something a colleague, a technical product marketer, said to me after I described how useful I found one well-known product review website.

"You're using that website wrong," he said to me.

"How can you use a website 'wrong?'" I thought to myself, incredulously. I didn't know where I would even begin to address his statement.

He thought his opinion was fact. I knew it was folly.

You use a website the way you decide to use a website. The designer may have had an original assumption, belief or intent in creating the information or decision path the website provides to its users.

But there are no citations issued for using a website "wrong."

You use it as long as it serves a need, easily. And then, you move on.

My colleague was adamant in his position. What he didn't realize is that I, the consumer, had stopped listening to him, the product marketer. Arguing would have served no need.

Apparently he did not know what my mother knew, inherently.

"Consumers vote with their feet," she used to say. And their wallets. And now, the click of a mouse, as well.

The days of one man, one vote? They're still alive and well for the product marketer, the product designer.

But for the buyer of the product or service you are trying to sell?

He or she gets two votes, at least.

If at first you don't succeed, take a step back

Success continually eludes your grasp?

Perhaps you're trying to rush ahead, too fast.

If at first you don't succeed, try something revolutionary. Take a step back.

You may need to stop, check and correct the fundamentals or the foundation you need to have in place before you can race ahead.

For example:

1. Do you - or your team, if you're leading a team - have the right skills already? If not, what do you need to add, improve, correct? What do you need to compensate for? How can you do that?

2. Are there resources that you'd ideally have, but do not? Is there a creative way you can adapt, such as by simplifying work processes? Can you combine some things to get more done with fewer resources? Can you rearrange work or resources to creatively get to the finish line in a new and different way than you have in the past?

3. Is your purpose clear, really clear? If not, fix that.

4. Is the path, the action plan, as clear as it can be - given that for many people and many companies now, the path ahead can't be completely defined. Some things you don't know and won't know how to address until you get farther down the path. But for those things you can define and plan, have you? Are they well-communicated so everyone who needs to know, knows what the plan is, and what part they play? If the plan isn't clear or isn't well-communicated, fix that.