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Some Apple Highs

Apple is listed as third most innovative company of 2010 by FastCompany. 
 
Apple is also adjudged third best customer service company by BusinessWeek.  Apple only mobile or computer maker in top 10.
 
These two statements might depict two different aspects on the same company but Apple earned both awards for same reason - Genius Bars and its retail checkout experierence. Both these things have improved the overall customer experience inside its stores and its mobile retail checkout is truly an innovative action for any retailer. Checkout which is usually refered as chokeouts are one of the points wherein maximum customer dissatisfaction happens. Mobile checkouts improved overall checkout experience inside Apple stores especially during heavy holiday rush. 
 
In India, though its stores still lack the standards that are being followed in US but it is far better than other mobile and computer retailer. Once you enter an Apple retail store, you play with Macs, iPods, Docks etc for hours and salespersons will rarely tailgate you in an anticipation that either you buy or leave the store. There is rarely a do-not-bother-me look on their face. Yes, knowledge level of staff needs to be improved. I guess Apple's approach is for novices and it assumes that very few seasoned users of Apple are in India. Maybe they are right.
 
I also stumbled on this newspiece. 
 
"Unfortunately, the whole house and all things in there completely destroyed, so even the iMac.
What's funny is that it is still in operation. While damaged from smoke and dust and partially melted, but yet, however in operation.

After I plugged in the burned power cord and wiped off the worst dust from the screen I pressed the melted start button.
Imagine my surprise when the startup sound sings from the speakers! The screen turns on and the machine connects to the wireless network.

The mouse works flawlessly and the scroll wheel as well.
Firefox starts and I take up the article from the local magazine about the fire ... Fantastic!

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I am happy


Hi Adesh
 
i am sure zoobie has told you that i am working on a project on service quality for **** and i dont even know the 's' of it.. i did go through your blog and found it extremely good- i might be quoting a few lines from your blog - hope its ok with you.

 
nyways might even take your help over the weekend also
 
thanks...


Few weeks back I received above email from one of my friend who happens to be a part of customer service or service quality (organization terminology) team (I am withholding the name of the brand as requested). She wrote me asking to use some of my blog things in her organization presentation. I was glad that someone found something useful in my blog which can be used to make customer service better in an organization.
 
This happens so often that while working we try to monitor some metrics and feel that they will guide the business to some new heights. If you are in a call centre, your SLAs will be number of calls (more the merrier), average time of call (less is better) etc. In retail, it is footfalls (more the merrier), average value of bill (higher is good) etc. In blogs, number of hits (more the merrier), number of comments (sky is the limit) etc. 
 
But behind all these defined metric, we tend to forget the true meaningful conversations which are building blocks of any business or blog. We never measure in call centres whether relationships with customers got stronger or not. No track of bonds getting stronger or weaker with customers in your retail store.

This mail just showed that there are 'soft metrics' which makes keeping blogs much more worthwhile. I am happy.

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NOIDA Half Marathon

Smiles followed the run...


Yesterday ran a half-marathon in NOIDA. It was cool Valentines Day morning and I decided to take care of my heart by running 21 KMs with running and living. As I ran towards a healthier heart, I also made some new friends.


It is always fun to do things which you love, which energies you and which drives you. In fact , it is always worthwhile doing things which matters to you. Valentines Day or no Valentines Day, I love to run.

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Ironical Statement of 2010


“SAP, the German software maker, said on Monday that it would focus on restoring its damaged customer relationships after a surprise management shake-up that cost the chief executive his job.”

The above statement, to me, is the most ironical statement of 2010. Yes, it is only the second month of 2010 but we have the irony of the year. It will be hard to beat.

Why I find it ironical? Because a company which has proudly helped thousands of other companies in building and maintaining relationships with customers has to work hard to maintain its relationships with its own customers. I think they should have installed some of their own systems for which they are charging a fortune and may be they could have avoided this situation. In case they are using their own CRM systems and still they are in soup, then they should stop selling it.

You can catch the whole story here. 

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Motive

 
 
These days whenever I receive an SMS, I have fair bit of idea who is the sender. It is either some real estate developer or real estate agent who is making a desperate attempt to sell some dream project at astonoshingly low prices. No, I am not getting into art of predicting future. There are far more capable people in that field. Its just the frequency with which all these builders are trying to woo me. Nearly 80% of SMSes I receive are from someone who has some stake in real estate industry.
 
I am not sure how and why these developers have a feeling that I am a prospective customer of theirs. I have not received any increment in distant past and my salary is still at pre-recession level. None of my uncles is rich enough who can sponsor me any of their dream project. And also my father is not planning to give me any kind of fortune, so that I can own one these one-of-its-kind property.
 
I am sure all these developers and builders have some kind of business sense and they must have some kind of mechanism in place to track ROI on their SMS efforts. If their motive is to make me buy something, then they are failing miserably. Either they should look to tap me (in case they are hell bent on me as their customer) by tweaking their efforts or they should stop wasting their efforts on me (best thing to do!!). 

In case, their motive is to frustrate me and drive me crazy so much so that I decide to draw an Aloo Kachalu and write a blog post on them, then they are bang on in their efforts.

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Shrug it off! and just do it #2

 
 
 
Yesterday, I was reading an interview of co-founder of Kayak. This is what fascinated me most.

Customers are a big source of my e-mails. Anytime anyone contacts us with a question, whether it's by e-mail or telephone, they get a personal reply. The engineers and I handle customer support. When I tell people that, they look at me like I'm smoking crack. They say, "Why would you pay an engineer $150,000 to answer phones when you could pay someone in Arizona $8 an hour?" If you make the engineers answer e-mails and phone calls from the customers, the second or third time they get the same question, they'll actually stop what they're doing and fix the code. Then we don't have those questions anymore.

This is so easy and sooo coooolll.
 
Tackling the hassles around system and process issues is something which is so often voiced everywhere included on this blog. Being sucked into the whirlwind of processes and systems is the reason behind most dissatisfied customers.

Asking the one who are building processes, systems to attend customer calls, is nothing short of some-kind-of-wonder. In case problem is recurring, they will sit down and nail the problem so that they do not need to answer same problem over and over again. This is so non-sarkari thing to do. Anybody will love to see more such attitude from organizations.

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Chandigarh Marathon - Chaos killed my whole running experience


Yesterday, I ran my second full marathon in Chandigarh. It was absolutely fun while I was running.

First things first...Weather was perfect for running. It was little cold in the beginning and more pleasant once I crossed 10 KM mark. Track was flat, air was clean as we were running around one of the most beautiful areas of Chandigarh.

I was impressed by my improved timing.

I was slow for first 21 KM but picked up my self in later half. For last fifteen kilometers there was an ongoing battle between body and mind. I am glad that it was mind which won in the end. I was able to finish my run under 5 hours and 30 minutes, which is an huge improvement (according to me) from my last timing of 6 hours and 15 minutes.

Unfortunately, my battle did not end at the finish line. In fact, I realized that real battle has just began. After I reached finish line, I found out that they have removed time-recording chips and there is no way to know my time. When I asked for some guidance, one volunteer came with a piece of newspaper and started writing my time on that. A newspaper which would soon find a place in dustbin or road (considering this is India), was used to record my 'hard earned' time. It was disheartening and showed the extent of nonprofessional. It also revealed kind of inexperience for handling such events where efforts of every runner (long distance and short distance runner, fast and slow, young and old) is special to himself and needs a much better way to record those efforts.  

Then I decided to speak to one organizer, who turned out to be some 'sarkari' guy. His attitude can be summed up as if-you-have-bouquets-you-are-welcome-but-incase-you-have-brick bats-get-lost. He plainly said "if you are going to complete so late, we are not responsible for your time". He was happy to brag (that too while shouting) about his presence in the event as if without his presence nobody would have cared to run and the whole show would have crashed. Organizers should have announced in the beginning that any runner finishing after 4/5 hours is on his own and things would have been simple as I would have no grounds to complain. But these sarkari people want participation also and then do not want to take care of participants.

Though couple of other volunteers did come to help me out from this fiasco. But I have little hope of this getting resolve now as Indians truly believe in raat gayi baat gayi.

Anyways, I learnt something important. Next time either I will run in a marathon where there is some respect for slow runners or I improve myself enough to run marathon at fast pace. And while living in India, I am bound to encounter sarkari chamachas and bureaucrats who will make me feel like shit after my all efforts, so I have to learn running marathons at fast pace. And also quitting is not an option especially because of useless fucktards called as sarkari afsars.

Another typical sarkari thing, refreshments were in aplenty for all sarkari naukers and their families, other chamchas but not for runners. I know atleast four runners who were clueless about getting refreshments. Couple of did request some sarkari chamcha for the same and I am not sure what happened to their requests. Did not have any patience and strength left to face these fucktards.

But in the end, I was glad that I improved my timing and intend to do better in future irrespective of the fact whether I have any record to prove that or not.

Note to myself - no more running for certificates. It is only for myself.




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