A Little Bitching.

In a letter commenting on a Harvard Business Review article on customer service, the president of a consulting company specializing in costumer service commented that only emotionally satisfied customers increased their spending because “The reason is quite simple. Customers expect satisfactory customer service, so providing it does not translate into increased loyalty and value.”

But that’s wrong. We don’t ‘expect satisfactory customer service’. We hope for it, we wish for it, but what we expect -- is to be disappointed.

My wife ordered 4 filters from Sam’s Club online. When the box arrived, the exterior box was undamaged, but inside one of the filter boxes was ripped open and the filter damaged, and another filter box was filthy dirty. In other words, the filters were in this condition before they were packed.

I called Sam’s Club customer service on December 30^th and spoke to a representative who told me she would have the two bad filters replaced.

Then, a couple of weeks later the Sam’s Club representative called about the filters. She said she spoke to the vendor and I needed to talk to the vendor. I said, “Vendor? what are you talking about, we ordered these from Sam’s Club.” After a brief discussion I suggested that she connect the two of us to the vendor and we resolve the issue together. She asked if she could put me on hold while she made the connection. I sat there on hold as long as I could which was an unusually long time but then had to run an errand and after 20 minutes I disconnected. I received no call back.

That evening I wrote a letter to Brian Cornell, the CEO of Sam’s Club letting him know what happened and suggesting that I should not have to talk to a vendor if I order from Sam’s. Otherwise, I should just order from the vendor, what value does Sam’s add in that case, it just adds a layer of complication that I don’t need. I asked that he please have someone resolve this little problem.

That was three weeks ago. I’ve heard nothing.

A Costco just opened up down the street...perhaps...

Engaged Employees Do It For Their Self-Worth.

Muhammad Yunus, who shared the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, understood the idea of linking personal values to the work performed. His Grameen bank established a set of stars signifying achievement of a particular goal for a branch. If the branch achieved all five goals, the branch received all five stars. The staff pursued these stars with a passion, even though the bank attached no financial incentives to the achievement. In his book Banker to the Poor, Yunus wrote, “They are not doing it for any monetary benefit. They are doing it...to prove their worth to themselves.”

Yunus understood that people come up to, or down to, the level set for them by their environment. He wrote, “One cannot but wonder how an environment can make people despair and sit idle and then, by changing the conditions, one can transform the same people into matchless performers.” He saw this remarkable aspect of the human condition, just as Toyota had seen it. People respond to the environment into which they are thrust. To let them be their best, leaders need to establish the right environment to allow people the opportunity to prove their worth to themselves.

Solve This Business Problem

Here is a fun business problem to solve:

http://innovationceo.com/ProblemSoving.html

What's with Cadillac's online strategy. Same old GM!

Interaction with Cadillac's web site:

http://www.novogrow.info/files/Cadillav.pdf

FastCompany Article: bring free, low-speed Internet to the poor

Ahumanright.org Aims to Buy Commercial Satellite for the World's Poor

A new organization has an audacious goal: buying and reconfiguring a communications satellite to bring free, low-speed Internet to the global south. Click to go to article.

Guest Blog: Creating New Knowledge.

Here is a link to a guest blog where I posted a short article on creating new knowledge:

Giving Thanks

When Richard Feynman was a boy of thirteen he hung around guys who were a bit older. One day one of the older boys, with the cooperation of his girlfriend, was demonstrating how to kiss. After observing the expert’s technique, Feynman finds a girl, they sit on the couch, and begin to practice the art of kissing when excitement fills the room be “Arlene is coming, Arlene is coming!”

Arlene was very pretty, but Feynman was otherwise occupied and not inclined to change what he was doing just because the queen walks into the room. But later it became obvious to Feynman that she had captured his interest and later his heart. She was very popular. Feynman was the skinny, studious kid and had lots of competition from more able bodied boys.

He was very shy at first. But as they became friends and grew close he began to enjoy more of her time and attention. They began to go steady. Later, while Feynman did his undergraduate work at MIT and his graduate work at Princeton he would go home to see Arlene as frequently as he could. During the time he was at Princeton, Arlene became ill. At first the doctors thought she had typhoid fever, then they were certain it was Hodgkin’s disease, but finally she was diagnosed with tuberculosis of the lymphatic gland. In the early 1940, tuberculosis was a fatal disease for most patients. Arlene was going to die.

They married anyway and were very careful with this highly contagious disease. When Feynman was sent to Los Alamos to help in the war effort Arlene came along. Oppenheimer arrange for her to live in the nearest hospital about a hundred miles away in Albuquerque. Feynman went to see her often and she was a prankster. But after a couple of years the disease caught up with them and she slipped away.

Feynman carried this great love for Arlene and the sadness of losing her his whole life. But he treated it as a rich part of being human, and felt fortunate to have lived through such a beautiful love. He managed to be a happy man his whole life.

Richard and Arlene Feynman were on the wrong side of medical science. Had her disease occurred later, antibiotics could have saved her.

The marvelous situation my wife, my children, and I find ourselves in, is that we are on the other side of medical science. Thirteen years ago, my wife was diagnosed with another fatal lung disease affecting the lymphatics for which there was no cure, but because the disease is slow in its progression, a lung transplant provides a new lease on life. Two and a half years later, Linda had deteriorated and was struggling for breath when we got the miraculous call that matching lungs for her rare blood type were available. Today, nearly eleven years later my wife is doing wonderfully.

We are giving thanks this day to everyone who contributed to making this great gift possible, from the scientists, to the doctors and nurses, the donor family, my employer at the time Citigroup, whose insurance program covered the enormous costs involved, to our friend, our neighbors, our families who all came forward and help us during the crisis. Thank you all!!