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Old School Mac Evangelist
My friend Michael Guinn has been running a concierge Mac support and repair service in Santa Barbara and just celebrated 8 years of business. As an Apple Certified Consultant, he makes, “Apple Certified House Calls and Repairs.” His newsletters are folksy and remind me of the old TidBITS updates from the early 90’s. Mick is an […]
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Comcast is the new AOL
Eight years ago Vincent Ferrari tried to cancel his AOL account while a customer service rep, “annoyed the shit” out of him vainly trying to stick to his script. AOL Cancellation in 2006 In 2014, Ryan Block, formerly of Engaget (purchased in 2005 by AOL btw) hits a similar wall while he’s pummeled by rep […]
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The Importance of Being Human
The New York Times has a front page story about the All-Japan Phone-Answering Competition. In this day of automated voice mail trees and customer service forms, Japan still stresses the importance of having a human answer the phone promptly and efficiently. What is ironic is that, to the Western ear, the high-pitched tones and honorifics used […]
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Sprinkling Pixie Dust at Disney
My good friends over at PechaKucha redesigned their site months ago and I have been remiss in pointing out what a great place it is for inspiration. Think of it as an archive of narrated slideshows – 20 images, self-advancing every 20 seconds – six and half minutes to tell a story. Like Twitter, the […]
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Serving the Customer
In Japan, attending to the needs of the customer is not only a pre-requisite, it is a minimum requirement to participate in the domestic economy. The Japanese consumer is a particularly fickle shopper. The mere whiff of attitude will drive away shoppers and with it, the business. Back when I lived in Tokyo when VCRs […]