Archive for January, 2007
Great customer service isn’t difficult – even if you mess up
I have a horse with a bad back – its a long story which I won’t bore you with. The upshot was that I had to call out the equine physiotherapist. On her second visit she turned up an hour late, which wouldn’t have been so bad, except it was January and minus several degrees outside so by the time she arrived I couldn’t feel my toes.
She apologised for her lateness (I may have looked a tad miffed), did a great job treating my horse and I thought that was it until today when an envelope turned up in the mail. It was a handwritten card (bonus points for having horses on the front) apologising for being late and enclosing a substantial gift voucher for the local saddlers.
I’ve waited before for late gas men, painters, deliveries and even blacksmiths but no-one has ever bothered to apologise in this way. Can you imagine? Dear Madam, we’re very sorry that we turned up an hour late, please find enclosed a Habitat voucher. Yours, British Gas.
I know it isn’t a cheap way of apologising, but in terms of the customer loyalty and positive word of mouth it would generate (the whole livery yard is going to hear about this), its priceless.
Get a mac
I’m a PC girl through and through (I could never warm to a machine that makes you ask for your disk back, no matter how sexy the design) but the get a mac ads have got me wondering for the first time whether I made the right decision in upgrading to a shiny new PC.
Apple have apparently been running these ads in the states for a few months but they’re just breaking over here. They make choosing a mac the cool, sensible, rational, practical but still slightly subversive and creative thing to do.
Effectively, the ads promise a machine that can run windows, msoffice, itunes, imovie, iphoto etc AND never crash or get a virus. Sounds like an ideal world, so why haven’t companies switched over? I guess change can be scary.
Northern Planning Summit v. 5.1
It takes a lot to keep us away from the promise of beer, random bar snacks and even randomer conversation that make up a night at Northern Planners, but the terrible weather the other week and the travel chaos that ensued was enough to do it.
So here we go again – this Thursday (1st Feb), Arts Cafe, Leeds, 7.30pmish.
don’t laugh, but…
I saw Ken Dodd last night at City Varieties in Leeds.
In my defence, I should state that I was there under duress, but stop laughing at the back, the man is a comedy genius! He kept a full house (including me) laughing non stop until nearly 1AM. And he’s 79 years old for heavens sake. Apparently he has got a reputation for going on a bit, but I knew we were in for a long one when someone came on stage with a flask and sarnies “You haven’t brought your own? How naive!”
The supporting acts were rubbish (William Tell Overture on the banjo, anyone?), but I really enjoyed myself.
Maybe sometimes we need to put our preconceptions to one side and try something new, however uncool it may be.
When its just not Planning
Holy Cow has posted a list of instances when Planners should keep asking why. Very though provoking. Slightly scary too. All those agencies who are playing at shops when it comes to Planning, take note.
Do you perform better when you’re up against the clock?
Northern Planner added an interesting comment today to my Perfect Pitch Live post - do you perform better when you’re up against it?
I know some people who are real Last Minute Larrys, almost needing an impending deadline to get their creative juices flowing. Whereas I’ve always preferred to allow enough time for a change of heart or for a unforeseen crisis to get in the way. Just like I think best in an uncluttered environment while others can only function amidst chaos.
I guess its horses for courses. But when it comes to pitch teams, the most inspiring pitches and projects I’ve been involved in have also been the most intense, with a team bonding together to the extent that no-one is quite sure who really came up with that great idea as it just sort of organically appeared.
I don’t think we’ll ever not have pitches. But if we could get rid of 100 page tender documents and ‘pre qualification questionnaires’, you won’t be hearing any complaints from me.
Agency Books
One agency I used to work for issued all staff with A4 hardback Red Books, while another agency preferred Blue Books. Pretty stupid actually, as daily emails whizzed round on ‘all users’ as yet another account handler had left theirs on someone else’s desk and lost it, along with their sanity and three scribbled contact reports that hadn’t been typed up yet.
One agency chum was so attached to her Red Book that she had an extra one for planning her wedding – or maybe it was a cunning plan to sort out her wedding list in office hours since it looked legitimate…
I prefer A5 spiral bound notebooks (they fit better in my overstuffed handbag) with interesting covers – at least they tend to make their own way back to your desk if you misplace them.
The Long and Windy Road
The blogosphere was especially busy yesterday – presumably because everyone was stuck in their office unable to get home owing to the chaos caused by the weather.
I didn’t join in because I spent a fabulous six and a half hours trying to get Down South for a new business meeting, dodging flying branches and tipped lorries on the way. I arrived safe & sound, but what with the five hour journey back Up North tonight, I’ve had quite enough of motorways for a while.
Smiling Voices
Kathy Sierra has posted on Creating Passionate Users about little things that make her smile. On a GNER train down to London this week, the on-board announcement at 3pmish ran:
“we’re now serving lunch…or dinner if you want to call it that…anyway, if you want a lovely meal, please come and join us…”.
Natural, warm, honest and proud. Perhaps not entirely reflective of GNER’s brand values, but all the better for it.
