Mikester's Blog

On Customer Service - Part II

I find I seldom if ever blog about mediocrity.  But if something great happens or something unacceptable happens, it makes me think and then I start to write.  So it happens with anything related to how businesses treat their customers.  I had two experiences recently, one good, one not so good.

Minus One

I was on expedia.com doing some travel planning and an offer to do a survey popped up.  Most times I will opt-out but for some reason I thought I'd go ahead and help them out a bit.  After all, it said it was a short survey!  Once I got started, there was no progress indicator whatsoever.  I had no idea whether I was 10% or 90% complete.  There I was answering question after question.  They would throw in a short question and the only one on the page, which led me to believe I was on the last or next to last page.  After that happened a few times, I realized this was not a short survey at all.  I cancelled out of it and wrote up my frustrations to them.  They did write back and apologized.  However, you ask your customers for a favor, which takes time, but you give no candid indication of how much time this actually will take.  It's not a way to win over the hearts of your customers.  I also have bookmarked in my mind to never take an Expedia survey.

Plus One

I go to my local Starbucks on an almost daily basis and I usually use a prepaid Starbucks card to get my coffees.  I have also registered on Starbucks.com and this allows me to check my balance, add money to it, and should my card be lost, I can get the funds back.  Not that there would be much of a loss as I seldom have much of a balance.

But in the last couple of years, Starbucks has added $10 to my card, most recently a couple of days ago.  The reason?  Simple appreciation that I am a loyal customer.  They also sent me two complimentary tickets to the movie Akellah and the Bee, which I consider one of the better movies of this year. 

So I have a nice warm and fuzzy feeling about Starbucks.   I do not have that same feeling with Expedia.  Now there is nothing wrong with Expedia.com and I actually like their website.  But businesses should make it part of their corporate mission statement to treat their customers well.  It is simply good business.

It's not personal, it's very personal

I tend to like explanations of events that are consistent with the known facts.  Something about the split between Viacom/Paramount and Cruise/Wagner productions didn't make any sense to me,  as reported by Sumner Redstone.  I like things that add up.  This one didn't so I took a look at it and posted my analysis here.

Xselerator

I have been really into XML/XSLT this year.  I am particularly interested in using XSL to generate source code and I've been very successful in this regard.  The bible on this subject, as far as I am concerned, is Code Generation in Microsoft .NET, by Kathleen Dollard.  This is where I first encountered this approach and I must say there is a lot to like about doing code generation this way.

Xselerator

I've used a number of tools to edit XML and I have been very frustrated because I feel they should be much better.  I've actually used Visual Studio, Delphi, and Dreamweaver, to name a few, and while they are better than nothing, I figured I could develop one that was superior.  The rub is I have had no interest in doing so.  Anyway, I discovered Xselerator the other day and it does what I really wanted an XML editor to do and at a reasonable price.  I downloaded and installed the 14 day trial and on day one, I ordered the product.  There is an annoying little nag screen that takes away all the joy of using the product and I knew I wanted it, so I purchased it.

The product essentially has a left pane and a right pane.  The left pane is your XML document and the right pane is your XSL document.  You can have multiple documents, each indicated by a notebook tab.  Press F9 and the transformation takes place before your eyes and the result appears in a popup window.  Very slick.  It has intellisense-like functionality, tag completion, puts the cursor in the right place, etc.  It is a very nice product and is something that will speed your development along.   That's good news.