United We Stand... Or Fall

It used to be that a company's worst PR nightmare was a parent dishing at a little league game or to be prominently featured on the 6 o'clock news in a negative light. Not anymore. Now a company's worst customer service nightmare is to reap what they sow in terms of suffering at the hands of someone who truly understands how to use social media to make a point.

Hint: musicians love their instruments and rely on them to make a living. Do NOT - repeat, DO NOT - mistreat a professional musician's instrument.



It doesn't matter if it's David Carroll or the previously-better-known Louden Wainwright III.

In the matter of just a couple of days, hundreds of thousands of people have watched, commented on, and retweeted Carroll's music video, United Breaks Guitars (last check, one version showed more than 1.5M views). Tough spot for United to be in at this point, but they're doing the best they can, having completely botched all earlier opportunities to handle the matter differently or avoid the trouble altogether. Sure, the fine print reads that luggage might get damaged along the way, but presumably not through gross negligence.

Lest anyone feel inclined to blame any one individual (such as the poor Ms. Irlweg named in the song), note that more than one baggage handler was involved and Carroll dealt with multiple United employees. This was a systemic failure, all the way from the lack of caring on the part of various employees to the policies that hand-cuffed those who may have wished to handle the matter otherwise.

And it's not just Carroll who has experienced such horrible customer service at the hands of an airline. You don't rack up a million views of a video just because it's clever and well-done (though that certainly helps) - this song strikes a chord with people because they've all had similar experiences. When something resonates this strongly, social media just acts like an amplifier.

Not surprisingly, Carroll doesn't want compensation at this late date. That opportunity is long gone. If United really does use the video for training, it could go a long ways toward improving future customer experience, but no matter what, they have a long haul ahead of them to get out of the hole they've dug for themselves.

If the best way to handle such situations is to avoid them in the first place, let's take a look at what it takes to deliver stellar customer service.

First, the front-line employees themselves have to care. They are the ones who are handling bags, food, repairs, whatever it is that you're selling to or doing for customers. Front-line employees are also the customer service agents, wait staff, front desk people, flight attendants, etc who are interacting directly with customers. If they don't care about customers or their role in keeping customers satisfied, nothing else matters.

So what makes employees care or not care? Each business is a bit different but making them feel treated fairly, including fair compensation, comes to mind. If the business exhibits no loyalty or caring for their employees, it is rare they will show any loyalty toward the business or caring for their customers.

It doesn't mean that you have to throw money at the employees, but in an era when there still exists a larger-than-before pay gap between executives and line employees, and businesses like airlines regularly demand (and get) concessions from employees only to renege on promises later or fail to share the wealth when more profitable times come along, it's wise to think about the impact that has on employee morale. Argue all you want about who creates the most value for the company but just remember that the effectiveness of your customer service initiative is only as strong as your weakest link.

And there are other ways besides financial rewards to motivate employees. Give the middle managers (and their managers) the training needed to find out what is meaningful to each of their employees and the power to act on that information.

Fostering a culture of caring about customers and using that sentiment to guide everyday decisions and actions is another key. This culture of customer service has to spread throughout the organization and not be limited to front-line customer service agents reading from some script. So often we talk about empowering employees to do what's right without really delving into what that's supposed to mean and ensuring it looks, acts and sounds like the ideal of ensuring happy customers satisfied with your product or service.

When it comes right down to it, whatever the excuses are for not doing the things that result in happy customers, it just means you (as a business first, as an employee second) don't care about the customer enough to find a cost-effective way to deliver what they want. Where you might have survived a little league game or a negatively-slanted news story in the past, your chances of surviving a social media body blow today are a lot slimmer.

Now is the time to fully re-commit to your customers on a company-wide basis, starting with re-committing to your employees, fostering a culture centered around satisfying customers, and providing the training needed to make satisfied customers a reality. If you don't, you're just a social media-savvy clever songwriter away from ultimate disaster.

How have you helped foster a culture of service in your organization?

iPod Mini Weirdness

I've been feeling like a person possessed lately, what with some of the projects I've been working on, trying to get caught up after my sister's visit to town, and getting (no-longer-quite-so) Small Person ready for school. But really, what's possessed at the moment is my iPod Mini.

I haven't the faintest clue what's up with it - all of a sudden it's on, making little clicking noises like someone is using it and trying to find a song or an album to play, and it won't even turn off anymore. Fortunately, I've got it plugged in so the battery won't drain completely but the most convenient spot for that puts it right near where I work at the computer, so I'm constantly hearing the clicking noises or noticing the backlight go on and off. Urg.

And no, it's not the alarm. Even if it was, I don't believe that would explain why I can't turn the darned thing off. So - when I feel like I have the time, I'll research the matter some more and hopefully will come up with some kind of workable solution. There is truth, though, to the notion that we often put off doing things until it becomes more painful to live with the problem than it is to address it. I am most definitely in that mode at the moment with the Mini.

If you have suggestions or just care to commiserate, feel free to comment.

What are you tolerating and what will it take for you to stop tolerating it?

Avvo Joins the Party

You know how a good host is supposed to introduce people who might have something in common and then wander off to help others? Well, I probably missed a great opportunity to be a good host and it seems that Avvo and Lawyerpalooza folks found each other anyway even without my help.

Tall Person - AKA Rock God with The Big Lubersky (sadly, not playing this year) - let me know recently that Avvo will support Lawyerpalooza 6, coming up Thursday evening, April 24. Rumor has it that there could be Avvo-styled ratings cards for the judges to hold up to score the bands. How perfect is that - the website that lets you rate attorneys helping to rate attorney rock bands!

Then, I turn around a short day or two later and hear from an excited Avvo person, "Hey, did you know there's a Lawyerpalooza where lawyers play rock music in a battle of the bands!?"

D'oh! Yes, I am feeling a bit sheepish that I didn't facilitate that connection earlier! Everything seems to be humming along smoothly now though anyway so no harm, no foul I guess. Just... well... oops.

Anyway, I plan not to worry about it too much come Thursday, when I turn into a professional groupie. As those who know me already understand, I'm likely to be moving pretty slowly on Friday morning, with all the dancing I'll be doing in support of underfunded Seattle school music programs. I keep fairly active, but when you dance all evening and don't ever sit down, that can take a bit of a toll.

If you're there, come keep me company on (or near) the dance floor or at least say 'hi'. You don't even have to dance if you don't want to, though it's way more fun if you do. And don't forget to bring cash for the bar and "Chicago voting" (vote early and often) for your favorite band(s). Food is provided by Avvo.

What helps you get over the small stuff and remember "it's all good"?

Crazy On You

Sometimes it's nice to know that I'm not the only one plagued with jingle nightmares - in my case, in a very literal sense. I actually woke up hearing the Subway $5 foot long jingle, and then couldn't get back to sleep! Even reading the story about it was enough to get the jingle stuck in my head for half the day.

The story did help though. It doesn't guarantee that I'm not crazy, just confirms that I'm not alone. That's good enough for me today.

What thoughts are overstaying their welcome?

Retro Me This...

As forward thinking as I tend to be most times, I definitely have a nostalgic side. I make my kid listen to Bad 70's Music. If I decide I'm really comfortable in the clothes I wear one day, I might just wear them again the next day. Especially if I think you haven't already seen me in them. Today, I'm wearing my now-vintage Attachmate Hardware team vest, complete with the old heart logo. I realize that old logo caused plenty of confusion - and I'll miss it anyway.

I recently spotted an AmazonFresh truck here in Bellevue, and it brought on such a wave of nostalgia, I nearly swooned. Okay, so not really, but it was a way cooler sighting than most people would probably think it to be. So, does anyone know - are these the old HomeGrocer trucks repainted? It sure looked like it to me.

Despite the ease with which some people ridicule HomeGrocer as a failed dot-bomb, I am proud to wear the hat with the peach and I am glad to see the return of the trucks. I'm not a former employee, as plenty of other parents at soccer games have guessed. Just a former customer who was quite loyal to to the service.

Back in the days when Small Person was a young toddler and Tall Person and I were both working full-time in the corporate world, getting groceries delivered was about the only way food was going to enter our household unless you count doggie bags.

HomeGrocer understood their market very well and did an excellent job bringing treats and fresh fruit samples to keep me thinking of things I might add to my next order. Although I haven't tried out AmazonFresh yet, there are some hallmarks of the earlier service that sound very familiar and I'm guessing it's the same business getting a new life under a different name.

Don't expect to catch me at a casino to see some favorite act from my youth anytime soon, but I do enjoy a good comeback. You can bet I'll be looking for a reason to order groceries online pretty soon... and chances are pretty good I'll be wearing that vest when I do. For the second (or even third) day in a row.

Send your experiences with AmazonFresh to techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com - especially if you're a former HomeGrocer customer, and let's compare notes. I'm curious if the market has shifted enough to make this venture a go or if they'll have learned enough from the first failure to make this effort a success.

What's worth keeping or bringing back in your life?

Whattaya Call It

Sometimes a person's knowledge of terminology is indicative of their level of expertise. Sometimes it's not. I once advocated against hiring a person partly because his level of understanding of token ring functionality amounted to the belief that the system would "ring like a telephone" for the intended device. Umm, not quite. The notion of passing the token around to each device in turn was completely beyond him and he didn't have the other skills we were looking for to be able to make up for that lack.

Then there was the owner of Key Largo Airport Marina back in the 80's - where I believe the Port Largo / Marina del Mar / Ocean Cay complex is today. This guy had extensive flying experience and, if I recall correctly, had run a MAC airbase somewhere in the northeast. He knew aviation and therefore understood both charts and airfoils. Everything he knew about sailing, he explained once, came from understanding that sails are just vertical airfoils and from keeping in mind that nautical charts are very similar to aeronautical charts.

That's not to say that sailing with the guy was particularly easy or comfortable. He had almost zero knowledge of nautical terms, so it was pretty common to hear instructions such as, "grab that thing-y and pull it over and tighten it" - which led to a fair amount of confusion at times when the desired results weren't entirely obvious.

On top of that, his knowledge of knots was limited to the two or three most commonly used in flying - a number far short of the half-dozen or more that are most useful in sailing. Still, his knots usually held well enough to do what they really had to do. A bowline is a decent enough all-purpose knot. And he was always able to make the boat do what he wanted it to. In that, I grew to have a great deal of confidence though it helped too that I understood sailing pretty well myself. Overall, his was a case where ignorance does not necessarily translate to incompetence.

When I'm hiring, I have to be careful to take the time to make that distinction. Once or twice (at least - and one of these was even this year) I've been on the other side of that equation and I've noticed that not everyone knows how to assess competence separately from use of the local jargon. When you can't always hire for experience in every single skill you really want for a position, it's imperative to be able to assess the level of competence an individual can bring to the role anyway.

The corollary to this situation is that at least some hiring managers are probably fooled into believing a candidate is competent simply because they seem to know the nomenclature and I'm sure that is not always a valid assumption. Personally, I don't much like to see people get where they do simply through their ability to regurgitate buzz words or mimic language meant to describe underlying principles that they don't really understand. All hat and no cattle, as they say.

Here's what knowledge of the language is good for - when the terminology is tightly defined and broadly agreed upon, it speeds communication and makes the process more accurate as well more efficient. This is, of course, the trouble with buzzwords. More people believe they know what these words mean or are intended to mean than really do. Effective communication is undermined, not enhanced, in such cases.

"Drop the jib" and "Ready about" mean very specific actions that are readily comprehended by anyone in the know. Just as important, these are the kinds of terms a person must know to be of any real help on board a sailboat - though clearly knowing the terms is not a pre-requisite for knowing what you want or how to get it. It just makes it easier to be understood.

On the other hand, "What tools do you use in project management" could refer to software applications and other actual 'tools' used to support the work of managing projects or it also could refer to the cognitive approach or methodology used in the work itself. Actually talking about what it is that you want is an important step in establishing the context and even then, the context isn't the whole story.

Many competent individuals can be reasonably expected to use, or at least readily understand, many of the variously identified project management methodologies without necessarily knowing the specific nomenclature arbitrarily assigned to them. While I'm all for identifying good skills (project management and otherwise), I also like to be able to differentiate between that and marketing hype.

This is just a bias I have and I realize it's not shared by everyone. Feel free to disagree. Either make a comment or send a message to techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com - you wouldn't be the first and I happen to believe it leads to better understanding all the way around.

How do I show my expertise and capabilities?

Contextualize Me

The resident small person is pretty sure today that I'm crazy. We had a good gentle soaking rain going and since he was bored, I had him entertain me with the tale of Hansel and Gretel. After writing about trails of breadcrumbs recently, I panicked momentarily, thinking perhaps he didn't know the story and therefore might not understand the significance of things like breadcrumbs in current parlance.

It turns out, I didn't have any reason to worry - he was able to tell the story quite well with full detail and a lot of good storytelling technique. Apparently it's in one of his books; I guess we've been better than I'd feared at ensuring his cultural literacy. Whew!

It's in the interests of establishing a fluency in cultural literacy that I let the small person watch and encourage him to listen to old stuff that shaped my own generation and those that came before me. At least I hope it's more that than bad parenting or an occasional guilty indulgence in what we jokingly refer to around our house as "Bad 70's music" - and no fair saying that's redundant!

I believe in the adage that those who are ignorant about history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. I also believe that understanding context is key to understanding anything. You know - the inside jokes, kind of had to have been there kind of thing?

I'm sure you run into the same sort of thing at work - where there is historical context that is as critical to avoiding past mistakes as it is to understanding current language, decisions, culture, and so forth. That doesn't mean living in the past or adhering to old practices simply because "we've always done it this way." History needn't lock us into the same old problems. Sometimes what didn't work before will work now because the situation has changed. Understanding the context helps provide the clues as to what will work best in the current situation based on what has gone before.

What we need in organizations are storytellers who can capture the history and keep it fresh for all who need it. If that person isn't you, I hope you know who is!

I'm interested in your thoughts on the relationship between progress and historical context. Send them to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let's find the the creative edge between past and future together.

What am I doing to capture and learn from where we've/I've been?

Get Ready to Rock

So - what are your plans to celebrate Mt. St. Helens eruption day (5/18)? Much as I'd love to attend the Attachmate reunion and find out what everyone at the Circle-A Ranch is up to and what the deal is with the latest post-merger acquisition, I'll be too busy dancin' the night away at Lawyerpalooza down by Safeco Field. If there was an easy way to do both, I suppose I would but I'm so involved in LP4 that offering my help where it's needed and making sure I tend to my duties as a professional groupie really are my first priorities.

Of course, you're more than welcome to join me there at the Premier Club (a great venue for this kind of event) as a sort of anti-reunion if you like. It's likely to be far too loud to be able to tell me what you've been up to lately, which is okay since I'll probably be dancing instead of standing around talking anyway. On the good side, I promise I won't be handing out business cards, though I suppose I'll have some stashed somewhere if you're actually looking for one.

The last three events have been a total party, and I expect this year to be no different, especially since we've got some pretty hot sounding new bands joining us. How weird is it, though, that one of the bands comes out of the public defender's office and another comes out of the prosecuter's office? Should make for some interesting Chicago-style voting!

If you come out for the show, be sure to look for me; I'll be the one dancing even if no one else is. And if you go to the Attachmate reunion, be sure to say hello to everyone for me and give me a report afterward. And remember, any Circle-A stuff you still have laying around these days is vintage now!

If you want tickets to Lawyerpalooza or have news to share about the Attachmate reunion, let me know at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com.

How can you use the best from your past now, and in the future?

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Kimm Viebrock is a Certified Professional Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organization, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.