Hanging out on Hold is down right painful and even worse when you already have a problem with a service provider.

Last winter I reached my limit with BellSouth, my DSL provider at the time.  BellSouth never really understood that they were my DSL provider and they were incapable of realizing that I was one of their first DSL customers.  In fact BellSouth labored under the mistaken notion that they provided my phone service.  They also thought that I picked up DSL as an accessory to my phone service.

BellSouth was wrong.  Their assumption would be akin Delta assuming that they are my snack, beverage and lite lunch provider.  I use Delta for their flight travel service not for their food service.  Or it would be similar to The Wall Street Journal assuming that they provide me the service of delivering plastic pink bags to my door instead of the newspaper that just happens to be protected by a plastic pink bag.

Anyway, last winter I had to make my bi-annual call to BellSouth to get something fixed on my account. 

Something was always going wrong on the account.

I’d call and spend a half hour at a time on hold in between transfers to the wrong department until I had racked up the requisite 6 hours spent on hold, sometimes over a 2-3 day period with the looming specter of an account shut off waiting to pounce on my telecommuting self.  Eventually, I’d get someone that knew enough not to transfer me, or maybe they just felt spunky.

Anyway I’d lay out the issue and provide all the evidence and receive the expected yearly reply of ‘Well, we are really sorry but we can’t fix it.’  To which I would reply, ‘Ok, you can take your service and shove it.’

Now sometimes this would result in a pinch hitter coming in to relieve the previous batter, which is allowed in regulation ball under BellSouth rules.  Something would tip off BellSouth that this was important to them, even though they couldn’t always understand why since I was a ‘phone customer’ complaining about ‘dsl’.

So what do they do, they offer me a discount or a free month or two of service, yada yada yada.

This type of placatory offer is nice, but the value usually ranged from $28 - $150 and rarely even came close to the cost of my time on hold or the cost of the service disruption or the cost of lost business due to either the hold time or service disruption.  It never came close to the cost of my overall aggravation.

So after being a customer since BellSouth launched DSL, I dropped them cold and switched to Comcast.  The switch was painful and ultimately created a situation where I was paying for two services at the same time to avoid a drop in service, but it was absolutely necessary.

BellSouth suffered from an inability to learn from their mistakes.  I had gone through this scenario with BellSouth every six months for five or six years.  I’d never actually canceled before, but they just were not getting it.

BellSouth needed three things. 

1. They needed a tool to analyze conversations with their customers to identify the trends that were causing serious problems.
2. They needed that tool to trigger an automatic transfer to the BellSouth President’s Hotline (which I’ve called for some of my most egregious issues)
3. They needed the ability to fix their processes, retrain their people and recognize the service that their DSL Customers are paying for and evolve out of the mind set that people primarily need a wired phone service.  (I do not, I have more than enough phone numbers from work, to cell phone to VOIP, not to mention my wife’s cell phone as a backup if I need it too!  A home land line is nothing more than a number that allows telemarketers to reach me on a nightly basis, and yes I’m on the do not call list.)

BellSouth lost me to Churn because they did not have the three things I mentioned.  These things do not cost that much money.  The analytics tools are available from places like callminer.com (click on Churn to view their whitepapers.)

In this case BellSouth already had the mechanism to route serious problems to a Presidential Hotline.  However, they couldn’t act to fix the problems and this was primarily a result from their cultural or strategic inability to understand their customers.  Again, analytics tools covering customer phone conversations could have helped them build that understanding and make necessary changes in their strategy.

Hopefully, Comcast will not get confused and start thinking that they are my cable company instead of being my broadband service company.

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I’d like to spotlight some information on the Silver Market utilizing mindmaps.  Monex recently published a release on investments potential in the silver market.

This prompted me to do a little research and take a look at the complexities of investing in precious metals in general and more specifically in Silver, which has a unique history.

I came across an interesting article by Douglas Kanarowski titled ‘One Dozen Silver Investor Mistakes.’  The actual article is somewhat long and detailed.  The details are definitely worth reading, however I thought this would make a good case study for mindmapping, which among other things is good at bringing the main points into focus to form a big picture view.

Here is a quick map that I put together to illustrate the point. 

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Small, medium and large companies all share one thing in common, sometimes they need more help.  Hiring a permanent replacement or addition to the team is often not necessary, so companies will often seek out temporary help. 

Solutions for this problem have evolved over the last few decades, here’s a quick run down:

Business 1.0

• Go put an ad in the newspaper
• Call a friend or a friend of a friend
• Promote the mail room person

Business 2.0

• Place an ad on Monster
• Call a friend or a friend of a friend
• Call Manpower, hire a temp, train them and give them a cube
• Do it yourself at night after hours because
  • most of the above are too much of a corporate hassle to deal with as compared to just doing it yourself, and
  • you are quickly running out of friends or even friends of friends of friends that have any spare time or availability for a project.

Business 3.0

• Everything in Business 1.0 or 2.0 or
• You can hire a virtual assistant or online contractor

Benefits of Virtual Assistants

Virtual assistants don’t require cube space, laptops or even a phone.  This can be a big help, especially if you are a telecommuter yourself.  As an example, INVESP virtual assistants can provide virtual assistance with writing, editing, project management, business plan write ups, or general administrative work.  They can cover claims processing, invoicing, desktop publishing, business card design and more.

The pricing is comparable to what you would expect to pay for services from Manpower or any other temp or contracting agency, but you save money on overhead.  Cubicles, computers and phones cost money, if they are even available.  A virtual assistant does not have the need for these excesses.  Plus, as the manager you do not have to change your own schedule or routine as much to get them going and working.  You don’t have to call in that favor with the head of IT to have a laptop configured by say, ‘Oh how about tomorrow?  No, Next week?!’ 

You can get someone working and up to speed on the job and project right away.

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The PC Buying race is on after Microsoft just dropped the flag.  Microsoft announced yesterday that it will offer free Vista operating system upgrades or discounts on Vista in relation to new PC purchases.

Every few years when Microsoft rolls out a new OS it will eventually offer an incentive for buyers to pick up a new PC that is still loaded with the old OS.  This clears out the distribution and retail channell to make way for the new PC’s to be loaded with the new OS. 

It also removes doubt from holiday buyers that are on the fence and don’t need another excuse to pick up a PC.

It doesn’t however assure customers that the new PC they pick up will be optimal for use with Vista, so make sure you check the minimum hardware requirements for Vista before you buy!

If you don’t want to wait for Vista, you can try it through the Microsoft Customer Review Program.

For more information on the Microsoft Vista program, try searching Google News with keywords Microsfot Vista free

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So Internet Explorer 7.0 is out and Microsoft is finally working to compete against Firefox. Normally, Catch-up is not a game that a company likes to play, however, Microsoft has a long and proven track record of not only catching up but of dominating once they do (not making any value judgements about tactics).

I’ve been working with Firefox for many months now and I’ve been working with Internet Explorer 7 for several weeks.

Currently, I’d say that Firefox is winning the race hands down right now, but the track is a long one and Microsoft has the money and connections to potentially catch up. I have a real simple reason why I think Firefox is winning.

1. Firefox works
2. Firefox has an extensive ecosystem of add-ons
3. Internet Explorer won’t run on my primary laptop

I’m tackling these points in reverse order:

Ok, so I’m a little selfish, but I have this general rule of thumb that if a software program is not compatible with my primary system, then I will not endorse it! (I’m running XP Pro, but have corporate installed anti-virus protection running and its not compatible. It was also an extreme pain in the rear, to get IE7 off my system and IE6 back on so that I’d have IE at all.)

Now, Microsoft has some good reasons for making a browser that is not compatible with some corporate computers, but at the end of the day its a pretty ignorant move to push out a software program when their highest paying customers can’t use it. They should have worked out a deal with the anti-virus folks to get something to market that works. The anti-virus folks are in some serious need of cash to pay tax bills and things, so I’m sure deep pockets Microsoft could have worked out something.

Now, Firefox’s big advantage over IE7 - now that they both have tabbed browsing - is its excellent build out of an add-on ecosystem. They make it very easy for users to customize their Firefox web surfing experience. Do you comment on blogs, well get a Co-comment add on to keep track of all those comments.

The Add-on Ecosystem

1. Do you want the ability to provide a cookie crumb like trail complete with post it comments along the way to walk someone through your internet research? Check out the grait Trailfire add-on.
2. Do you spend a little or make a little through google? There’s an add-on for that.
3. Are you a graphic designer and need to measure buttons and art on websites? Just try MeasureIt
4. Need a download management tool? You guessed it there are dozens of them complete with reviews and more!

Just a Minute Trailfire works with IE7 too!

Oh, wait, IE7 is partnering with Trailfire too(Firefox Extension; Internet Explorer 7 add-on), OK no advantage for Firefox here anymore. I guess Trailfire is playing it smart and working to take care of customers on both sides. This also marks the slim advantage that Firefox has. Firefox has momentum, but IE7 will eventually work for corporate users, and will eventually capture many of the same extensions offered on Firefox.

Trailfire is an important tool and a great example of Web 2.0 technology at work. It allows people to capture their knowledge or insight into a web site and rapidly share that knowledge with anyone they choose. Its great for research teams, students, and especially for business.

I guess the real question is how long will it take IE7 to actually catch-up with Firefox! If memory serves it took Microsoft about 3-4 years to catch up with Netscape back in the 90’s. Somehow I think they might be able to do this a little faster this time. They are behind, but not as far behind as they were back then.

Oh and by the way, Firefox is not asleep at the wheel. Firefox 2.0 is coming out very soon!

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