Category Archives: Customer Relations

How Social Interactive Media Could Transform Higher Education

06 Thursday May 2010

Posted by in College, Consulting, Customer Relations, Customer Service, Higher Education, Independent Studies, Information Technology, Management Practices, parenting, Public Relations, Re-Imagine!, Rotary, Social Interactive Media (SIM), Social Media Relations, Tom Peters, Universities

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by Paul Kiser

Mom!

A Future Phone Conversation Between Mom and her Son
Mom! I just got a flash from Dr. Ramjan..HE ACCEPTED ME!!!!…Yes!…I start his program right away….for crepe’s sake Mom, it’s not like when you went to college. I don’t have to go sit in a classroom and listen to some no-name drone on about stuff nobody cares about!….No, I’m not slamming your education, but honestly Mom why did you put up with it? Going to classes, paying for parking, student fees, and being told what professors you had to learn from, etc., etc….

Paul Kiser - CEO 2020 Enterprise Technologies

Tomorrow’s College to Be Professor Based, Not University Based?
Brick and mortar universities have created elaborate rules and policies (and fees) that tell a student what classes they must complete (some required, a few elective) to obtain a degree. Many of the classes will have facts based on outdated research that must be memorized for tests. In the end the student has a degree that includes course work that had little to do with what is going in today’s working world, but was forced on him or her by a system of Higher Education that is designed for the education of a group, not of an individual.

Social Interactive Media (SIM) tools create new options for Higher Education that could overcome many of the shortcomings of the current University environment. Here are a few issues with the status quo and how Social Interactive Media offers solutions to these issues:

Less Education at a Higher Cost – Universities are slashing budgets as they are being given less money with which to operate.  This means larger classes, fewer professors, and older facilities and equipment.

SIM Solution: Eliminate the major costs of massive campuses and administrative overhead using Social Media as a student’s access to the professor. The classroom can be anywhere in the world, including in the field or in the student’s home. This is not a new idea and the use of the Internet for teaching is becoming widely accepted.

Lack of Choice – In the University environment the student has little say in what classes they will take and even less choice in the professor. The professor might be a graduate student with little or no teaching experience, or a tenured professor that has years of teaching experience, but has not performed any research in his or her field for a decade or more.

SIM Solution – Allow the student to choose the seminars and the instructors based on the information and reputation of the professors through blogs and references online. This may create a new classification of the Education Coach who advises and recommends professors and course work. Perhaps Education Coaches will be individually accredited and specialize in certain fields, or perhaps they will be accredited to help a student define a general studies (liberal arts) type program.

Inflexible Scheduling – University classes are based on the concept of group teaching, which requires all students conform their lives to the schedule determined by administrators.

SIM Solution – Individualized studies where the professor works with the student schedules programs that are mutually beneficial.

For decades there have been versions of independent study programs and in the past decade, many legitimate Internet-based colleges programs; however, the negatives of the existing University environment, exacerbated by funding shortfalls open the door to Re-Imagining higher education as a Student/Professor centered system that is relevant, rather than an administrator/bureaucratic centered system that is insensitive to the individual.

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United and Continental Airlines: Merger with the Devil

03 Monday May 2010

Posted by in Customer Relations, Customer Service, Human Resources, Management Practices, Public Relations, Re-Imagine!, Rotary, Social Media Relations, Tom Peters

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by Paul Kiser

Paul Kiser – CEO of Enterprise Technologies, inc.

They are not too big to fail and personally that is the only viable option I see for United Airlines. I apologize for my tone, but United Airlines is the worst of the worst and I’m not alone in my opinion.

Today it was announced that United Airlines and Continental Airlines are officially merging. What a dumb move on Continental’s part.  Here are some of the comments I picked up about this merger:

“United is nothing but a mediocre airline, I don’t think I want to be combined with that work force. Continental has better customer service, it has a better product.” (1)

A Continental Airlines pilot that didn’t want to be identified

This is a sad day…united sucks…continental is an awesome airline. Some asshole will get a HUGE bonus for this and we travelers will get sh*t for service and surly b**ches at check in from united. I really hate American business nowadays. (2)

Comment to a Blog (I masked the worst of the vulgarity)

The worst kept secret in the airline industry is that United is a dysfunctional, uncaring, arrogant, and consistently bad air carrier. It has the public image of GM when Congress was considering bailing the car maker out in 2009. Songs have been written about United’s poor customer service.

(Listen to United Breaks Guitars by David Carroll)

United Airline service can best be summarized by this slogan: “We don’t care, we don’t have to.”

United is destined for failure and this merger seems to confirm that UAL continues to take action for all the wrong reasons. This merger is done for one purpose and one purpose only:  a desperate attempt to show the investors that it is doing something, anything, to avoid certain death.

United demise has been a slow, painful process of false promises, betrayals, and really, really bad management. United employees have been jerked around so many times that they no longer care about customer service. I have interacted with them enough to see that UAL has institutionalized poor customer service.

One example happened to me last year at Denver International Airport. I was flying with my four year-old boy and we were checking in for a flight from Denver to Reno on United. As we approached the ticketing area we walked past 80 or more ticket kiosks that were wide open. They were all reserved for the handful of passengers with no baggage or for international travelers, while passengers with baggage were only offered ten or so kiosks and a 30 minute wait in a long line. They had more people directing traffic for the long line than they had assisting passengers. That is not poor customer service, that’s customer loathing. United employees have heard it all, seen it all, and they see no reason to care.

My guess is that new employees at United are trained by people who are so cynical about their management and customers that they drive out any spark of hope in the rookies. That level of institutionalized hate for your job can’t be fixed without massive changes in staff. It would take a complete wipe of all levels of management and dismissal of almost all rank and file employees to excise the environment of customer hate that exists at United. A merger may make investors happy but it changes nothing in the poisonous environment that will spread to Continental after the merger.

Is there any hope? Not likely. The company name will stay United, so people will associate Continental employees with the sour employees at United. That’s not good. Jeffery A. Smisek, the CEO of Continental, will be the CEO of the new company, but United’s headquarters in Chicago will be the HQ for the new organization, which means the United ongoing leadership attitudes and problems will be retained.

Regarding the merger, Smisek said, “This combination brings together the best of both organizations and cultures to create a world-class airline with tremendous and enduring strengths.”  and  added, “Together, we will have the financial strength necessary to make critical investments to continue to improve our products and services and to achieve and sustain profitability.”(3)

Note that Smisek says nothing, not a word, about the 800-pound gorilla in United’s Operations, which is bad, really bad, customer service. United Airlines wouldn’t be out looking for a merger if it wasn’t a house of cards ready to collapse, but the new CEO seems blissfully ignorant that most flyers would fly anything but United.

All this is good for the customer because it will probably lead to the demise of a mega airline within 36 months after the completion of the merger and the equipment will be sold off to smaller carriers.

However, I can see a small opportunity for a turnaround, but it would be a miracle. First, it is that Public Relations professionals dream because they can go no where but up. Second, all public image is local, so it would take massive retraining of the staff to do a Tom Peters’ Re-Imagine! of the company. The extreme makeover would have to happen at the rank and file level. If they don’t buy into a 10.0 seismic shift in customer service the makeover is doomed. Investors be damned, everything would have to be done to make the passenger a VIP. No baggage fees, no accountants counting nickels and dimes.

Realistically the dynamics at United make the task impossible. Labor unions, cynical employees, authoritarian managers, accountant infestation and investor worship, all would work against the goal of excellent customer service, so that leaves the obvious option: let United die. It is unfortunate that United will take Continental down with them, but I guess they asked for it. Dumb move.

(1) Top News Article: http://topnews.us/content/218898-continental-airlines-worried-about-merging-united-airlines

(2)  Joe.My.God Blog:  http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/05/united-and-continental-airlines-to.html

(3)  American Headline News:  http://abh-news.com/united-and-continental-airlines-merge-2738.html

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Rotary: Club Websites Not Optional

19 Monday Apr 2010

Posted by in Branding, Club Leadership, Customer Relations, Customer Service, Information Technology, Internet, Management Practices, Membership Recruitment, Membership Retention, Passionate People, Public Relations, Re-Imagine!, Rotary, Rotary@105, Social Interactive Media (SIM), Social Media Relations, The Tipping Point, Website

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by Paul Kiser
USA PDT  [Twitter: ] [Facebook] [LinkedIn] [Skype:kiserrotary or 775.624.5679]

Looking In From Outside: Understanding Our Public Image

Paul Kiser - Rotary District 5190 Public Relations Chair - RC of Reno Sunrise, NV

When Congress was considering giving survival loans to American car manufacturers it was interesting to see the reaction of the American public. There were calls by many to let the car manufacturers fail even if it meant forcing hundreds of thousands of Americans out of a job. This is a great study in Public Relations, or the lack of it. The American auto industry spends millions of dollars to advertise.  From a standpoint of ‘publicity’ they have one of the largest shares of advertising power of all the industries in America.

But while the auto industry may be giants in ‘publicity’, they suck at Public Relations.  How bad do you have to be at Public Relations to have your customers and potential customers wanting to see you fail?  A key component to Public Relations is understanding your ‘public image’ and that involves looking at your organization as an ‘outsider.’ The auto industry either was blissfully ignorant of their public image, or just didn’t care.  It’s an easy mistake to make, but it’s almost always a fatal error.

A Rotarian sees our organization from an inside view.  She or he typically understands and accepts the purpose of Rotary and values the organization as fulfilling a significant role in her or his life, as well as in the local and world communities.  Whether it is by design or by accident, the leadership of the Rotary Club creates an internal public relations message that is communicated both actively and passively to the membership. From that internal message the member forms an attitude and opinion of what Rotary means to them.

However, when discussing the positive and negative aspects the Club’s public image we must ignore everything that we have learned from the internal message and put ourselves in the place of the person who knows nothing about Rotary.  This is a critical step if we are to understand the strengths and weaknesses of our external public relations message.

In fact, the issue goes farther than assuming a person knows nothing about Rotary because in many cases people have heard of Rotary and they have a skewed and/or false impression of the organization. The person who is not a member of Rotary either:

  1. Doesn’t know about Rotary
  2. Knows, but doesn’t understand the purpose of Rotary
  3. Has a false and/or misleading impression of Rotary and therefore doesn’t believe that the organization to be worthwhile
  4. Knows and understands the purpose of Rotary, but doesn’t want to participate in the organization for some reason

Of these four reasons, the first three require additional information for the person to make an informed decision about participating in, and/or supporting Rotary club’s programs and projects.

Making Clubs More Accessible

The challenge is to somehow make more information available to the public about Rotary, the Rotary club, and our purpose as a service organization.  We can do this through one-on-one contact, which is a valuable tool; however, even with a one-on-one contact the person is seeing Rotary through the eyes of one Rotarian and that member may not have all the information needed for the person to make an informed decision about the purpose and value of Rotary.  Even attending a club meeting will not provide enough information for a person to understand why Rotary might be an organization that could meet her or his personal needs.

In addition to one-on-one contact, we can also purchase advertising and send out public service announcements to inform the general public of the scope and purpose of Rotary; however, people may be exposed to the message for only a few seconds, which may create more questions than answers.

The problem is that we need to make information about a Rotary Club more accessible.  This would be hard under normal circumstances, but at the same time we are looking to ramp up Public Relations to make Clubs more accessible, the world of communication and information technology is undergoing a metamorphosis.

Communication 2010:  Not Your Father’s, but, Your Children’s Internet.

By 1995, it was clear that the Internet, and websites in particular, were going to become a valuable business tool, but to find a company’s website you typically had to know the web address.  By early in the new century, Google had created a search engine that was so effective, it began to replace phone books and print advertising as tools to market and provide information about an organization.

In addition to websites, the explosion of new social networks like Facebook and Twitter have changed the landscape of Marketing and Public Relations. Traditional methods of communicating information are being replaced with an Internet media that is so rapid that even oppressive governments find it difficult to keep pace and silence their citizens.

The changes in information communication have happened so fast that a ten year-old child in 2000 has seen the birth and rise of Google; the Blackberry; text messaging; MySpace; Facebook, Twitter, and all the other Social Media.  That ten year-old child of 2000 is now a twenty year-old adult in 2010 and they have seen newspapers and magazines first falter, then collapse as the new media displaces slow and expensive with fast and inexpensive.

Accessibility is the Alpha and Omega of Public Relations in 2010

A Rotary Club exists for one and one half hours once a week.  The Club is inaccessible to most of the public the remaining 166.5 hours of the week. To become more accessible we must bypass yesterday’s traditional methods for communication and information sharing that are no longer viable options as effective Public Relations tools.  Clubs must learn to use communication methods that will allow accessibility to the public using today’s technology and we must be prepared to change our methods in order to adapt to new technologies.

While a Club website is hardly a new idea, many clubs fail to have even this basic Public Relations tool.  The Club website creates a 24/7/365 presence that allows it to be accessible to anyone in the world.  The Club website is the ultimate membership recruitment tool as it can offer a full explanation of the club, and its projects and programs.  In addition, the website can give an interested person direct access to someone who can help them take the next step to becoming a member.  An updated and dynamic Club website can no longer be considered an option for any Club that seeks to remain relevant in the community.  It is absolutely essential for successful external Public Relations.

A great example of a Rotary Club website is the Rotary Club of Reno New Generations.  It has a great look, and it has several functions that use Social Media tools.

(See their website at www.renonewgenrotary.org)

It is easy to overlook how critical Public Relations can be to a Club’s survival, but for every Club that is scratching their heads over why recruiting new members is so difficult, take a hard look at your Club website…or lack of one.

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Windows Office 2010: What to Do?

01 Monday Mar 2010

Posted by in 2020 Enterprise Technologies, Customer Relations, Customer Service, Information Technology, Management Practices, Rotary

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by Paul Kiser

Paul Kiser - CEO 2020 Enterprise Technologies

(NOTE: This blog was originally published on March 1, 2010-Microsoft released Office 2010 on June 22, 2010)

In the next few months Microsoft will officially launch the next generation of Windows Office (Office 2010, code-named Office 14) and it will create new dilemmas for many business owners, Information Technology (IT) managers and users of Windows Office. Consider the following issues:

Microsoft Office 2010

  • Windows Office commands the office productivity software market with some claiming that Windows Office has a 95% market share, or better.
  • Once available to the general public, Office 2010 will be competing with its own predecessors. Office 2003 and Office 2007 are approximately equal in the number of users.
  • Although it is over seven years old, Office 2003 is still actively used in businesses because Office 2007 introduced dramatic changes that made the product more like a new product, rather than a new version. This caused many users to stick with the 2003 version, rather than trying to learn the updated product. (As of February 2009, users of Office 2003 still exceeded users of Office 2007.)
  • There are three different versions of the Windows platforms (Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7) actively being used in the business world.
  • Microsoft conceded to business last year by delaying the ‘Stop Sell’ date of Windows XP from June 30, 2009 to June 30, 2010, but the platform will not likely receive another stay of execution.

What faces the business world is a dilemma of what Windows platforms and versions of Office should be used in their work environment. This issue will become acute with the purchase of new computers, but will there be communication and document sharing issues between old computers and new computers and software?

The issue boils down to the individual user versus IT and management. From an IT perspective having everyone on one system is more efficient in terms of training and maintenance. Management usually prefers equipment to be interchangeable and using different versions of office productivity software could lead to minor conflicts when sharing files. However, individual users (including management) of Office 2003 are often adamant about staying with what they know.

The stark reality is that with the early success of Windows 7 and positive reviews about Office 2010 Beta, the old software (Windows XP, Vista, and Office 2003) have a limited business life. It is reasonable to think that by 2012, all PC’s will come with Windows 7 and Office 2010, and prior versions will not be an option. That is certainly the road that Microsoft would prefer and ultimately they will decide when all prior versions will 1) no longer be sold, and 2) no longer be supported.

How Did This Happen?
This issue has come to the surface for several reasons. First and foremost is the success of Office 2003. The version, originally named Office 11, built on the success of previous versions and coupled with the adoption of the Windows XP platform became the productivity software of choice during the years of 2004-07. When Microsoft introduced its new Vista platform and Office 2007 (code name Office 12) it anticipated a steady transition of business users from Office 2003 to Office 2007.

Unfortunately, Microsoft miscalculated by trying to make a major re-creation of its platform with Vista and, at the same time, introducing a ‘Mac’ like look to its software that required users to re-learn the software. The bugs of Vista and the new look of the productivity software gave a bad reputation in the business world to the revised software versions. Microsoft then pushed to bring out a newer platform version (Windows 7) to overcome the perceptions of Vista, but that did not overcome the negative impression of Office 2007. Office 2010 or Office 14 (the name ‘Office 13’ was skipped for obvious reasons) is Microsoft’s hope to get most users back on one version of its productivity software. It is a major gamble because the door is open for another software company to try and capitalize on users who don’t want to be forced to adapt the new look of Office; however, most businesses have invested too much into Microsoft products to change over now.

What to do about Office 2010?
The one inescapable fact is that Office 2003 is at the end of its business life. Yes, people will continue to use it and five years from now there will be a small group of people who are fiercely proud that they still use Office 2003; however, based on early reactions to the Beta version and the reality that new computers will soon come with Office 2010, it seems plausible that Office 2010 will rapidly eclipse both Office 2007 and Office 2003. In three years it would not be surprising to see Office 2010 have 60% to 70% of the market, so logically it would make sense for businesses to prepare to make the change.

But just because it is logical doesn’t mean the adoption of Office 2010 will be accepted by business users. Some companies will take a passive approach and let individuals learn Office 2010 as they purchase new computers. This approach is not recommended for larger companies or companies that have a high degree of internal and external communications. Having staff on different versions of office productivity software can create unexpected and time-consuming problems.

Each organization will have to make their own evaluation of what will work best for their situation; however, as Windows 7 and Office 2010 begin to dominate the market, staying with older version will seem less like an option and more like a liability for the company.

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Dissatisfiers: Why John Quit

21 Sunday Feb 2010

Posted by in Club Leadership, Communication, Customer Relations, Customer Service, Employee Retention, Human Resources, Lessons of Life, Management Practices, Membership Retention, Public Relations, Relationships, Rotary, Rotary@105, Social Media Relations, The Tipping Point

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by Paul Kiser
USA PDT [Twitter: ] [Facebook] [LinkedIn] Skype: kiserrotary or 775.624.5679]

Paul Kiser

Why Did John Quit?
In my years in management, human resources, and service club involvement I have watched many people leave organizations and periodically someone in the organization starts throwing around the ‘R’ word: Retention. What follows are committee meetings, calls for surveys, and finger-pointing. The search usually turns up discovery of a plausible single cause for the problem based upon limited evidence, followed by a shrug of shoulders because the alledged cause is almost always determined to be a reason that is out of control of the organization.

Finding the real reason for attrition for any organization is elusive because there is almost never just one reason for someone to quit. The decision to quit is typically after the person has accumulated multiple ‘dissatisfiers‘ or negative experiences that finally caused the person to make a change by leaving. Dissatisfiers can be issues about pay, benefits, or other tangible reasons; however, most negative experiences are intangible acts that weaken (or fail to strengthen) a person’s perception of belonging to the organization.

A Dissatisfier may be something small, like a person not getting thanked for his or her contribution to a special project, or something more significant, like a lack of a desired promotion. As each Dissatisfier is added the person gets closer to the decision that the organization is not meeting his or her needs.

While a group or organization may be unaware of their actions that cause a Dissatisfier for an individual, people often consciously use Dissatisfiers to drive away a member or employee from a group because it is a subtle form of discrimination that is difficult to detect and easy to blame the victim as being overly sensitive. We learn this tactic at a young age and often as a byproduct of sibling rivalry when one child torments another by subtlety annoying them until they react violently. In adults, the behavior is rarely as overt, nor does it result in violence, but can be very effective in weeding out diversity in the group.

When the Dissatisfiers are not the result of a conscious effort against a person, but rather the failure to include the person, the result can be the same. Over time the person may ultimately decide to quit for a better opportunity, or, in the case of a volunteer organization, leave for no other opportunity.

The Perfect Environment to Study Dissatisfiers
Volunteer organizations are an ideal environment to study the effect of Dissatisfiers because the issue of compensation and/or benefits (tangible rewards) can be ruled out as factors for attrition. While some may conclude that because there is no tangible rewards for a volunteer, his or her involvement is tenuous all the time; however, often an individual has a deeper commitment to a volunteer organization simply because they are involved for more meaningful reasons. That reason may be as simple as wanting to be a part of an organization that seeks to do good, but for many people who need is often more powerful than monetary gain.

Members of a volunteer organization should feel that the work they perform not only gives them a sense of accomplishment; but also gives them a sense  of worth, belonging (or friendship) and pride. For a member to leave that organization means that the group failed to provide or connect the member to the key rewards of volunteer service. Attrition in a volunteer organization is often blamed on a single external factor (a bad economy) or the person (not in the organization for the right reasons) rather than examine the Dissatisfiers that they might have been able to address that would have retained that member.

To improve retention organizations need to stop looking for the single factor for attrition, and start looking for the list of Dissatisfiers that led to the decision to quit. In volunteer organizations, a member’s involvement is to fill a need of belonging and attrition can only be attributed to internal Dissatisfiers, not external factors.

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