Tag Archives: Value-added

NETGEAR = BADGEAR + BAD PR = EPIC FAIL

23 Sunday May 2010

Posted by in 2020 Enterprise Technologies, Branding, Communication, Customer Relations, Customer Service, Information Technology, Lessons of Life, Management Practices, Public Relations, Social Media Relations

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

By Paul Kiser

The appropriate location for a NETGEAR DGN2000 Router Modem

Dear NETGEAR:

Bite me…

Sincerely,
Paul

One hundred and eleven days ago our 2Wire DSL Modem Router died.  It died just one day short of being five years old and it took me about a day to decide what to do about it. AT&T’s ‘store’ wasn’t going to be open until the next Monday, so I decided to go with a third-party replacement. I opted for a slightly more expensive, but faster NETGEAR Modem Router that I found at Best Buy.

I brought it home and set it up, and even though followed all the procedures, I spent most of the next two days trying to trouble shoot why some of my computers could log on and some could not. I finally called NETGEAR support and I learned that all of the computers had to have the same (lower) encryption settings of Microsoft XP operating systems to prevent the intermittent problem with each of the computers. During the call the tech requested all of my password information so he could record it.

Fast Forward 109 Days
On Saturday, May 22 our Internet service stopped working and a red ‘Internet’ light indicator appeared on the NETGEAR Modem. I called AT&T and after 15 minutes of waiting I got a real person, who then transferred me into another five minutes of void. Finally a person picked up the line and listened to my issue.  She was very nice, but she told me that it is a NETGEAR issue. Ultimately, I discovered she was correct.

The phone number is bait..if you’re willing to be a sucker

I then called the NETGEAR support number where I was given another number to call. Finally, after three phone calls and over 30 minutes of run around, I had a person at NETGEAR. After explaining the problem he asked me whether I wanted to pay $70 for six months of technical support, or $100 for one year of technical support.  I explained to him that I just bought this product three months ago and he told me that May 1st was the end of the 90-day free installation support. He explained that, “…this was a common problem..” with my equipment and that “..the technical support could fix it without taking too much of my time…”

I’m sure it was all a coincidence that my 111 day-old NETGEAR DGN2000 Modem Router failed 21 days after technical support expired. I’m also sure that I could pay the $70 ransom to have the problem fixed and that it would take the technician too long to fix a ‘common problem’, but I won’t.

The fact that the product…

  1. …has a problem that can be fixed remotely, but I can’t fix it myself without NETGEAR tech support
  2. …that the problem occurred after less than four months of use
  3. …that according to NETGEAR the problem is a common problem and easily fixable
  4. …that NETGEAR has complete access to my passwords to access the configuration of my modem
  5. …and it will only cost me another $70 to $100 to have a working device

…is enough to convince me that I’m not pouring any more money into defective NETGEAR equipment. After a Google search I discovered that at least one Amazon.com customer went through 3 new DGN2000 modems and none of them worked. There is more to this saga, but suffice to say I was disappointed by the Phone Call Center in India and their, ‘these our the only options we can offer’ excuse.  When discussing public image we can us NETGEAR as an example of an Epic Fail.

P.S.: I spent all day today (Sunday) on this problem. A second call to India resulted in much the same rhetoric, with one additional option and that is I can pay a per incident fee to have them look at my modem; however, if it is not a hardware problem they keep the fee. I’m not paying NETGEAR to prove that my equipment is defective when I already know it isn’t operational. I also cannot login to the website to check the configuration myself.

The good news is that I bought a Cisco Router and an ActionTec modem and we just watch an episode of Community with no buffering issues.  That was common with the NETGEAR equipment. The bad news is that it cost me another $120 and a full day of my time to make it happen. In materials and labor NETGEAR has cost me over $1000.

More articles

The Quality of Relationships and Social Interactive Media

17 Monday May 2010

Posted by in 2020 Enterprise Technologies, Communication, Information Technology, Lessons of Life, Membership Retention, Public Relations, Re-Imagine!, Rotary, Social Interactive Media (SIM), Social Media Relations

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Paul Kiser - CEO of Enterprise Technologies, inc.

by Paul Kiser

Do you love me?….Do you like me?….Do you loath me? What is the quality of our relationship?

There are some people who claim that Social Media tools like Facebook and Twitter cheapen relationships. I don’t agree. Social Interactive Media almost always increase the quantity of our relationships, but does that mean the quality of relationships is reduced?

To me that is similar to saying that because a person belongs to a Rotary club it reduces the quality of his or her relationships because they are using up their allotment of friendship in one place or that children in a family of five are not as loved as the only child in a family of three. The logic makes no sense.

A blog that decries the impact of Social Media on our relationships, combined with another blog by Carola Valdez regarding love and relationships have me thinking about the quality of relationships and the impact of tools like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

(Read Carola’s Blog here – note that it’s in Spanish)

I see this issue as two intertwined subjects, which are relationships and communication. A relationship describes the connection between two people and communication maintains the connection. I divide the concept of relationship into three parts that all work together to determine the bond or quality of a relationship.

Relationships Part One: Core Reactionary Characteristics (CRC)
I believe that every person has relationship ‘DNA’ . It is the combination of our inherent personality, our experiences from past relationships, and a third factor that reacts to the stimulus (or ‘chemistry, if you will) between two people. I term this set of responsive behaviors the Core Reactionary Characteristics (or CRC). I use the analogy of DNA because genes are able to attach or connect with certain genes but not to other genes in the DNA strand, which is similar to our ability to ‘click’ or not with someone else.

Social Media makes us aware of how connected we are to each other

Relationships Part Two: Environmental Factors
Just because we feel comfortable connecting with someone doesn’t mean we will become close friends. It is a combination of the old nature/nurture influences that seem to guide relationships. We may have a great ‘chemistry’ with someone, but it is our environment that controls the depth of the relationship. I like the example given in the lyrics of Alanis Morissette’s song, ‘Ironic’.

“It’s meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife.”

It doesn’t have to be a love relationship that is thwarted by the situational factors, but love is the type of relationship we relate to when someone wants to write a song or make a movie. The point is that if the CRC is compatible AND given the correct time, place, and freedom to explore a relationship, a deep connection (friendship and/or love) can be formed.

Relationships Part Three:  Dynamics
Finally, I think it is important to accept that relationships are dynamic, which simply means that as individuals grow and change the relationship waxes and wanes. I have a friend who had an incredibly close relationship with his wife (she passed away a couple of years ago.) On their anniversary he would say, “We’ve decided to renew our marriage for another year.” This was not meant to be as funny as most people seemed to interpret it. He truly did value the relationship and didn’t take it for granted that the marriage would be continuous. I wonder how strong all marriages would be if we knew that either party could decide not to renew the contract each year.

My point is that regardless of how strong a relationship, the fact is that two people can grow and change at different rates over time. It is rare that a relationship can maintain a high level of intensity especially if the two people are in the process of change and/or growth.

It is the combination of all three factors (CRC, Environmental Factors, and Dynamics) that determine the quality of a relationship at any given moment.

Social Media and Relationships
Social Media tools like Facebook and Twitter increase the number of people we know (quantity of relationships) but the quality of those relationships are dependent on multiple factors that have nothing to do with the tools or the media itself. In the end, the quality of the relationships are not affected positively or negatively by the quantity of relationships we have, but by the type of connection that will result of making a connection.  If anything, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter make it possible to have better quality relationships because they; 1) increase the number of potential ‘best friends’, and 2) give us better communication tools to improve the quality of our connections.

More on the role of communication later….

More blogs

Social Media Book Review: The Zen of Social Media Marketing

10 Monday May 2010

Posted by in 2020 Enterprise Technologies, Book Review, Branding, Consulting, Customer Relations, Customer Service, Information Technology, Management Practices, Passionate People, Public Relations, Re-Imagine!, Rotary, SEO, Social Interactive Media (SIM), Social Media Relations, Website, Women

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

  • Book Cover

    Book: The Zen of Social Media Marketing

  • Author: Shama Hyder Kabani
  • Publisher:  Benbella Books
  • Published: April 2010
  • Audience: Primary: Message professionals involved in organizational internal and external communication. Also, individuals seeking to create a personal brand. Secondary: Seekers of enlightenment regarding Social Media and Professors and Teachers in many fields (e.g.; business, arts, education, communication, etc.)
  • Rating: (Out of 5*)
    • Overall ***** (5-Must Read)
    • Content ***** (5)
    • Relevancy ***** (5)
    • Style **** (4-down to business tone)
    • Readability *** (3-read on a Kindle computer download)
    • Value***** (5)
  • Thesis:  A presentation of key aspects of Social Media and how it functions with organizational marketing.

Social Interactive Media is a very complex and variable subject.  It is unreasonable for anyone to expect one book can adequately cover this topic because the Social Media tools and their use are changing daily. It is akin to asking someone to explain Art in one book….and the request is made after the Renaissance. There is much to discuss and there is still more to come. The reality is that we are still in early childhood of Social Media, but even today it can make or break governments and businesses.

Shama Hyder Kabani

Despite the impossible task the author, Shama Hyder Kabani has not only written a great book on the subject of Social Media, she is offering a solution to the problem of keeping her book relevant by updating and revising the book on the Internet.  It is truly a book born in the Social Media era of handling difficult problems with New World solutions.

Teasers

  • Introduction – Nice comparison between Social Media and the spoon lesson in the movie ‘The Matrix”.
  • Chapter 1 – a) Learn how to A-C-T using a great B-O-D in Social Media. b) Strangers to Consumers to Clients.
  • Chapter 2 – a) What is Website 911 EMS? b) What a blog does for your website. c) Relevancy versus Content…or not
  • Chapter 3 – Use and abuse of Social Media.
  • Chapter 4 – Facebook, the coffee shop of the Internet. (I love that analogy!)
  • Chapter 5 – a) Twitter, it’s about the dialogue, not about you. b) What #ff means.
  • Chapter 6 – LinkedIn, the conference room of the Internet.
  • Chapter 7 – Video on Internet: a) About, b) How to, c) Why.
  • Chapter 8 – Social Media meets Corporate Policy.
  • Chapter 9 – Icing on the Social Media cake.

I discovered new information on Social Media through Shama’s book, but mostly this was a great read because she validated what I have learned, read, and witnessed in my exploration of Social Media. For me, it allows me to say to someone, if you don’t believe me, read the book. The Social Media Doubting Thomas’ need a hard copy book for information to be legitimate and that is what Shama Hyder Kabani provides to the world. She also confirmed for me that age does not equal wisdom in the world of Social Media. My experience has been that the older the Social Media ‘expert’ the more cynical and off-target the information. Shama knows her stuff and people of all ages should sit up and listen….or just leave.

More Articles

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

More articles

Car Dealership Re-Imagines Customer Service

30 Friday Apr 2010

Posted by in Branding, Lessons of Life, Management Practices, Passionate People, Public Relations, Random, Re-Imagine!, Rotary, Tom Peters

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

by Paul Kiser

Car Dealerships: A Scorpion on the Fox’s Back

The world revolves around certain truths and we hold these truths to be self-evident. One absolute truth is that interactions with a car dealership will leave the customer feeling soiled, dirty…robbed. It’s bad enough to buy a car from a dealership, but then to have to go back for regular servicing is rubbing metal shavings in the wound.  Bad customer service at a car dealership is a fact, like the sun rising in the morning, or traffic lights always being red when you’re late for a critical appointment.

Paul Kiser - CEO of Enterprise Technologies, inc.

Last year we bought a car and admittedly the experience was not what I expected.  I attributed the unusually positive experience to the fact that we had our loan pre-approved through USAA and to already completing an Internet search for the car we wanted.  The dealership we finally did business with was located in Carson City, Nevada and they were willing to close the deal over the phone (and fax)…with no haggling. I gave them the results of my search through USAA and they found a car with most of the features, gave me a price that was close to what I expected and we were done. It was a freak situation.

However, regular servicing on the car would still force us to go back to the dealership, so despite our positive experience, I set my expectations appropriately low for return visits. I should note that our car is a Toyota Camry and yes, part of the service I had done this week was the accelerator assembly recall work.  I didn’t get upset about the recall. Cars are incredibly sophisticated systems and I’m amazed that we don’t have more problems.  I know other people are outraged, but honestly, if this had been a problem with GM cars we would have all said, “GM cars still suck.” But because is was Toyota, we all had higher expectations.

I am confident that our Camry is a quality product, but experience has trained me to expect the dealerships to behave like the scorpion who stings the fox.  The story is about a scorpion hitching a ride on the fox so that both of them can cross a river, but partway across the scorpion stings the fox, dooming both of them. In one version of the story, when the fox asks why the scorpion stung him he answers that it is in his nature. Likewise, bad customer service is in a car dealership’s nature.

Carson City Toyota: Do They Not Understand?  Their Supposed to be Bad!

On Monday I called to make an appointment. They asked me when I wanted to bring it in.  “Thursday,” I said, expecting a response that this week was booked, maybe next week.  Instead he responded, “What time do you want to bring it in?” This guy had to be new, because he didn’t understand how the game works in the auto service world.  He apparently didn’t know that the customer doesn’t schedule the appointment time.  The dealership always schedules the time and they always manage to find the most inconvenient time of the day to drop the car off. But I wasn’t going to tell him his job so I said, “10 AM?”  He said, “That will work fine.”  Now I knew this guy was not only new, this was probably his first day.

My plan was to go in and drop off the car and go to a Starbucks for the rest of the day.  They said it would take three to four hours, which is car dealership speak for six to eight hours. I hoped to drop it off and get out of there as quickly as possible. Most car dealerships can be scary places and the Service Waiting Area is usually a modified storage room with an old TV that is tuned to Fox News or a Soap Opera.

Carson City Toyota just prior to opening the new location.

I knew that Carson City Toyota had just moved into a new facility and I expected to be a new version of the same old thing.

My first shock was that instead of parking the car outside and turning over the keys to some overworked and poorly paid clerk at a counter, this dealership has a huge, fully enclosed car drop off area.  I pulled my car inside and the service person immediately met me, introduced himself (Greg), asked all the questions, looked over the car, and then took me to his office to enter in all the information needed to pass to the service staff.  I decided that he must be the new guy I talked to on the phone because he was entirely too attentive and efficient for a seasoned car service professional. He confirmed it would be three to four hours for all the work to be done.

I told him I was going to walk to the nearby Starbucks and he said that would be fine, or if I needed a shuttle somewhere he could have me dropped off.  He showed me how to go through the new building to get to the front but as he walked me into the heart of the dealership we came to the ‘Waiting Area’.

A Waiting Area for VIP’s…the Customer?

I looked over the room and thought, “Mother of God!”   This was not what a Waiting Area in a car dealership is supposed to be!  The waiting area was the size of two or three Starbucks. There was a floor to ceiling stone wall with a fireplace and a large flat screen TV.  In front of the wall were 12 or so sofa-type chairs with a desk-like arm on the side, all facing the fireplace/TV wall. To one side was a cafeteria-style refreshment area with a variety of coffee/tea offerings and free small pastries. I was impressed!

I walked through this beautiful tiled lounge area only to discover that I had only observed half of the waiting area.  On the other side was the mirror image with another 12 or so sofa-type chairs.  The only difference was that instead of a refreshment station along the wall they had installed a laptop computer counter with power outlets and bar stools. They even had free WiFi!

Carson City Toyota is a car dealership that obviously values their customers and treats the customer with kindness! What is wrong with them!

I was committed to my Starbucks Chai Tea, so I walked the block to the store and settled into my normal routine.  At three hours on-the-dot Greg called and said, “I’m sorry Mr. Kiser, but they do not have the car ready yet.” Yep, he’s new.  Rule No. 1 in the world of auto service is that you don’t keep the customer informed because if you do it once, the customer will expect it all the time. I told Greg that I was settled in and it was not a problem. He told me he would call me when it was ready.

A little over an hour later Greg called me again and said that the car was almost ready. I wrapped up what I was doing and walked back to the dealership. When I got there I learned that my car was being washed…at no charge. I settled the bill and a few minutes later my car was ready for me…parked as close as possible without driving it into the waiting area.

It’s been 24 hours and I’m in still in awe.  One thing I know is that the experience we had last year when we bought the car was not a fluke. Customer Service is not an accident at Carson City Toyota.

For decades Tom Peters has been preaching about things like ‘taking care of the customer’, ‘creating a new paradigm’, and rising above the customer’s expectations.  Peters wrote the book on Re-Imagining the business.  It appears to me that Carson City Toyota has read the book and is writing their own chapter.

(This blog was not paid for, nor solicited, nor approved by Carson City Toyota.)

More blogs

Leash Your Accountant Now!

09 Friday Apr 2010

Posted by in Management Practices, Passionate People, Public Relations, Re-Imagine!

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Paul Kiser - CEO of Enterprise Technologies, inc.

Accountants are evil.  They are generally nice people…outside the company walls, but that changes once they walk into an office.  Once in their natural environment an accountant becomes a ravenous predator that feeds on nickels and dimes.  Like any beast they need to be caged and carefully watched.

The problem with accountants as business managers is simple.  They hate the customer.  Customers are messy, demanding, fickle, illogical, expensive, unreliable, and in general, not conducive to an orderly stream of revenue.  For accountants the world breaks down to revenue and expenses.  Everything that is ‘business’ falls into these two categories.  For accountants business is about increasing revenue or decreasing expenses or both.  Everything else is irrelevant.

Your Typical Accountant Eating the Customer's Money

To an accountant the customer is an income stream and they want that income stream to be efficient and reliable.  Accountants get down right testy when customers defy the rules of their little world and become demanding and emotional.

By now those few accountants who might be reading this are probably fuming.  How dare I say accountants hate the customer!  Most accountants would vehemently argue that they love the customer!  That they wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for the customer!

But what they love is the customer’s money…the nickel and dimes.  They love to romp through a company and institute new policies, slash budgets, shut down experimental divisions, and in general kill anything that smacks of fun or excitement.  Show me a happy accountant and I’ll show you a company where the employees are considering other job offers and customers are re-thinking their loyalty.  Show me an unhappy accountant and I’ll show you a company where the leadership keeps them on a short leash and as far away from the customer as possible.

Unfortunately, most businesses go through a cycle where money becomes an issue and then somebody lets the accountants out of the cage and they start chasing all the loose nickels and dimes.  In the short-term the bottom-line might improve which reinforces the myth that the problem with the company was not giving the accountants free reign in the first place.

Then the company begins a slow death.  Customers discover that the business no longer provides value-added service

(See Previous Blog on Surprising the Customer)

and employees and managers find that the little extra money that they had to provide better service and/or address problems has been eaten up by accountants.  What follows is company stagnation.

Mr. Spock from the Original TV Series Star Trek

All this stems from a lack of control on the accountants.  Accountants should be able to tell you how much money is in the bank and where it was spent, but then they need to be muzzled.  If a company is going to succeed or fail it will be done by giving the customer what they want, when (or before) they want it.  Business is emotional.  It is driven by intangible things like satisfaction, surprise, joy.  Accountants don’t get emotion.   Like Mr. Spock on Star Trek, accountants see emotion as irrelevant because it isn’t a revenue or expense.

The moment an accountant says, “you know we could save $x.xx, if we just…” is the moment that a CEO needs to say, “Don’t you have something that needs ledgered?”

Do that and everyone else will be happy, especially your customers!

Ahem…I now apologize to my accountant friends..I still love you Dave!

More Paul Kiser Blogs

Publishing Industry to End 2012

Who Uses Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, & LinkedIn?

Rotary@105:  Our 1st Rotary Dropout

Best Practices:  Become a Target

Starbucks: A Tradition in Surprising the Customer

30 Tuesday Mar 2010

Posted by in Lessons of Life, Management Practices, Passionate People, Public Relations, Re-Imagine!, Tom Peters

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Starbucks One in Reno

The survival of any organization depends on the ability to satisfy…no, surprise the customer.  Satisfying the customer is a major challenge, but surprising the customer separates the Disney’s of the world from amusement parks.   Surprising the customer takes many forms but it all comes down to offering a value-added service or product.

Paul Kiser - CEO of 2020 Enterprise Technologies, inc.

The economic definition of value-added is the difference between the actual cost of producing a product or service and the price the customer is willing to pay. However, author/speaker/ranter extraordinaire Tom Peters uses the term value-added to describe the satisfaction a customer experiences with the product or service that exceeds their expectations.  This is a point that most organizations (for profit or not) fail to understand.

The Lesson of Starbucks
Starbucks is a good example of a company that has traditionally succeeded in giving ‘value-added’ products and service.  Many people forget that in the 1970’s and 1980’s coffee was on it’s way out.  Younger generations were choosing sweet soda drinks and mocking their parent’s addiction to coffee.

While it was Peet’s Coffee that pioneered specialty coffee in the 1960’s, it was two of Peet’s customers, Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker, who started a little company called Starbucks that copied Peet’s idea of selling quality specialty coffee beans.  But Balwin and Bowker couldn’t visualize how coffee could become a new staple in a world that was done with drinking coffee.

It was Starbucks Director of Retail Operations and Marketing, Howard Schultz, that saw how coffee could establish a new market that was almost non-existent at the time.   Schultz couldn’t convince his company that a retail specialty coffee outlet (not just beans, but fresh, made-to-order coffee drinks) was realistic.

The lesson of Starbucks is that Howard Schultz could understand how a customer could love the uniqueness of providing fresh specialty coffee when no one else could.  Somehow Schultz knew that he could provide a value-added experience to his customers even before there was a market of specialty drinking customers.  Peet’s coffee didn’t get it…even the owners of Starbucks didn’t get it…but Howard got it.

So what happened?  Like in every great success story the champion quit.  Howard Schultz quit Starbucks.  He started his own specialty coffee retail outlet in 1985 using coffee beans he purchased from his former employer, and then in 1987, Schultz bought Starbucks from his former employers and the rest is…well, a lot of brewed coffee.

Customers liked Starbucks because it was different, because it was a good product, because it was convenient, because it made them feel special, but mostly because the experience of Starbucks exceeded her or his expectations.  It was a value-added product that surprised the customer…and everyone else.

Next time: What’s next for Starbucks?

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

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

More Articles