DygiScape

Over the past couple weeks since I moved out here to Virginia, things have been fun, challenging, and even inspiring. I’ll hopefully not JUST talk about work this time around. First and foremost my temporary housing is definitely satisfactory for my needs. Oh yeah! Traffic jams up where I am at what we’d expect, rush hour.

Side note: Virginia drivers are: Rude, Aggressive, Angry, and excessive speeders

This Thanksgiving, I went to my Uncle’s brother’s house and had a good time. It was a nice surprise to see my Aunt, Uncle, and two cousins drive down from NJ. The topics one should never discuss at a Thanksgiving dinner was brought up - Politics. I sat idly and observed the statements made - I’m glad we accepted our political differences out that I was a little more “progressive” than others (realistically, I’m a mild conservative). Oh yeah I forgot my camera at their house, but I’ll meet up with my Uncle’s brother at work sometime and I will be happy to take pictures and upload the ones I have.

Black Friday was quite successful for me. Although I wasn’t able to get one of my targeted items; I however did manage to pick up a few things. It’s amazing the business/profit aspect individuals seem to have. I checked Craigslist today and saw nearly one Black Friday special being sold for MSRP. I hope they get 419′d. It should be a rule that if you are waiting in line for Black Friday, you are not to resell the items. It’s not fair. Those are people’s gifts, and they choose to just list them on Craigslist and gouge the buyers.

Finally, I made a bad, regrettable decision. I purchased a 2004 Acura TL. No, the car is not bad at all, I fell in love with it instantly. THAT was my problem. I bought it. Money is tight this year because of it. I’ll see what me and the dealer can work out so I am not SO much in the hole. If you have $28K and want to buy a beautiful car in the Northern Virginia area- let me know!

Work lately has been wearing down on me. I am noticing myself being more productive with my daily duties and customer inquiries are resolved with a blazing 10 minute turnaround time and I like seeing the “Thank You” replies in the mailbox. I still feel uncomfortable since well my group is doing a lot of change and yet I am still not feeling 100% capable of doing things singlehandedly. So this is where my instincts come into play, and I must innovate and make things work for me (or atleast my team). My boss must be very agile as she hasn’t yelled at me yet, even though I think there could have been a few times or so for her to (lol). I feel for my mentor on the team (where I am effectively taking over some of his tasks), as I ask a lot of questions, sometimes redundant. My logic is there is no stupid questions, and never assume. I think his patience is there cause once I do the tasks right, he can move on to bigger and better things. (ahh, that felt good to get out)
The bottom line is, I’m stressed out and my body is telling me to cool it. It can’t even fight off the common cold. I never get pwnd as much as I am now over a silly cold. Bah, whatever. I just gotta relax, and take things in stride.

UPDATE 12/2/2006: I talked with my dealer about what options I had if I didn’t wish to keep the car, and beyond going to a Repo, I exchanged it for a more moderate of a car - 2007 Ford Taurus (06 - really). Cheaper payment, better gas mileage. Thanks Mike @ Farrish Automotive!

Personal Automotive, northern va, Personal, virginia

Hah, so after about 19 days after blogging my complaint, now my Technorati profile is updated. This is only was possible after blogging about the problem. Who knew? I’m no longer such a huge fan of Technorati simply due to their horrible support infrastructure for users. They are example #935395 of Web services that don’t centralize themselves around the 1% contributor experience.

From all their ads and sponsorship programs, it shouldn’t be too hard to get a little support system going beyond the scope of an auto-responder. I guess they are too busy cashing in their Google AdWords checks…

Geeky blogs, internet, Rants, Search

I’ve noticed my Technorati listing for my site hasn’t updated in the past 89 days. About 45 days ago, I did file a support ticket with them, left unresolved. I figure they were busy or doing a server upgrade or something. It’s the Internet, it happens. But for the number one blog indexing service, to not update my blog in nearly 90 days, thats concerning.

I opened my second ticket with them. Still no human reply, and just got the auto responder with my ticket code and their thanks for my patience. I guess this is one of the blunders of Web 2.0 success; lack of user support. Since everything is self-service and all that, why bother having a tech team that actually investigates and fixes things?

I consulted some of my other blogging buddies and they too have noticed lack of Technorati updates. I wonder why? No blog or notice went out acknowledging an indexing problem or a backlog. I’m not the only one who’s blogging about this.
Technorati Gurus: Please fix our indexes so they show up. I know its unintentional. Atleast, acknowledge the issue.

(If you too are a blogger with Technorati issues, feel free to leave a comment or even a trackback and talk about it too. Maybe the Technorati spider might wake up when it sees itself being indexed. )

Geeky blogs, internet, Search

I’m a little amused by the fact that there has to be a list compiled on how to be nice to customers on the phone. Regardless, I’ll add my own to the list from personal experience.

DON’T SAY:

• No
• I can’t
• I won’t
• Uhh
• Let me ask my manager
• Maybe
• I don’t know
• Not sure
• Hold on [abrupt Hold]

DO SAY:

• Sure
• Yes
• Excellent
• Thank You
• Please
• May I …
• Let me check on that for you…
• Here’s what I CAN do
• Let’s do this
• Is it OK if I place you on hold…?

That’s pretty much it. It’s misleading to not say “No”, and remain positive about something that the customer doesn’t get; although breaking the difficult message in clear and positive way will benefit both of you. Sometimes, policies need to be broken to benefit customers. I often wonder why they have middle management if they couldn’t do a single thing to empower their employees to take care of the customer. Following my previous posting, some companies just don’t care about customers. It’s often an interesting paradox when you hear of other employees that had to call in and they automatically are the customer service “experts” and they had to be in the position of “customer”. Isn’t so fun is it?

Attitude is everything. If I was in a call center management position; I would revolutionize the industry by actually caring for the employees, which will pass down to customers. If you have a bad day; thats okay, take a break for a bit. Come talk, I don’t care. Sure, it’s time “off”, but its an investment from a Ferrari tragedy.

Pardon my ranting.

[tags]Customers, Scripts, Phrases, CRM, Customer Service, Phones, Call Centers, Attitude[/tags]

Uncategorized customer service, Lists, Rants, Tips

As being on the receiving end of these surveys, I am able to give some insight on what some companies are trying to accomplish with these. I strongly believe these surveys are ineffective unless companies really extrapolate them and actually change.

First, why do you receive a survey? Well, to monitor the quality and satisfaction of the support received. Depending on the company, some customers get them, or all of them do after a support interaction. It would be suggested that your input does matter, and that they are reviewed individually (false).

Understanding the scales used on surveys. The scales often used are mainly a bell curve. In customer service if you get feedback from the surveys which entails if it’s less than 80% you will have middle management all up in a fuss. So, thus, if you were very satisfied, you should rate them the highest. Most scales are on a 1-5 scale; and many customers think 4 is acceptable for excellent service; which really is that 80% mark as I was talking about.

Who reads these surveys? Probably no one. They are collated and all the numbers are pushed together and are mainly used to track trends of their service centers. Now, if there is an open-ended question on there; some managers may review them and move on. That is your option to write your little essay on how great or poor your experience was. Now, writing in ALL CAPS and including expletives will just have them keep scrolling down.

So is the customer service business screwed? Somewhat. Managers need to really take the feedback on surveys that were poor. Follow-ups should be a staple in these call centers. Customers are *sometimes* right, and that is certainly proven when you see your numbers drop. These companies need to understand that outsourcing is not the answer. Find that racist? I dare ANY company out there to prove otherwise with these customer service metric scores

The final answer - customer surveys needs to be taken more seriously by companies. I find I have only had CSR conflicts when it was outsourced; and usually on my second or third contact, a domestic CSR has to fix all the outsourcer’s mistakes.

Tech News customer service, OpEd, Rants

Finally, companies could realize that their Customer Service centers reflect wholly on the company in question. Heck, I do my best not to shop at Best Buy, and I patronize excellent customer service. I think the main area that companies need to improve with is hiring dedicated, higher quality employees. Most customer service positions you will not find corporate pride, long-term company goals, and often “anyone that walks in the door” is hired for these positions. Not that they are bad people, but rather they are in the wrong career field.

Large companies today spend billions to manage their public image. And in many industries no part of that image is more important than how people think a company’s customer service is. Customer Service is becoming a lot more than an ‘industry buzzword’ as large companies who treat their customers poorly are starting to lose customers right and left.

(Digg - The 10 Best (and 10 Worst) Companies for Customer Service)

Tech News, Work customer service, Lists

Hm. The people have spoken. I couldn’t resist this picture.

Virginia Republican Sen. George Allen conceded Thursday in the ultra-close election that sealed his defeat and transfers Senate control to the Democrats, an improbable shift that dramatically alters the government’s balance of power.

(AOL News)

Politics Government, News, Politics

Finally, Google takes action against spam websites. It’s truly annoying, and I can only imagine how confused a novice web surfer must be. I wonder how they will be penalizing though. Most spam websites often have a PageRank of 2 or lower.

Google is going to fingerprint Made For AdSense and arbitrage sites and is going to penalize them with a low quality score. Depending on the score, Google may deny them advertising on their network or charge a lot more.

(Digg - Google To Put Bitch Slap On Arbitragers)

Tech News Google, internet, seo, spam

I’m not the hugest fan about talking politics. Let this be said, if I talk about it, I don’t mind a discussion. I understand others will have differing views and thats OK. As usual with anything in the blogosphere; any views I express are strictly mine and not my employer’s or their affiliates.

Abortion - Women have the right to choose. I don’t see how it is the governments choice on that.
Budget & Economy - Less corporate rewards for outsourcing/offshoring. Lower taxes, more efficient spending (reform).
Civil Rights - Less government regulation on the Internet; No need for PATRIOT Acts…
Corporations - See ‘Budget & Economy’; I suggest penalties to large corporations for outsourcing
Crime - How about less new laws, and higher enforcement of the ones we have…
Drugs - Lower drinking age to 18; Enforce the current anti-drug laws we currently have.
Education - Just as Mencia says, “Lower the standards.” J/K … Nationalized standard testing for graduation. Perhaps, forced SAT exams.
Energy & Oil - Reward R&D of new fuel technologies with tax breaks or Gov’t contracts.
Environment - Copycat California’s ULEV vehicle requirements nationwide.
Families & Children - Forget this “protect marriage” propaganda.
Foreign Policy - Diplomacy, secured by free trade agreements. If not … the country gets embargoed and cut off from US.
Free Trade - This is a global market, and let other countries get in on it too; less dependency, more competition.
Government Reform - As bureaucratic as it sounds; complete reform, covert all paper documents to digital. A start is with a democratic control in Congress.
Gun Control - Current regulation is OK, just enforce it.
Health Care - I don’t think anyone has a good idea for this. Offer ways to make it simpler to understand.
Homeland Security - This is the biggest waste of government funds; just utilize our current resources (NSA, FBI) and take the courts out of it. (Ooops, that’s what we did.)
Immigration - Stricter enforcement of the US/Mexico border. Use military technology for detection; give valid notice of electric fences and thats it. Perhaps, raise quotas to positively encourage legal immigration.
Jobs - More jobs. Less outsourcing. Until every person in America has a job - penalize corporations for outsourcing. The only policy they understand is money and use those funds to assist in the learning and job development of anyone who is a victim of outsourcing.
Principles & Values - Not so conservative. Bible != Constitution.
Social Security - Since when does the government ever operate on the black or green. Social Security is a benefit that everyone should receive after like 55 or something. Again, no one has a right answer for it, ether way we’re all screwed.
Technology - We should be the #1 technological country on Earth. Nope, Japan beat us to it. More technology.
War & Peace - Go after terrorists that actually attacked us. War in Iraq - not for the right reasons; carpet bomb the terrorists and just own them hardcore. Drop this whole “jihad” BS, stop playing the victim.
Welfare & Poverty - Offer job placement assistance, offer intensive counseling in jails/prisons and work to make them productive individuals in life. Crimes like murder, rape, etc. need to be heavily enforced.

As you can see, I have a simple answer for everything. Not really, its just all this constant political banter is wasting everyones time.

Politics discussion, Lists, Personal, Politics

I’ve recently upgraded to IE7 and I want to share my feedback about Microsoft’s latest development. As an avid Mozilla Firefox user, I was pretty discriminatory as Firefox was the next best thing on the web, but I still gave Redmond a chance.

One thing I did enjoy is that IE defaults to turning ClearType on. This makes reading easier; the drawback is that it is still nice to have crispy tight fonts like Verdana and Tahoma to not be anti-aliased. The tabbed browsing is decent, I find enticing the user to click the extra tab a little much. I noticed that a novice user has all these new controls and Microsoft did a poor job explaining the features their new “Blue Internet” has. Perhaps a flash video during the install would be nice. On the other hand, a streamlined web experience is certainly the goal of IE7 that their former counterparts never had. Less toolbars, no preloaded BHOs and Google built right in.

Will I still use Firefox - definitely. I’m not a big fan of Active-X anyhow and Firefox runs leaner in my opinion. Is IE as bas as it once once - No. IE7 is more of an accepted choice if someone mentioned they use it. Some people like Chevys, and some like Ford. It’s still the same stuff, just made slightly differently.

Geeky internet, microsoft, technology