This has been a big project, and I’d say I’m 80% of the way to being able to release something preliminary. I get sidetracked a lot and after working all day on code, I just plain don’t feel like coding when I come home. Plus there’s more fun stuff to do.

Part of what I’ve been doing when I don’t feel like coding is the competitive analysis portion. It’s a little late in the game – you should do this up front, and I did – but it keeps my mind occupied.

I have about 500 screen shots fo their systems, 40 Google documents listing features of each component including all the announcements of new features. I read their support forums, industry forums, magazines & newsletters looking for trends, patterns and unmet needs.

Here’s how the competition stacks up as I see them:

• Competitor A – Nicely done interface, solid set of features, industry experience, attractive site, outdated demos, incomplete help. I’m paying a small amount for access to this site and their active user forum. The staff and users are active on the forum, but the site owner’s idea of customer service attitude is more attitude than service.
• Competitor B – Ok interface (a little tight & terse), hard to navigate, solid set of features, broad appeal. Open demo site with all features. Help system is under a different company name, loads slowly, and isn’t terribly helpful.
• Competitor C – Antiquated interface (the 90s called), I couldn’t figure out where to start, or add new stuff, layout is a single column of links, primary website hides more than it sells, help is not helpful. Well, I did figure out kind of how to add stuff.

In short, not only is the project fascinating to me (and extremely challenging), but there’s plenty of room in this market. Comp A claims to have 15,000 clients and Comps B and C would seem to have both plenty of clients and some money in their pockets (although C should spend it on programming, not advertising). My own scans of site lists shows a number of WordPress installs, but not a huge number.

Oh, and Competitor A runs ads every month (for the last 2 years it seems) in an industry print (and online) magazine. The ad is nice looking and appropriate, but the site they advertise (not their main site which is odd) actually has no content on it. It has a header and a menu, like it was meant to be a demo site, and yet there’s nothing  here! It’s a HUGE waste and makes them look bad, I think.

This is an industry where the companies spend hundreds of dollars a month, and carry huge investments in inventory. The competitors services are all fully hosted, and pricing varies. Comp A has packages ranging from $10 – $50 per month (mainly about capacity for storing the number of items) and Comp C is a $99/year. Comp B is a mystery. Their site doesn’t disclose pricing (so far as I’ve found) until after you join. And I don’t need/want to do that just yet. Apparently Comp B offers their site for “free” if you join one of their other services, starting at $12 per month. They all offer “widgets” and things you can include in your site that links back to theirs. If you don’t pay for a premium option, you get a url like http://mycompanyname.theircompanyname.com – which looks a little sad. I see why they do it for the upgrade.

My plan? In an ideal world, I’ll sell the plugin for $150 – $250 with lifetime upgrades and support. Perhaps selling additional modules, installation & configuration services. I may have to go higher. Also, turn it into a hosted service like the others do, running on WordPress multi-site and partnering with a web designer/firm to offer solid templates, and refer work. And everyone gets a domain. Subdomains like these guys use are as useful & professional as a hotmail.com email address.

This is a grand dream, and it’s going to take a while to get there. But I’ve put this out there for a few reasons.

Mainly, just to vent about how crappy these other guys seem to be. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all doing many, many things right and have pretty good word of mouth and awareness. But there are gaps. I’ll have gaps when I launch too and that’s ok.

Secondly, by putting it out there, my friends and family know about it and can call me to task on it when necessary. Yes, I’m a procrastinator, but that’s for a future post.

I also promised to show you the response to my email. Well, here it is:

Hi Jeff how are you? Sorry for the inconvience. Thank you for letting us know.

For the dust there is nothing that we can do about that because we cannot control it.   I can have someone and come out and clean up the glue.  As for the baseboards we can have a painter come out and paint, fill and caulk them  and take carre of the drywall for $350.00. The reason why there is a cost for that is because the estimate does not include painting,filling and caulking. One the painter goes there  I will ask him to take care of the drywal. Let me know when you want me to have someone come out and  clean up the glue.

Thank you, have a great day

First, let me give them credit for replying quickly. They have my money, the job is done, and this is certainly not a big deal to them, but they took the time to send a reply. Regardless of my reaction to receiving it, they did reply.

In my opinion, the person who wrote this email entirely missed my point but more about that in a minute.

What really annoys me about this reply isn’t just that he missed my point, it’s that they tried to sell me something more! If a customer is annoyed with your business, don’t quote them prices on more services, because they WILL NOT BUY. Now, I’m not saying that clarifying that I didn’t order the baseboard package and thus there would be an extra charge is wrong. It’s not and should be done tactfully. I’m saying that NOW is the wrong time to quote me dollar figures.

So, back to the point. Or the missing of the point.

What the author of this email really screws up is that they don’t take responsibility, acknowledge the problems or offer any kind of sign that they truly get what’s wrong here. It’s not the dust. It’s not the damage to the baseboards, hell it’s not even the bag of garbage left behind.

It’s the feeling. I don’t feel that I was heard and I don’t feel that the installer cared about my home while it was entrusted to him. “Thanks for letting us know.” is a useless sentence right up there with “how are you” and “have a great day.” After that, he blows me off and tries to sell me $350 worth of services. I wonder how often that works.

Jeff, how would you have handled this?

Glad you asked, Jeff, because I have an answer for you.

First, this goes WAY back, IMHO. Like I said in the other post, Educate Your Customers and Hire Good Staff. You’d be amazed what those 2 things will do. We wouldn’t be here if those 2 things were done.

I imagine I’m sitting at my desk, my computer goes DING! and I see I have a new email. The subject starts with “Unhappy with job completion…” which, to a customer focused company is code for “We can learn something now.”

I read the email carefully, trying not to get personal or emotional, probably 2 or 3 times to suss out what the real problem is.

• Is the customer upset about the price? Nope. No mention of money anywhere.
• Do they want something for free? Nope. Not asking for anything specific.
• Are they unhappy with their floors? Nope, in fact they are quite happy.
• Did the installer do something wrong? Yep. That’s mentioned several times.

Ok, so the installer made the customer upset somehow. How did they do it? Well, that’s easy – there’s a list. Read it over, consider what normally happens after a job is complete and decide if the customer is bat-shit crazy or not. It happens.

At this point, I decide these are low-level problems just the kind I’m supposed to take care of, so I do. I send back an email to the customer listing what I can do for them (remove glue & putty, hey that’s easy) and have an estimator or supervisor go and take a look at the baseboard problem. Did the installer really do more damage than was necessary?

Those 2 actions solve ALL of the actual problems listed. That was easy, too easy. Now what? Did I miss something?

Nope, the rest is stuff the home-owner has taken care of by now. I doubt they waited 4 days to clean the sawdust in the bathroom. But it shouldn’t have happened and it’s left our customer with a bad taste in their mouth. So I add some TRUTHFUL things to the email about how it’s not supposed to happen and our installer has a good record etc. and acknowledge that it was our fault. Then hit send.

20 – 30 minutes later, I call the customer on the phone and repeat everything I said in the email. I do not leave it in a voice-mail. If I have to leave voice-mail, it’s a sincere apology that I’ve missed them, and that I want to speak to them about their complaints to address them.

When I speak to the customer, I’m genuine in my concern and attempts to fix things. I nail down a time for the cleanup and/or inspection and make sure the person I dispatch is THE BEST possible person, even if it means sending the boss.

Since I can’t do anything about the mess the customer has already had to clean up, I use petty cash or whatever to purchase a gift card for a restaurant or something I think the customer would like, and send it with the service call. $25 should cover it depending on the situation, but here it’s plenty.

Summary

Let’s see how hard this was to prevent.

• Educate the customer
• Hire good staff.

Let’s see how hard it was to deal with after.

• Find the real problems (dirty mess, damage, residue)
• Fix the ones you can (remove residue, check for excessive damage)
• Patch the wound (personal call, gift card)

This presumes an atmosphere and culture of customer-centric thinking. This isn’t about scrambling to safe face for the company or kissing ass for the sake of it. It’s about addressing a problem within the organization (prevention) and satisfying a customer when it’s possible.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on this. I’m not a pro, but I’ve been providing customer service in every job since my first paper-route over 30 years ago. I’ve made my share of mistakes in this time but like to think I’ve learned something too.

Chris and I decided to get our carpets replaced with laminate after 4 years of living in this condo. So we made a few calls, talked to some people, and settled on a company to both provide the floor and do the work.

The deal was this:

• The company was to supply underlay to meet our condo spec and the flooring itself
• They would also:
•  remove and dispose of the carpet
• lift and re-install (not replace) the existing baseboards
• lift and re-install the closet doors & track
• remove and dispose of the electric fireplace

All of which they did, 100%.

Chris met with their rep for the original estimate, drove to Burnaby with the deposit and arranged everything. Yes, he’s good like that.

This is around the time of the core mistake in their customer service plan (if they have one) – Customer Education.

Having any kind of renovation done comes with some side-effects. For the floors, the big one is dust/dirt. Tearing up the old carpet and cutting the flooring are messy jobs. Ages old dust & contaminants are kicked up, carpet fibers go flying and a ton of saw dust is created. It’s at this early point – say during the estimating process – that you would want to educate your customer about what they should expect, so nobody is surprised later on.

“Say Chris, since you’ve never been through a reno before, let me tell you what happens and a bit about what to expect.”

• Along with moving everything off the areas to be floored, cover important belongings with drop-cloths to avoid dust (Better yet, provide drop cloths or tarps to the installers)
• Expect dust, we do our best, but since we have to cut inside the condo, there’s going to be a lot of dust and it gets everywhere.
• Since we’re not replacing or repairing the baseboards, expect some minor damage to them in the course of removal
• Here’s the installer’s phone number so you can touch base 2/3 of the way through the job

And two-to-five minutes later we’re done with that. Maybe longer if the customer has questions – which they should!

Second “mistake” – Hire good staff who care about the entire process and the customers.

Let’s assume that the customer is educated about what to expect. That means you have to deliver on those promises, which means having smart, dedicated staff doing the work. It means everyone respecting that the customer has given over not just money, but trust to you and they expect to be treated well.

Specifically for us – returning the home to owner in the condition in which it was left or agreed to.

What we got that was outside the expected:

• Purple putty on the wall near the entrance
• Baseboard split in two
• Baseboards damaged by removal
• Bathroom used as a workroom – dust, dirt and chunks of wood on the floor & in the mats
• A huge bag of garbage because the installer could “only take one bag away”
• Glue spots on the tile
• Glue and/or putty smears in about 8-10 places on the wood floor
• Curtains left stained & puddled in dust
• Floors barely swept of dust

We’re not unreasonable. We expected sawdust in a lot of places and that we’d have to sweep & Swiffer and wash some windows etc. In fact, we haven’t complained about that part at all. We figure some of that comes with the territory.

The list above, we felt, shouldn’t happen in a normal installation where the company cares about their customers.

But it happened. So? How do we deal with this and what do we do next.

First – We took a lot of pictures right away. Just in case.

Second – We sent the company an email and offered them the chance to fix things.

Here’s the email:

Hi guys:

First, let me say that we are very, very happy with the installation of our new laminate floors. I think they’ve changed the way our home looks and feels. Thank you for getting them done, basically the day after we confirmed our order! Very quick service.

Unfortunately, there’s a downside that was unexpected.

Rami (I think that was his name) seemed somewhat unconcerned with the details of the way he finished his job. Below are list of surprises, and you should find several photographs attached as well.

1. Immediately upon entering the condo, there are several pieces of putty on the wall
2. Dried glue on the tile near the front door
3. Putty or glue smears on the floor in several places
4. Garbage, chunks of floor and general mess in the bathroom, where no work was expected to take place. Our toothbrushes were covered in dust, and the bathtub was full as well
5. Broken baseboard and hole in the drywall where he could clearly see an unpainted screw had been used, but he still used a crowbar, causing the damage pictured
6. Baseboards damaged across the tops
7. Baseboards with nails pointed down, laid across mattresses (no damage, but shows a lack of care)
8. A bag of garbage was left, the installer said he could only take away 1 bag, the other was ours to deal with
9. Bedroom curtains were left puddling in dust, leaving the bottom 3-4 inches filthy and discolored

We expected some dust & cleanup when we came home, but the state in which the house was left was much worse than we imagined, and that actual damage done was more than a little shocking.

If any of this is considered “Normal”, perhaps advising the customer what to expect before the commit to the job, would help. Providing drop-cloths or plastic tarps to installers to cover belongings, or mention at the start of the job “You might want to cover anything that’s important” etc.

We returned home to check in at 1:30pm and the installer was nowhere to be found. Our condo was locked up and quiet. At this point, it appeared that all the carpet & underlay had been removed and taken away. The installer indicated at the beginning of the day, that he would be done about 3:30pm. We tried calling him several times, but he never answered his phone. A webcam we had on a counter, but not monitoring the house, provided audio that indicated he was here working (hammering etc) and we could hear his phone loudly ringing.

Generally, although the installer did a decent job installing the floors, it seems he lacks the general care to finish his job thoroughly and professionally. We did ask that he stay and finish rather than returning the next day as we were told it was a one-day job and we couldn’t be here the next day. He ended up leaving at about 6:30, having started at 10:30. Most of the issues above could have been easily resolved with a bit more ongoing care, and 10 minutes of cleanup at the end.

These issues may seem small to you, but your response to these issues will color our conversations and recommendations with friends and co-workers. We hope that you can help us get some of these problems cleared up.

See what I mean? Those poor boys are being sex-ploited and forced to expose their hunky, muscled, bare chests and tight bodies for nothing more than women to ogle at. It’s terrible.

If you agree, or disagree, leave a comment.

This morning I went to Starbucks for my final hurrah, and because we lacked Splenda for homemade beverages and bought my usual drink and pastry for the first time since the HST went into effect. Not that I haven’t had it in the last 5 days, but we were in Ontario so the taxes were different, plus I usually was buying something for Chris and didn’t know the exact effect of the tax.

Well, let me tell you.

My beloved morning combo has gone from $5.88 to $6.27 with the new HST. That’s a $0.40 rise in the price. Way to much.

So, Starbucks, as much as I love you (and I do), there’s no way to justify this price for me. Even having it on just Saturday and Sunday (which I may still do) would amount to just over $650 per year! That’s an extra mortgage payment!

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be back to brewing coffee in my Tassimo, making cereal or toast for breakfast and drinking a lot more free coffee at work.

Unless the good folks at 6/49 or Lotto Max finally shine upon us, and then I’ll buy my own Starbucks. But I don’t believe that will happen.

It wasn’t the best weekend, mostly because Chris was super sick all weekend. It didn’t entirely stop us but slowed us down. It’s now Monday and he’s not 100% better, but improving. Poor guy.

I spent the majority of the weekend working on my WordPress plugin. Standout Comments runs the comment system on this blog and many of my other personal blogs. My partners in this, Alex Shalman and local marketer John Chow hope to launch this to the public on March 25.

I’ve been struggling with Tweetbacks, a system for tracking tweets about your blog across the Twittersphere. I think I finally nailed it 100% this weekend, but it cost me about 8 hours of tracking, testing and coding to get it. The main problem was that it sent thousands of requests and Twitter would rate-limit me. When Twitter rate-limits you, they send back an error that says “Enhance your chill.” Cute, but not helpful.

We had to cancel some plans with friends and the weather wasn’t great for getting out or having the windows open too much either, it seemed like I was opening and closing windows every 5 minutes, or turning the heat on or off too.

Combine that with “Spring Forward” and the new early morning darkness and it was a little confusing. Oh well, now it’s Monday. Which can only mean one thing…

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Anybody who knows me even a bit knows I’ve got a Starbucks addiction, but I’m trying to kick it.

In Downtown Vancouver, there is a Starbucks location within a few (read 2) blocks of just about everywhere. In the last 3 places I/We have lived, there’s been one within a block. And there is one within a block of my office.

Seriously, I didn’t plan it, but I think Starbucks did.

A few years ago I went to Yuma, Arizona for Christmas to visit my dad and step-mother and was tired most of the time I was there. I came up with my Starbucks Conspiracy Theory. Basically, the reason I was tired wasn’t that I wasn’t drinking coffee but rather, in Vancouver the air is so saturated with caffeine from one coffee shop or another (Starbucks, Blendz, Cafe D’Artigiano, etc) that you live in an artificially caffeinated state whether you like it or not.

So, this past weekend Starbucks finally released a store locator app for the iPhone into the Canadian iTunes store!

For me, it’s not about locating a store in Vancouver, it’s about remembering which stores are good (clean bathrooms, friendly staff) among the 100s there seem to be downtown.

And of course it will come in handy when we’re out of our comfort zone and I need a fix.

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A while back I got an email from someone about taking surveys online to earn rewards, and thought “That sounds like a scam” so I did some more research.

This company, Web Perspectives is one of the few legitimate survey companies online that actually offer real rewards to it’s members. The rewards for completing a survey vary from survey to survey, depending on what the survey owner wants to offer.

A variety of survey rewards are offered to all of our members. Survey rewards include monthly prize draws for 5 chances at $1,000. There are also special draws for x-box’s, i-Pods, and much more. Many surveys also offer individual rewards in the form of  “Perspective Points”. These range from 100 points to 500 points with a completed survey.

Web Perspectives reward partners:

• PayPal – Redeem 1000 points to transfer $10 into your PayPal account.
• Chapters/Indigo(Online) – Use 1000 points to claim a $10 gift certificate to purchase books, DVD’s, I-pods, etc
• Sympatico MSN Music Store – Redeem 1000 points  for $10 worth of music downloads.
• Cineplex – Redeem 1000 points for a free movie ticket valid at any Cineplex Entertainment theatre.
• Golf Town – Use 1000 points to claim a $10 gift certificate to purchase sporting goods or apparell.
• The Canadian Cancer Society – Donate your reward to a good cause and help other Canadians. You will also receive a tax receipt for your donation.

So, what kinds of surveys do you get to answer? It depends. You can fill in an online profile inside your Web Perspectives account and they will try to target surveys into your interest area. For me, I’ve been getting a variety of surveys about food, beverage, technology and transportation (cars really).

The time required to fill out a survey varies too. Some are short 5 minute ones, but a big one I did on snack-food took me 45 minutes! Yes, you can save and return in most cases.

Some of the surveys you get in your inbox may ultimately end up not allowing you to complete. They pre-qualify respondents in some cases. I got one survey about beer, and since I said I don’t drink beer, I was sent to a nice “Thanks but no thanks” page. This has happened a number of times.

How many surveys do I answer? I get anywhere from 1 to 4 emails a day offering a survey and I don’t answer all of them. Sometimes I’m just too busy and other times I’m just not interested.

So far I haven’t won any of their contests, and keep forgetting to check my points to see if I can redeem them for anything. I fill out the surveys mainly because they are fun. I’ve actually seen the results of some of the surveys (or what sounds like them) on the news.

If you’re looking for a way to make a quick and easy contribution to market research or those other “mystery” polls you hear about, check out Web Perspectives.

Over the past few weeks, there’ve been several lawsuits filed again Apple Corp which are no doubt keeping their lawyer’s busy.

I’m sure the boys over at Dewey, Cheatham and Howe keep busy every day finding new and more intriguing ways of writing evil things into EULA’s, Privacy Policies and going after copyright infringement, but fighting off a variety of incoming suits must keep them busy.

Everyone wants a bite of the Apple. They’re one of the biggest, most prominent companies still making money in today’s economy. They seem to be able to do no wrong that way. Everything with the Apple logo on it has turned to gold lately, which makes them a target.

The lawsuit that was disclosed today makes no sense, and is just one of the dozens of frivolous ones they (and many others) contend with every year.

AppleInsider.com is reporting that Apple is being sued by a guy who’s clearly after nothing more than money.

Apple is the defendant in two recent, offbeat lawsuits, including one filed by an artist who alleges he invented and named the iPod and iPhone in the 1980s, only to have Apple and actress Sarah Jessica Parker steal his trade secrets.

In meeting these people, Wakefield alleges he was asked by the congressman to disclose his “trade secrets” to the FBI, including the concept of the iPod, iTunes, and the iPhone, the last of which he allegedly specifically named nearly 20 years prior to its debut.

Yep. Wakefield claims to have invented the iPod and iTunes nearly before the internet came into existence, prior to the MP3 being developed and other insanity.

The next suit mentioned in the AppleInsider report talks about someone suing Apple because Lil’ Wayne (stupidest name ever) may have used a concept in one of his songs.

They then go on to mention how Apple was also sued for being connected to the Mafia.

I figure if Apple IS connected to the Mafia (and I have no specific knowledge for or against this), then these lawsuits should quietly disappear.

Yeah, that’s a conservative number and doesn’t factor in the lemon cranberry scone anything else I may pick up at the time.

Chris isn’t exactly blameless. He’s addicted to the Tazo Zen Green Tea and chocolate chunk cookies.

So, in an effort to save our spending and stop (me) going to Starbucks as often, we forked out a HUGE amount of cash all at once and bought me (us) a Bosch Tassimo beverage system.

Tassimo Bosch T65 Single Serve Hot Beverage System

It’s not exactly like that one, but super close. In fact, mine is better since it’s red. I’ll post a real picture in a minute.

Setting it up took about 20 minutes. No, it’s not complicated, but it does have a couple of one-time steps. It uses a water filtration system much like a Brita or something similar, so you have to activate that and rinse it a few times. You also have to run 5 cycles of its cleaning system (just a hot water flush). I also made an espresso just to be sure it worked.

Red Tassimo

The concept is that it’s a no-muss, no-fuss, no cleaning system. You fill the water tank at the back probably once a week or so (depending on usage) and you buy these cute little T-Discs to make your beverage of choice. T-Discs are one-time use plastic packs that contain just the right amount of coffee, tea or hot chocolate and are bar-coded so the unit knows how much water, at what temperature and for how long, is needed to make your drink.

Pretty cool. An espresso puck (easier than writing T-Disc all the time) yields a 3 ounce shot of espresso, where-as a Twinings green tea yields a lot more. Drop in the puck, push a button, wait under a minute and you’ve got a beverage. Just pull the puck out and toss it in the trash.

There’s the downside to all of this wonderfulness. Trash. Since each puck is only usable one time, you generate a fair amount of plastic waste just to make a cup of coffee. The traditional system would have used a single paper filter, or even better, a re-usable one. Apparently the discs are recyclable in some areas as long as you dismantle and rinse them.

I had to wait until Monday to use my newest toy otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to sleep last night. I must say, I’m pretty impressed. It’s not quite the same as my beloved SFV-A from Starbucks, but my coffee was good this morning.

We picked up the 8-disc espresso pack for $2.99 from London Drugs (normally $3.99) which means each serving is $0.37. Normally my Venti would use 4 shots, meaning  my cost to do the same thing this way would be about $1.20 to do at home, instead of $3.90 from Starbucks. This first morning, I used 2 discs, mixed in some Splenda, milk and hot water and it tasted very much like the Starbucks one. I need to buy some sugar-free vanilla syrup to give it a try.

Chris had a green tea after we got home last night, and seems to have had another one this morning before I got up.

So, generally speaking, I love my Tassimo hot beverage system and it should save us a bunch of money over a fairly short period of time. If I reduce my spending from $3.60 to $0.70 per day, it will pay for itself in 2 months time. Gotta love that!

Here’s the official Canadian site: http://www.tassimo.ca