ttl :: Time to Live

I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.
:: Groucho Marx

It’s the perfect time of year
somewhere far away from here.
:: Barenaked Ladies

Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.
:: Confucius

Why is that? An article from the New York Times has some useful statistics and insightful examples as they address the question: Are You Being Served?

Some of it is perception, or the lack thereof. When CEO’s were surveyed as to the quality of service their business supplied, eighty percent rated it as good. Customers of the same businesses did not see it the same way, rating only eight percent of those business’s service as good. It seems that CEO’s are out of touch with the level of dissatisfaction of their customers.

The age-old adage ‘It’s easier to keep the customer you have than to get a new one’ has never been truer. Yet companies cut costs in the service sector while continuing to pour money into marketing and sales sectors. The irony is new customers are wooed and catered to while the loyal customers are neglected and ignored.

Perhaps companies are aware that only six percent of dissatisfied customers will eventually file a complaint. Companies like United Airlines seem to be using this as a business model. But this business practice is riskier now that customers can take their plight to the internet. When Dave Carroll watched the United crew toss his $3500 guitar carelessly to the tarmac he would have never guessed that after a year of phone calls and follow-throughs his claim would eventually be denied.

For United Airlines that was the end of the story. Wrong. Dave wrote the song “United Breaks Guitars” and posted it on U-Tube. Nine million hits later, United would have to admit it was wrong. (Ironically, Dave now thanks United for helping get his career off the ground.)

For many companies, producing a low-cost product while maintaining quality and good service remains a tricky balancing act. Just ask their customers.

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.
:: Henry David Thoreau

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.
:: Winston Churchill

Never contract friendship with a man that is not better than thyself.

:: Confucius

Better than Find Waldo!

America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.

:: Evan Esar

Laughter relieves us of superfluous energy, which, if it remained unused, might become negative, that is, poison. Laughter is the antidote.

:: G.I. Gurdjieff