Global Warming, Cite Bite, and "Why do companies insist on treating their customers badly?"

Global Warming

So today it appears we have set a new record high temperature: 68F — the previous high was 62F, back in 1913. Anyone who does not believe that the phenomenon of Global Warming exists and that we are currently experiencing it must be delusional.

Now, I don't believe it is all due to us homo sapiens sapiens (yes, I believe we are not the only humans in history, just the ones who won). I believe that global warming has happened before, and it is cyclical. Ice ages are cyclical, as are the reversing of the magnetic poles, among many other things that don't happen (and have not ever happened) in a single lifetime of scientists or other people who think they understand what is going on and record it. Just because we have not seen it happen doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

Now, by that same argument someone can (and will) argue the existence of God. I personally have a major issue (actually, more than one issue) with organized religions and their twisted views of who God is, what He stands for, and the necessary things one must do to "guarantee" a place in Heaven. I honestly believe that there is a truth in each religion out there, but it's buried, and no religious leader is going to let the people know the real truth, because the lies (or obfuscations, really) are what grant the leaders their power, and no matter how pious one starts out as, power corrupts and it is a drug in its own right.

Enough about that — I think I've been reading too many "da Vinci Code" books lately.

Cite Bite

I ran across Cite Bite earlier while reading the LifeHacker blog a little while ago. Quite the cool internet tool; it's made to let you select a chunk of text on a site and open the site to your selection. Not only does it open the site to that bit, but it highlights it too. For those of you who use Firefox (and that had better be every one of you!), there is a plugin available as well. Yeah, I like it.

And finally...

Why do companies insist on treating their customers badly?

So at work, we're doing a full rebuild of our website, and one of the reports we use on the site utilizes a great visual reporting tool that builds nice graphs and maps. It's a great upgrade from the software we used to use on our old site. However, the company that sells it has some issues with the customer service they provide (or attempt to).

The report shows information in Canada, Mexico, and the US. However, the package we purchased did not include maps for Canada and Mexico, so when it was time to make the report, the developer contacted the company (which was between Christmas and New Year's, so some kind of delay could be expected) to request pricing for the maps.

A week and a half later (Thursday afternoon) the sales rep finally got back to us. He said the maps would be $300 each and would take a week to create from the day they received payment. In the meantime, since I have Adobe Illustrator, I found a couple good maps of the countries in question, and began tracing them. Now, the software to do the mapping uses SVG files, so they are very easy to create using Illustrator. Problem is, the maps cannot contain curves, due to requirements in the reporting software. So using Live Trace is out (but maybe I just suck at using it still). Anyway, while I'm working on the tracings (Canada sucks to trace by the way — just look at a map of Nunavut), the dev is trading emails back and forth with the sales guy. I finish the tracings by the time we got an email saying that they could "throw some more developers at them" and "have them next day" for us, and they'd be all tested "in-house." Of course, I don't know how they'd put more developers on creating the maps. It's an SVG, which is a glorified XML file.

Anyway, I built both maps in about 1.5 days worth of work, and we saved a bunch of money (I sure don't make $300 a day). We think someone got a slap on the wrist, because after we told them that we built the maps ourselves, they said that they'd do the best they could, in the future, to have SVGs made next day for us.

I come from a customer service background, so I feel like I have a good handle on what is good Customer Service and what is not. I like to pride myself on providing good customer service, even if doing so is a pain in the ass for me. I get paid to deal with stuff that other people shouldn't have to deal with. Making sure people's problems are solved rapidly and painlessly (for them) is the one of the key requirements for making sure you have repeat business from that client. If dealing with the problem is going to take some time, keep the customer aware of the process and make sure they know that it is being dealt with. If you cannot solve the problem for them, let them know, and try to give them another way to fix the problem, even if it means they talk to a competitor of yours. Of course, if that is the solution, you'd better get to work creating something that will solve that same kind of issue in the future, and be sure to let that client know that you have done so. They will feel like you have listened to them, and that alone may be enough of a reason for them continue (or resume) doing business with you.

Ok, if you have read this entire post, I congratulate you, and I appreciate your having spent the time to listen to my rambling. Please leave me a comment if you enjoyed the content and want to read more posts like it.