Winter Haiku
Winter’s cold breeze here
Shoulder pain dragging me down
Weekend balances
Economies of Sorry
tl;dr Some guy hit my car and was completely unapologetic. Major stress would have been avoided if he had just manned up and said he was sorry, now it’s all insurance agencies and extra work. And it got me thinking…
How much does a sorry cost?
That title is in fact a little misleading, it should probably be, how much can a sorry save. In a stressful situation, apologizing has the power to completely obliterate said stress. It’s a subtle thing and can’t be done insincerely.
In business the ROI of disarming a potentially pissed-off customer is probably so great as, if done correctly, the resulting exchange will be conducted in a goal oriented, constructive manner since the emotional part of the exchange has already been satisfied.
The guys at Contrast are (or were now, as they just shut their doors to work full-time on @intercom) experts in this sort of communication. I know one of the engineers that built Exceptional, and when browsing through the help issues in their help desk software, I noticed that many of the exchanges began with an Exceptional representative genuinely apologizing that the problem occurred.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’ think this was simply standard operating policy. Contrast and my engineer friend have always cared about building great stuff, and they genuinely cared about fixing problems. They know the real value of a satisfied customer. That’s why they are focussing heavily on just that with Intercom having just raised a million dollars in funding from high profile investors including Twitter founders.
The proof of the pudding though is action. You can’t apologize about a problem and then do nothing or put it on the long finger. Nothing speaks louder than action at this stage.
Preemptive apology
This is something that I’ve been using for a few years now in Berlin. I’ve learned it through trial and error while dealing with any large company or bureaucratic agency. Since my spoken German and my accent itself could be at times difficult to understand, I would oftentimes find myself having a conversation with someone who just had no inclination to deal with me. I found that if I apologized fairly profusely about the state of my German up-front, and ask for some patience in dealing with me, suddenly the person at the other end of the line was my best friend, willing to help me out in any way … brilliant! It’s slightly dishonest as I’m not that sorry about my German, it’s not all that bad in fact, but the payoff for the preemptive apology is too much to pass up.
First two weeks (Taken with instagram)
Particularly nice doorknob (Taken with instagram)
Picturesque walk to work this morning (Taken with instagram)
Tried live chat with Samsung, for 40 minutes, it wasn't productive
- Please wait for a Samsung Agent to respond.
- You are now chatting with 'Belle'. There will be a brief survey at the end of our chat to share feedback on my performance today.
- Visitor: Hi Belle ...
- Belle: Hi, thanks for reaching out to Samsung tech support. How can I help you today?
- Belle: Hello, please go ahead with your query.
- Visitor: Well I have a samsung clx 3175fn which is out of color toners, but still has 50% black toner, when I try to print greyscale, nothing happens ...
- Visitor: I figured I should be able to still print black and white despite no color toner, is this an error? or do I have to have all toners installed in order to print black and white?
- Belle: I understand that you have an issue with toner in printer. Is that correct?
- Visitor: yes
- Belle: Thank you for confirming.
- Belle: I see that you are not chatting from the U.S. Did you purchase the printer in the U.S?
- Visitor: nope berlin
- Belle: Currently, chat support is for US products only. Though our information on non-US products is very limited, we will try our best to assist you.
- Belle: Please note you may need to contact Germany support number 49-(0)1805-121213 for further assistance if we cannot help you with your query.
- Visitor: Thanks well its simply about toner colors so Im sure we'll make it thru
- Belle: You're welcome.
- Visitor: Sooo .. any advise?
- Belle: Sure, I'll assist you with the information.
- Belle: For how long are you facing this issue?
- Visitor: Since the color ran out of the color toner cartridges
- Belle: Thank you for the information.
- Belle: Would you mind holding a few minutes while I gather the required information for your request?
- Visitor: Sure
- Belle: Thank you.
- Belle: Are you able to print demo page?
- Visitor: Well as I said I can't print at all ... but I'll try to answer the question ...
- Belle: Okay.
- Visitor: Nope, the printer, as before says that it's "out of toner", as I said only color toner, the black toner is 50% full ...
- Visitor: Sorry, to be more specific, I cannot print a demo apge
- Visitor: page
- Belle: I understand your concer.
- Belle: *concern
- Visitor: So the central question ... does the printer need CMY toners even tho there is black in the printer in order to print greyscale?
- Belle: Are you using a genuine toner?
- Visitor: Yes
- Visitor: It came supplied with the printer
- Belle: Thank you for confirming.
- Belle: May I know the status of the LED?
- Visitor: If you mean the thin light in front of the panel, then red, and the blue circle is animatedly circling the ok button ...
- Belle: Yes, the LED status.
- Visitor: Red
- Belle: A minor error has occurred and the machine is waiting for the error to be cleared.
- Visitor: Ok thanks...
- Belle: Small amount of toner is left in the cartridge. The estimated cartridge life of toner is close. You can temporarily improve print quality by redistributing the toner.
- Belle: A problem has occurred such as a paper jam, cover is open or no paper in the tray, so that the machine cannot continue the job.
- Visitor: Thanks again
- Belle: Please re-install the printer drivers.
- Belle: You're welcome.
- Belle: Is there anything else that I can assist you with?
- Visitor: No thanks ...
- Visitor: I'll keep at it ...
Whenever I introduce myself to a person that doesn’t know me in Germany, 9 times from 10 they say something like “Hi Martin”, or “Nice to meet you Martin” in German. And while I always thought it was a pronunciation thing on my side, it seems that indeed my name in German is Martin …
recurring calendar events with siri
Quite handy… when you want to create a recurring event. Just say:
“create a weekly/monthly <event name>”, then she’ll ask you when to schedule it…
Siri the tip calculator
So impressed how nicely this works … try … “calculate twelve point five percent of 45 plus 45” … of course it’s probably better to try to not completely loose the brain power to do that … :)
