It’s unnerving. I just come back from the bank and they have installed two way cameras in the drive thru lanes. So basically when you pull up you see a video of yourself, then all of a sudden it is a person inside the bank looking at you and talking to you.

Maybe these are the norm in the larger cities but I use a smaller local bank and live in a small town.

It was unnerving to me because I normally do my banking inside so I can interact with the employees. You can also hear what they say if there is an issue. In the drive thru you can not hear them unless they want you to hear.

So I normally reserve my drive thru banking to times when I am not dressed up or for some other reason do not want to go face to face. These new cameras break down these walls. After using them a few times it is getting better but it still feels a bit uncomfortable for me.

One the one hand I like that I actually know there is a camera there monitoring me. It is better than all the hidden cameras around.

How about you? Have you experienced these cameras and what do you think about them? Let me know your thoughts below.

It’s frustrating. You try to get customer service so you open the chat window and wait while you use the clunky process of chat to communicate your issue. Once I was using chat and suspected it was an answer robot on the end. Even asked if I was speaking with human or a robot. He called me shortly after. We resolved the issue.

Sometimes you call in and sit on hold for ever.

Maybe you email and hope they understand your question or issue.

I have run into all of these in the past. Enter a super useful free product called Jing. You can find Jing here:

http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

It is free. I was going to make a video for you but the Jing folks have already done that for you. Just check at the link above.

So when I have an issue – like a website misbehaving. I use Jing to create a video of the issue as it happens. Jing automatically uploads the video then puts a link to it on my clipboard. I open an email to tech support and include the link to the video. If the answer from tech support doesn’t address the issue I simply send the original email and say “obviously you didn’t watch the video I sent so please watch that first and answer the actual question.” It rarely takes more than two tries.

The use I have for Jing is when friend, family, or clients write and ask me how to do some task on their computer. I will usually just record myself doing it and send them the link to the video.

Overall Jing is easy to use and I find lots of uses for it. TechSmith, the makers of Jing, have some more powerful tools for making screen captures and movies. These products, Snagit and Camtasia, are very powerful and I use them too. Anytime you see a picture of a computer screen or a video here on TNPC you can sure I have used those tools to make those.

This article is an example of a short movie I generated on using screen rulers:

http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/blog/2012/06/07/cool-tool-screen-rulers/

This article has a screenshot I annotated with Snagit:

http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/blog/2013/04/12/fixing-google-cant-be-reached-errors/

So give Jing a try and see if it helps you. If you have used Jing or another screen capture software tell us about it below.

Dan

My friend was typing this anyway. Now she simply copies their
question, hits reply, pastes the question inside the ” ?”.  Now she
is off and running.

Expanding your signature file may seem like a small thing that only
saves you a few seconds. That is true. But those few seconds spread
over all the email you reply to day after day add up.

I am constantly fascinated by the lack of thought given to customer service. Tonight I went to the local Sonic Drive-In to pick up hamburgers for our dinner. The order was 12 hamburgers with everything on them.

The order arrived and I requested ketchup to go with the hamburgers – she handed me four packets, for 12 hamburgers. After asking for a bit more ketchup and was told “I can only give you so much.” I explained I had 12 hamburgers and was told “I’ll see what I can do.” She brought back a small handful of ketchup packets.

Sonic includes peppermints with your order. My order of 12 hamburgers included five peppermints. Keep in mind I was driving a 15 passenger van with eight passengers. There was quite the commotion over the five mints!

Enough fussing. My point is simple. Why come across as stingy toward your customers? I realize a few extra ketchup packets included with each order add up. You should train employees to be reasonable when handing items like this out. You should also train them to be aware of their customer and their specific needs. That is all I ask.

Someone asked why I find myself fascinated with situations like this and not frustrated. On the one hand it is an opportunity to observe service in action. On the other hand it gives me an opportunity to practice certain communication skills.

Always look for ways to turn frustration into fascination.

An article in the dated 31 January, 2006 in the Financial Times titled: Search engines challenged on ‘theft’ set me to thinking.

It reminds me of the arguments made a few years ago when Ticketmaster didn’t want people “deep linking” into their website. They wanted everybody to start at the top of the site and work their way down. In otherwords they wanted to control the flow of the information they were putting forth.

In both the Ticketmaster the Google vs. Newspapers situations technical solutions exist. There are standards in place, observed by Google, to prevent Google from spidering any given site. You don’t have to contact Google all you need to do is put a simple text file at the top of you site. That all. And Google will not spider your site until you give the ok.

But the newspapers aren’t interested in that. They want Google to spider their site. Otherwise how will they show up in search engines? The problem is that Google and the news aggregators do a better job of presenting the news in a way that consumers want to receive it.

Rather than complain about how others utilize the existing medium the newspapers should come up with a better aggregate. They have the resources. They have the news. Build a better solution.

Where to start? How about you ask the very people that visit your web site. Put more content at your site so people have to click through. Get creative. Bottom line – ask your customers what they want. Then give it to them. Then ask again. Then give it to them. Then ask again. Keep doing this until you have a better solution.

I wrote about how businesses can do this simply here:

Learn Why Your Customers Buy and Why That is Useful To You.

All products and services have many features and more importantly,
benefits. You spend time discovering these and crafting a sales
letter or presentation for selling the product. How do you know
which features and benefits are really pulling the sales in? Simple
- ask your customer.

I know answers like that seem obvious but you would be surprised
how many people don’t do it. In fact this lesson took me a long
time to learn. See I would find a product I liked then write up the
features that appealed to me. Turned out people often found feature
I overlooked more interesting.

At the most basic level you simply ask your customer why they
bought your product. Then keep asking people the questions until
you start to see some trends.

I recommend you pick up the phone and call a few of your customers
just after they order. Tell them who you are then ask them why they
bought your product today. Note their answer then ask them what
about your product they found particularly interesting. For each
answer they give you ask them if that influenced their decision to
buy. Finally ask them what information they would have liked to
know but weren’t able to find.

You are asking question from general to specific:

* Why did you buy?
* What specifically did you like about the product?
* Was there anything else that you liked? (repeat as necessary)
* Was there anything you wanted to know but didn’t learn?
* Thank you!

Easy and it won’t take you more than just a few minutes for each
call.

Another effective question to ask is “If you were the owner of my
business what would you do differently?”. You will get amazing
answers to this question. This question is powerful – but – you
have to ask it after you’ve asked the other questions. If you try
to start with this question they will answer “nothing” or “I don’t
know”. So ask the other questions first. Then try this magical
question.

As you take your little survey certain features and benefits will
come up more frequently. Make a note of these trends then review
your presentations and sales letters. You want to make sure that
your top features and benefits are covered enough. Rewrite the
letter if necessary. Of course you want to test any changes against
your previous results.

For Internet, mail order, or phone purchases you will want to do
your survey before your customer receives the actual product. I
know this isn’t always possible. Since they don’t have the actual
product yet their answers will really be referring to your sales
letter. After they have the product you won’t be sure.

The first time you try this I think you’ll be very pleased. The
person on the other end of the line will be pleasantly surprised
that you called. The fact that you are actually interested in their
opinion will surprise them even more. To really seal the deal send
them a nice handwritten thank you note for their time.

I urge you to give this survey technique a try you will be very
pleased with the results.

(c) 2005 Dan Butler
Originally published in the DButler Update 27 May 2005