Walmart Niles, IL location #2816 was frequently running out of my favorite sweet treats – Haribo Gold Bears – Gummi Candy(which is actually a hard to find imported item). Last year I let someone I know at Walmart know about the stock out issue of this popular item and they listened, there is now an extra spindle display and an aisle end display was also added! Needless to say, they’ve never been out of it again, this is a great example of customer listening and an example of a good customer experience that innovates off of the real time feedback of customers. Keep up the good work on listening!
Month: January 2007
Google Makes Tighter Rules on Usage of Other Contextual Ads on Sites
Jennifer Slegg offers a post with excellent insight into the issues.
Has anyone done the A/B testing that Jennifer suggested? I’d be interested in the results and to see if that was a driver of this move.
John Edwards Campaign Claims Listening
Ryan M from the John Edwards campaign claims that the campaign is listening to the blogosphere / social media. Sorry Ryan, but the facts speak otherwise. On January 6th, 2007, I posted “How to Forge a New American Mandate Via Social Media Political Revolution”. There was a listing of the major candidates in one section of the post “Scoble’s posts made me think how can we truly integrate social media into campaigns(and after the election). John Edwards said in his interview with Scoble that we need “a bottom up democracy.” It’s an amazing challenge requiring change in our government not seen in over a generation. The campaigns for President of John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Tom Vilsack, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Newt Gingrinch, Frank Keating, Chuck Hagel, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, Mitt Romney and Tommy Thompson would be wise not to adopt this as a tactic but as a way to redesign government’s interaction with our citizens. Democrat or Republican is not the issue here.”
The post also stated the following “This is a post on how to use social media to improve accountability in political campaign. As such I’d like to learn which Presidential campaigns are actively monitoring the blogosphere. Please leave a comment if you have an official association with one of these candidates and feel free to discuss this post in your own communities.”
Not only did John Edwards campaign not leave a response, sadly no campaign checked in. A simple RSS alert on the candidates name would have caught this post, yet no campaign did. I was simply looking for affirmation that campaigns were truly listening to the blogosphere / social media consistently. Unfortunately, the campaigns aren’t monitoring the whole blogosphere on a consistent basis yet.
Dell, Starting to Truly Listen
When Dell launched their blog, I left a comment that was deleted (apparently by the PR firm that originally launched it) and I disagreed with those that said Dell was doing a good job with the blog.
Fast forward several months. My Dell Dimension 9150, bought last June, was recently having a problem with the keyboard space bar sticking (they should look into this spacebar failure as it should not occur on a new PC). I left a comment on the Dell blog about the issue. The comment was approved. Neil from Dell called me, selected a new keyboard and had it shipped out right away! During the conversation, Neil also took the time to listen to my past concerns and shipping preferences taking notes as we talked. The keyboard was received two days later.
When combined with Michael Dell meeting with bloggers directly at CES, I can see Dell is trying hard to change. An organization that large can’t change everything in a day, but they are trying to change the priorities. The evidence is now strong that Dell is starting to learn to listen to customers, they should keep listening and innovating from that listening.
Major Ice Storm Predicted from Dallas Northeast to Saint Louis
If you know anyone in a line from roughly Dallas to Saint Louis – please IMMEDIATELY contact them to rush their preparations to completion. If this occurs as predicted, this will be a major event that will paralyze the region for several days, if not weeks. Worse, people will be in an almost complete news blackout as to what is going on.
How nasty can an ice storm be? Just look at these power towers that collapsed under the weight of the ice in Quebec in 1998! Power was not restored fully for months.
You rarely see a more frightening weather forecast than this one from the NWS Dallas/Fort Worth (I truly hope that it’s wrong):
Today: Periods of freezing rain. Some thunder is also possible. High near 31. North northwest wind between 10 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total daytime ice accumulation of 0.2 to 0.4 of an inch possible.
Tonight: Periods of freezing rain, mainly after midnight. Some thunder is also possible. Low around 31. North northeast wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New ice accumulation of 0.5 to 0.7 of an inch possible.
Sunday: Periods of freezing rain. Some thunder is also possible. High near 31. North northeast wind between 10 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New ice accumulation of 0.5 to 0.7 of an inch possible.
Sunday Night: Freezing rain and sleet likely. Cloudy, with a low around 24. North northwest wind between 15 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.
Preepare for the worst, hope for the best.
“CTA riders are in for a rail mess” per Chicago Tribune
The CTA is creating a real mess with it’s rebuilding of the north side L tracks.
They are planning a severe reduction in service during peak hours. It can barely operate now in a satisfactory fashion, how can the CTA honestly say your travel time may double and not offer alternatives? Where are the increases in:
1) Non-peak service?
2) Clark, Halsted, Ashland and Western buses?
3) Extra shuttle bus service to get people to Lake Shore Drive express buses? Or buses that go from certain stops to downtown to take pressure off the trains?
To not plan alternatives is both irresponsible and shows the complete lack of customer service focus. Why haven’t the alderman of these wards demanded a better alternative plan? Why didn’t the CTA think of this themselves.
Gmail Allowing Spammer Mass Usage
Yesterday I put a few items on Craigslist. This morning I had considerable spam. What is surprising about that is that all of it was from Gmail accounts. Doesn’t Google have controls that prevent mass emails from being sent from Gmail?