Gold Nuggets of Truth

Welcome Aboard!

I remember  a friend of mine told me, "You will see mountains of B.S. in your life.  One of your main goals is sorting through those mountains and finding the small gold nuggets of truth."  Thank you, Dennis Conrad, for those wise words.  

I'll share more with you about Dennis at another time.  Today I want to wet your appetite for what you will find here.  The name should give you a major clue.  I did not start my day today with the intent of starting a blog.  Far from it.  Today I had a much different agenda in mind, however, it got pushed aside because some people and some businesses, just don't get it.  Not that I am perfect, a genius, or always correct, but I have had tons of experiences that have helped me find those Gold Nuggets of Truth.  Some of you, like Dennis, have helped me find them.  

A good friend is one who shares.  He or she shares in successes, failures (and there are is an immeasurable amount to be learned from those), good times, and not-so-good times.  This is where I'll share those events in detail.  I hope you'll share yours with me so I can screen them, in some cases edit them, if necessary clean them up for others consumption.  

Please tell your friends and invite them to stop by here.  You never know what you might learn.  

So let's start this today with........... 

BUSINESS ALERT #1

Some businesses just don't get it.  They don't understand consumers, customer service, and in some cases their own business model.  They become so big with so very many layers of management they lose vision.  Eventually a loss of vision catches up with a business.   For proof of that just look at Chrysler, GM, H.P., the history of K-Mart before Sears, Comp USA, Circuit City, Bennigan's Restaurant, Burger Chef, Sharper Image, Enron, Polaroid, Pan Am, Pets.com, Commodore Computers, Washington Mutual Bank, Trump Casinos, and the list goes on and on.  

Did you notice the above list included just about every type of business imaginable.  This all relates back to the second sentence in the above paragraph, not understanding.  

Let's start with a simple business killer - - Phone Trees, you know, press 1 for English, etc.  So you press 1 and then get transferred to somebody who barely speaks the language.  WTF!

True story - First Union Bank.  The president of the bank called one morning to talk with one of the other workers.  It was the first time he called from the outside and had to go through the "phone tree" that he approved.  After 10 minutes of frustrating hell he hung up.  When he got to work that day the phone tree was quickly removed and by days end (get ready for a novel concept here) real people were once again answering the phones.  It continued that way until First Union was bought out. 

Somewhere there's a bean counter (accountants hate that term) convincing some faceless executive the company could save XXX thousand of $$$ by going with phone trees.  The next thing the executive should do is fire the bean counter.  If you are a business with zero competition you can pull this off, otherwise, think twice.  If as an executive, after thinking twice, you still put in a phone tree, you should be fired.

Business Killer #2 - Your business sends out a survey, questionnaire, or generally asks for comments.  I, your customer, take my time to fill it out.  In return for my time and comments, you send me some goofy-assed form letter that doesn't address anything mentioned.  How lame is that?  This just happened to me yesterday from a casino.  Hey, try this, a hand-signed Thank You card.  Show you care, even if just a little.  Please, please, please don't insult me or any of your other customers with such a blatant disregard for our time and intelligence. 

One final and quick thought that will be discussed in detail later - NO, the customer is NOT always right.

I encourage, request, want, and need your comments.  Your comments are going to help me build this and make it work.  Tell me your story and as the topics merge with your experiences I will blend them into part of this.  

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