I will bring it all back new and with less crap, more openness, more real ideas, more helpful information and more frequent postings.

Blog, meet pillow. Hold still. Don’t fight.

Couldn’t Wait to Return

Since our first visit we had looked forward to going back for another great lunch experience. Since they are a bit of a drive (by South Shore standards) I called in our order to take home.

Everything was ready when we arrived and it looked great. But when we got home, got settled and took that first bite of the sandwiches it was a great let-down. This brand new restaurant gave us bread that had the texture of being bagged for three days. They were awful! It was so bad that we were almost confused. I thought, “I have to let them know—I can’t let them do this to someone else.”

My Call to Action

I called the restaurant and asked to speak to the Chef (I couldn’t remember her name). When she came on the phone I introduced myself and explained our experience. I said that we tried the same sandwiches two weeks ago and said that if this was our first experience we likely wouldn’t come again. She then took a direction that didn’t seem to jive with the call. Here I was giving her an opportunity to win me back or offer me some type of legitimate explanation and she instead told me, “We have been trying out different vendors for our bread.”

What? I was baffled, I don’t care where the bread came from. Dry bread is dry bread. That aside, I had gone out of my way to let her know there was a problem and she basically did nothing to convince me to come back or even thank me for bringing a problem to her attention. Most (near all) customers would just say forget it and not bother to call.

Complainers are Often Customers who Care

Do you have customers calling with a complaint and you miss an opportunity like this where you can thank an unsatisfied customer and turn them into a long term patron? All it would have taken would be to offer to replace the bad sandwiches. How much does that cost? Compared to attracting new clients it is nothing. In addition, the opportunity missed made me think that she didn’t care about the food, her customers or business. I don’t imagine this is true but that is tough impression to kill.

Every Complaint is an Opportunity

Repeat: Every complaint is an opportunity. To do better; To keep an interested customer; To improve service; To refocus attention back to the details and the experience;

Those few people who do complain should be rewarded for helping you make your business better. Ignoring them will ensure that they never become evangelists or mavens who spread the word about your business. In fact ignoring the efforts of a complaint will most certainly stop referrals dead in their tracks.

CSS Naked Day celebrates the separation of content and style by showing just how functional a site is without its fancy colours and image based navigation system. April 5th marks the annual event for web designers who subscribe to developing sites that work well, with or without styles.

I’ll have my clothes back on tomorrow!

Okay, Okay! For those who really know, this site is in need of a redesign anyway. I’ll get to it soon!

Try to Drive on Poor Design

There are too many graphic designers and desktop publishers come webdesigner who have gotten into the business of developing websites. What they, at best, provide their clients with is a pretty-porcine—made up to look nice on the outside and full of fat.

More Than Internet Explorer

These people are not cheats or used-car swindlers, they are almost worse. They are oblivious to the fact that their is more than Internet Explorer; that some people use assistive technology to view the web—or a mobile device; that some people turn the images off; that some people don’t use Flash or Javascript; that some people don’t have broadband connections. Or even worse sometimes someone else has to try and fix or change the code in a site only to have to spend hours trying to figure out what the hell they were doing. I have likened this to taking your car to a bodyshop to fix the engine and the ignition system. They might make things look nice but try to drive it.

I know that is extreme but it is why I am a developer. It is that I am passionate about giving organizations what they really need—a site that works under most conditions, for most users and will result in positive change.

Well Developed Code Just Makes Dollars (at least, in part)

While I don’t want to suggest that code above all else is what I focus on but I want to make it clear that every project that I work on gets the same attention to detail and quality as the last. And, although I learn more every day, it is clear to me the benefits of following the standard for quality as expressed by the aforementioned article.

What About your Industry or Field?

Are there standards in your Industry that benefit your customers? Does it make your business better or is it better to make something that looks nice but falls apart at the seams on first bend?

The problem is that I am sure they we are not the only three people to have found this place closed when we wanted to eat there. How many others have walked up to that dark door to see the sign and shake their head in frustration? How many have gone back?

For a new business this is a risk. If the first experience someone has with your business is frustration you may be losing them for ever. None of their marketing materials indicate the hours of operation, just this sign on the front door. If the owners had published the hours in their newspaper ads, in their brochure, or on their menu that they have at the local bank, and this was occurring only to random walk up traffic, it might be less troublesome.

For a newer service or retail business to set hours based on some arbitrary notion either lifestyle or the hours you wish to work, you may be doing a serious long term disservice to yourself. Hire and train more staff to work later until you find out what hours you are actually busy. Measure your customer patterns and market to fill in the gaps. Don’t limit yourself based on you. Be open when the majority of your customers can come to you. Be at the service of your customers and reward them for walking up to your doors by being open to sell them what they came to buy.