CRM & Customer Experience – How to ask for a customer’s email

Posted on by Bernardo Najlis

How to ask for a customer’s email

I was planning a trip to visit my family and friends, so I had to go to the mall to get them some presents. I wanted to give them some simple but nice and simple things so I went to Aeropostale. I chose the items I liked and then straight to the cash register. I wasn’t surprised by the fact that the first thing the sales girl asked me was my email. I gave it to her, she just punched it into the register, scanned the items, I payed and that was it. Painlessly fast.

I later went to Gap to get some clothes for me. This one was even a little bit better. By the time I gave the sales girl my credit card she told me that they already had my email address and that they could send me the receipt there. I’m very good friend with electronic documents and I prefer them over paper all the time. So that’s how I got my receipt, just two seconds after I was out of the store my iPhone vibrated letting me know that I already had it.

How you do not ask for a customer’s email

I travelled to Buenos Aires a couple of weeks ago and was presented with the opportunity to deal with some more buying experiences. I had to get a keyboard for my mom’s computer, so I went to Compumundo, which is something like Best Buy in Argentina. The sales guy helped me pick the keyboard I needed, and then we moved to his computer to process the sale. He asked me all of my information (name, address, telephone number, postal code) for taxes purposes and then the email.

He started typing my email address (I was besides him so I could see everything he was doing). I noticed the application he was using was console mode (like in the old DOS days) and so I see how he couldn’t get to enter the ‘@’ symbol. One time, two times, three times. The ‘@’ was nowhere to be found. I was standing there for at least 90 seconds waiting for this guy to get his thing together, but it seemed like it was never going to happen. I tried to help him, suggested some alternative ways to enter the damn ‘@’. What annoyed me the most was that he couldn’t even get over the step where the system asked him for the email address. The system required him to put an email address. And not any email address, just something with an ‘@’ symbol. After seeing how frustrated he was, I suggested him getting some help from someone else. I could feel his embarrasement.

So another guy came, kind of making fun of “the guy that cannot type a simple ‘@'” and he typed in my email address. This is what he typed into the system:

the customer doesn’t@have an email address

You can clearly see that there is a ‘@’ in the middle, so the system was happy thinking it got a valid address.

What could have happened

I just imagine if this would have happened to someone that is not a social anthropologist like me. The guy would have tried two or three times to punch the email address, up to the point where the customer’s patience ends. The customer would have told the guy to put the keyboard where the sun doesn’t shine and went out of the store. End of story.

Consequences of this:

  • Customer gets annoyed, frustrated, angry. Doesn’t want to go to this store anymore. There are plenty of places where the customer can get his need satisfied.
  • Sales guy gets frustrated. He lost a sale, so he just lost money. And for something that wasn’t even his fault. He had to stand customer’s complain. To whom this guy would talk? HR? His boss? If this happens a couple of times, he would even consider switching jobs, given the case that he looses enough money out of this kind of nonsense.
  • The company looses money. The company have just lost a sale, and probably a customer for good, so even more money goes down the drain in potential sales. And what about if the company looses the sales guy? Wanna talk about money invested in the training and experience he got?

And all of this because just one guy, probably a programmer (nothing personal with programmers, I used to be one!), just thought and made the unconscious decision that forcing some validation on email address was good.

Customer experience is king

Customer experience, from beginning to end, is king in any kind of retail store. So it is very important that if you have some kind of retail store, you put someone in charge of this. Please validate the system, and by system I don’t mean the computers. Play the customer a couple of times. Do the mystery shopper thing. And please help yourself and your customers get things as easy as you can.

Toastmasters Project # 8 – What is Lomography?

Posted on by Bernardo Najlis

I presented yesterday my speech #6 at Toastmasters here in Toronto. Project #8 (yes, I skipped two, but nobody says you have to give them in order) is about getting comfortable with visual aids. I think the key here is to use something else than your voice to present a subject.
I like to talk about Lomography, which is a passion of mine. So I added up 2 and 2 and gave a visual presentation about a visual subject like analog photography.
I felt really comfortable, I used not only a powerpoint (which you might think is old and boring) but also some cameras to take pictures of the audience during my presentation. That was fun! I think everybody was really engaged and some people even asked me more details about the subject after I finished.

So, ladies and gentlemen, here is my presentation for your enjoyment….

Edit: if you wanna read the speech, click here. That will open the presentation in an external window, from there you can see the presentation and read the presenter notes, which are the part of the speech that go with every slide.

I feel that I’m really improving a lot on presentation skills… let me tell you something: Toastmasters Works! As with anything in life, you get better the more times you do the same thing over and over again, and presentations are not different in any aspect. I also have to say that my new found confidence might have to be with getting to know better the people in our group. So I will have to find a way to put myself out of the comfort zone and deliver in front of total strangers.

About ‘Steve Jobs’ and the biography

Posted on by Bernardo Najlis

Steve Jobs passed away a couple of weeks ago and its biography, that was in the works for some time now, was released. I just finished reading it and enjoying it.
The first chapters about Steve’s childhood are good, and set up the ambiance for what comes next, a very interesting and rebel youth. All the middle part is what makes the book really valuable. The first Apple and ‘jail time’ at NeXT is very very good!
All the most recent times at Apple are well know history and there are not so many details you wouldn’t know if you’ve just been following the news all along. The last chapter could be a book on itself, it is an excellent summary of all of Steve Jobs’s values and it even has it in his own words.

The book is long and fun, some chapters are not so fun (probably his personal life wasn’t so exciting as his professional life) but it is very very easy to read. I would advice anyone to get a copy and read it, if you’re interested in recent technology’s history. It was very interesting to go in a travel through time and read about history so recent, and a cool way to remember.

One more thing, about Steve

I have a history with computers that goes back to my childhood, I started my career working with Microsoft and after many years I learned to discover and love Apple and its ‘think different’ more artistic approach. I still work with Microsoft technologies and feel really sad that they couldn’t learn much from Apple as they should have.
I feel deeply the loss of Steve Jobs as one of the great technology visionaries of the 20th and 21st centuries, and I think we’re gonna miss that industry guidance and path that Apple marked in the past years. Most of companies are not so daring and bold as Apple to innovate (Microsoft used to be but they lost that edge in the past years) so I really hope that someone can stand up to the challenge of being the next Steve Jobs.

If Google is the new Microsoft, Microsoft is the new Xerox

Posted on by Bernardo Najlis

A couple of days ago, as Steve Jobs passed away, I watched again Pirates of Sillicon Valley, the movie that tells the story of the first years at Apple and Microsoft.
It was good to remember that, at that time, Xerox and its PARC had enough budget to invest in R&D and let its engineers create crazy things like the mouse and the Graphical User Interface. They actually had so much money that they didn’t care about having them, as they were sure that the current status-quo was to last forever: computers were just a thing of the distant future, photocopiers are forever.
And so along comes Apple, “borrows” the idea of the GUI and applies it to its Macintosh computer. And the Microsoft “borrows” that idea from Apple and Windows is born.

What if you change a couple of names and re-read that same story over ? In version 2.0
– Microsoft is the new Xerox
– Google is the new Microsoft
– Mobile is the new Personal Computer (Mobile as in smartphones and tablets)
– Apple is the new … Apple!

Microsoft has grown so out of proportions and so sure that PC and Windows kingdom were to last forever, that they had the luxury to ignore all of the money the invested in R&D to develop new products like the Tablet PC and Windows Mobile.
And so came along Apple, “borrows” those ideas and applies them to its iOS platform (iPhone, iPad). And then Google “borrows” that idea from Apple and Android is born.

Toastmasters Project #5 – Your Body Speaks – Just a Jump

Posted on by Bernardo Najlis

This was it.

The moment when everything clicked. I got it. Call it “presentation enlightenment”, I felt like a Buddha under the Bodhi tree. Project #5 was the speech that changed everything for me. Several things conspired to get me here:

  • Project objectives and subject were well aligned right on target.
  • Presenting a personal experience, and a powerful one, is the best subject you can always choose. You won’t need any notes, you know your subject very well!
  • I had four other previous speeches to play with and understand what works and what doesn’t.

It is no coincidence at all that by the time you get to the halfway point of the Competent Communicators manual, you start to see improvements.

My speech was about bungee jumping. I told the audience how my experience was. The fact that bungee jumping is something that many people are frightened of (just like public speaking) helped me gain a lot of confidence and that was projected in the audience. I didn’t use notes at all, I was just telling my story so that made it easier. I felt how the audience got engaged in what I had to tell and I picked up that energy and gave it back, that created a very interesting and meaningful connection in the room.

Conclusions:

  • Always use personal experience to make your speech more vivid and easier to remember.
  • Be a clown! Make them laugh! Or at least, that is what makes me comfortable. Some other people might find that is easier for them to inspire something else than laughter, but in the end, inspire some kind of feeling into the audience. That is what will make your speech enjoyable and memorable.

Toastmaster’s Grammarian Role

Posted on by Bernardo Najlis

Yesterday I have been filling the Grammarian role at the Toastmaster’s weekly meeting.
I had basically two responsibilities:

  • Choose the word of the day/week. This has to be an uncommon word, but that gives you opportunities to be used in daily language.
  • Pay attention to the use/misuse of grammar during the meeting. This is more an exercise of attention and listening.

As the meeting’s topic was going to be ‘Information/misinformation’, I decided on something that is somewhat related to the information age we live in today…


So when the meeting starts, I have to explain what is my role and present the word, its meaning and possible uses. I also encourage everybody to use it, and when someone does, we knock on the table to acknowledge it, cool!
For a meeting with 14 people, the word was used 8 times, which is about 50% “success rate”.

I was also paying close attention to the use of grammar during the speeches, and I was surprised to find that there were no major issues there, so I asked for a round of applause from the attendees to cheer up the spirit and give everybody a nice pat in the back.

Being grammarian was a very interesting experience, you have to pay close attention not only to the speeches but to everything said in the meeting. You also have to keep up with filling your report plus all the feedback for the speeches, a ‘plethora’ of things to do. It is a great opportunity to attend to the meeting but in a totally different role than the regular, and I encourage you to step up and fill the role at your local TM meeting!

Toastmasters Project #1 – The Ice Breaker

Posted on by Bernardo Najlis

I just had my first Toastmasters speech! I am so happy about it. The first project is called “The Ice Breaker” and the objectives are to give a 4-6 minutes speech where you talk about yourself. The name of my speech was “Fears and Believes” and here it is.

I used some freewriting to come up with the ideas that become the pillars of the talk. Then I wrote down the speech on a pages document, split it into Keynote slides. I used a PDF version of the presentation on my iPad to help me with the notes. I have to say that having a PDF document on the iPad with a large font and just having to swipe the pages through is amazing!

Anyways, I gotta say that the feedback I have from my first speech is unbelievable to me. Could it be that I don’t suck at public speaking? After each speech, all of the attendees to the meeting are asked to give you some feedback and this is what I got.

  • Bernardo: I loved the topic! Great for a first speech, it was universal and still gave you a chance to talk about yourself. You seemed comfortable and your speech was obviously well rehearsed. Good job!
  • Very good expression. Reflexed. Well delivered. Good vocabulary
  • Loved your speech. You displayed a lot of human throughout. I learnt a few things about you – where you are from and your sense of travel and adventure. You showed a great presence upfront and your voice projected well. You also had good eye contact. The speech could have been better structured. But that did not take away from your speech. Overall, well done.
  • Bernie: you have a lovely command of the english language, selecting word to describe so much. You started out with your hands in your pockets — nerves? But you quickly withdrew them and looked more comfortable. Well done!
  • Bernardo: Very engaging topics discussed. Good eye contact with users. Excellent job, if you were reading from your notes, I could not tell.
  • Good speech, with confidence. Good job!
  • BernardoBernie 🙂 Good eye contact, friendly and comfortable delivery
  • Bernie: AWESOME!!! Love the demonstration of voice variation. Try to use that throughout your speech. Slow down. More is less. Amazing first speech. You are a natural.

Obviously I was a nerve wreck before I started speaking and also the fact that I was speaker #2 didn’t help, seeing someone else give a great speech, because it makes you think about comparisons, and if you are going to be able to step up to that level.

Overall, I feel just great, it is wonderful to start this journey with the right foot!

Spreadmarts…

Posted on by Bernardo Najlis

Some time ago I read a report by TDWI (The Data Warehousing Institute) where they talk about something that’s very common in most companies: Spreadmarts.

What are spreadmarts? Is usual to see in every kind of organization the wide use given to Excel Spreadsheets. Every manager, every employee saves his or her own data selfishly in spread sheets that they can edit, change and transform according to need. Is this mix between “spreadsheets” and data marts what originates one of the most extensive problems in small and medium sized companies: Excel fever.

Every company starts using this tool in early stages, where they think that “everything can be solved by just using Excel”. This later becomes in a “temporarily … for ever” situation, where growth creates a crisis that leads to change. Also, this wide use of spreadsheets has many consequences, like “information silos” (where every person or department manages its own data) and has terrible outcomes like decisions taken using outdated or even wrong data.

Excel gives users such ease and dynamism to manage their data, and that’s very hard to get using other tools. That’s why, when facing the idea of keep using spreadsheets, it’s so important to put in the hand of users (specially “owners” of this information islands on companies) new tools to let them use information more easily. In some cases, it might be useful to keep using spreadsheets, maybe they can be automatically generated by some system.

One of the most important things to understand is that there’s no silver bullet, no one-size-fits-all solution for this, but just general guidelines, like aiming to information integration inside the company. You know that one of the most important capitals of your company is information, and special attention must be paid to its care, trying to avoid information silos as much as it can be. Another guideline I always have in mind is gradual tool changes and migrations. It’s natural that users might feel like they lost control, but it’s our duty to make them understand that collaborative work an integration lead to higher performance levels. Sometimes everybody has to cede a little bit of personal control for the greater good of the whole organization. And always, listen to the user. An imposed solution will never be well received and accepted, and sooner than later it will be misused or even worst, not used at all. And this might even reinforce the uses and practices one was trying to change.

Google is the next Microsoft

Posted on by Bernardo Najlis

I’m totally amazed at how fast things go in the technology business this days! And I mean business and not technology development, that is a totally different lane.
Remember the days when everybody bashed Microsoft for being a “copycat” in lots of their products? Suddenly they started to expand in unimaginable ways: Internet portals (MSN), Instant Messenger (MSN Messenger, now Live Messenger), browsers (Internet Explorer), even TV (MSNBC channel).
Well, it seems that Google is now playing pretty much the same “me-too” strategy! First, we watched as a nice “competition” and it was nice to have more options to choose from. But now, it seems rather silly. Here’s the list:

– Gmail (vs Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail)
– Google Docs (vs Office)
– Picasa (vs Flickr)
– Talk (vs MSN Messenger and Skype)
– Buzz (vs Twitter)
– Chrome (vs Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari)
– Chrome OS (vs Windows, Linux, Mac OS)
– Android (vs iPhone)

And today they add a new item to the list. As if Orkut (their own social network) wasn’t enough, they now want to add something called “Google Me” that seems to be their response to Facebook. I understand that once you reached such status in the industry you have to start to protect yourself against possible new competitors, but is this the only way they can come up with?

I really love options, but do you think that just because of Google having its own social network everybody will start moving from Facebook to theirs? I think lots of people have invested a lot of time in building their Facebook profile (adding friends, posting thoughts, uploading photos, learning how to use it) and their not willing to do it again just because some other company has a product that does the same. I mean, it really REALLY has to be something so much better than Facebook to lure me into it. Like totally revolutionary, in the way that Apple revolutionized mobile with iPhone three years ago. Or the way Google itself revolutionized search more than a decade ago. Otherwise, just let me be happy with my Facebook profile. I will probably open an account, play a day or two, and then let it rust (as I think we all did with Google Wave).

So, remember again when everybody bashed Microsoft for this same behaviour, and think: Why isn’t everybody doing the same with Google now?

Business Intelligence Presentation – Data Mining (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on by Bernardo Najlis

In the second part of this presentation I talk about Data Mining, what DM is and what are its possible business applications. Also there are a list of CRM specific data mining applications. Enjoy!