Kodak introduced the a single-use camera called the Weekender. Customers have called the support line to ask if it’s okay to use it during the week.

The above case is one of those happenings that confirms that we are irrational beings. I found it the book The Dilbert Principle, by cartoonist Scott Adams. The reason he tells that story is to back up his hypothesis, that everybody is an idiot, at least in one topic /field or another. If you think it sounds harsh, remove the noise that comes with the word and you will realize that there is some truth to it. Let me explain why.

Each of us is good at something and bad at another (Adams mentions this in the book). As we progress through our lives, we learn new traits. Sometimes these new skills come in form of using a new tool or service just experience with the world around us, but still we are “idiots” at something else.

Lets say there is a company called WEE tech and they just announced a new product the in a big conference. Since, the weeetator is a new product, only the people at WEE tech can use it. Why? Because they came with the idea, design it, build it, test it, fixed bugs and tested more. In other words they been working on it for the last year, as a result being experts on using it. Everybody else is an “idiot” in using the weeetator, because nobody outside WEE tech has tried to used it and gone through the learning curve.

Sometimes when receiving customer calls or dealing with customers issues, we think that they are not very smart, since they don’t understand how things work. However, we forget that we don’t know how other stuff work, we become very critical about the intellect of our customers, when we do the same thing with other products.

There are people out there that don’t know how to use a iPhone, but hell know how to run a business. Others can disarm and put back together a motor of a car, but don’t know about the Internet of Things.

At the end everybody is a customer, so treat your customers as you want yourself to be treated the next time you have a problem with your phone.

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What are cheap alternatives? In my case is any airplane flight by Delta or Ryanair. Other examples of such products or services are: winter clothing, sport apparel, laptops, designer and architect services. All of them are high in cost (and can’t be consumed periodically), however you can find cheap alternatives, that for some people might be good enough. The big dilemma is not how much you are saving, but are they really cheaper or good enough? Evermore, is how big is the risk compared to the benefit of finding out if they are good? Here is example:

Recently I took a transatlantic flight with Delta (part of it operated by Air France), from Sweden to Honduras and back. At the moment, this was was the cheapest flight I could find. Overall, the services was really bad compared to my previous flights with British Airways. First, the planes that took me from Paris to Atlanta was uncomfortable. Clearly the design of the seats and screens was not for long haul flights. Second the stuartists where not as friendly, however the worst thing is that when going and coming back, my luggage was delayed one day. In Honduras I had to go to the airport and pick it up the next day, in Sweden it was delivered to me. It was pain, it was inconvenient and the risk of me losing my stuff got higher. What will had happened, if my luggage was lost? Means that the trip will have actually cost more than a proven but higher in cost, such as British Airways.

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Was my case a anomaly? I don’t think so. I was warned before about Delta delivering the luggage  a day after. My theory is that this saves them “fuel money”, by sending the heavy luggage with other airlines. However, me elaborating on it will derailed me from the point of this post. Which is:

Companies that offer you a cheaper alternative in a competitive market, generally will  shave indirect costs from other places, which will contribute to providing a cheaper alternative, but lower in quality.You will not be able to find out how bad the quality is, until you used it.  Or sometimes they just sell you the most basic and functional part of it and charge for all extras.  Same happens with winter apparel. Cheap jackets could only last for a couple of winters, then you will have to buy a new one. Also with architects and constructors, sure they can build you a house at half of the market price, but at the end your house or flat will have more deficiencies if you agreed to pay the market price. At the end of the day companies discriminate their customers through prices: you want the good stuff, pay for it, if not then settle for the minimum and any goodies will cost you.

The dilemma is that sometimes you just need a jacket for a winter, or the inconvenience of the Delta service is just for a few hours. Tolerance becomes a habit and we start to make excuses for the companies! We consider them for the next time, instead of demanding high quality service.  Yes! It is also hard to complain to customer service and demand something back. Also, is so hard NOT to save 300 USD in a flight. Or we like to “gamble” and see if we are one for the lucky ones that get the mediocre experience (instead of the bad one). Like once I was told in a Negotiations workshop: humans are not rational beings.

Next time you are juggling with a decision on purchasing a cheaper alternative, ask yourself this: can you afford to buy the cheap one and the expensive one at the same time, because that is what most of the time we end up doing and worst is that we feel unsatisfied.

I have HC600 hair clipper from Remington, bought through Amazon on July 2007. It’s a great machine, water proof, portable, durable, ease to handle, just great. Since it’s made for North America the charger is 120 Volts. I bought at Radio Shack a special converter, so I could charge the clipper when I moved to Europe.

On one of those days, near the Christmas holidays, I connected the charger directly to the 220 V outlet without the special converter. Yeah, after a couple of minutes I felt the smell and burned it became. This charger is not that easy to replace, since it uses a special plug to connect the charger to the clipper (See images below). So, what will any rational human being will do? Contact Remington and ask them how can you but or get one. However, we humans are irrational, therefore I did it the hard and expensive way. I tried to buy it from eBay or contact the manufactures of the charger (in Hong Kong), no success. Finally, I decided to buy a universal charger from a hardware local store, cut the end from the Remington charger and attached. (Now that I look back, I’m amused by how much unnecessary trouble I went through)

The connector of the charger to the clipper

With the hacked or like we called in Honduras “hechizo” charger, I faced a couple problems:

• Didn’t have the tools needed to determine which is positive and which is negative. So, I kind of guess and it didn’t burned the clipper, it was 50/50 probability.
• The capacity of the universal is 500 mA, compared to the original that is 1200 mA, there wasn’t enough to charge the clipper.

Before I bought the universal one, I decided to contact Remington. Their customer service  replied in a polite and fast manner. But for some reason I felt that this will go no where and ignored the email. I replied until I realized that my hacked version sucked and didn’t had another option. They came back to me the next day, telling me that my warranty was still valid and by sending the defective unit, they will send a new one.

After a couple of days I received a letter by mail with the steps, paid shipping and UPS label for sending the defective unit.  I packed it on a box including the cut tip that I attached to the hacked charger, with a note telling them reason of the cut cable. Still at this point, I doubted that I will receive the replacement because of the cut tip, however I didn’t have nothing to lose.

After a week I got a call from a UPS representative, they had a package for me and  they needed me to be home, because they didn’t have a place where to leave it. Finally, I received the package today (I had to rerouted to the company where I’m doing my thesis).

When I saw the package, it seem odd for such a big box for a charger. By the moment I picked it up to open it, I realized there was something else inside. After a minute It was confirmed, they sent me a complete set with hair clipper and charger. Of course, I look for any notes, message or even an invoice, it just felt to good to be true. What I found was  a friendly letter with the following message:

Dear Geries Handal,

We received your defective appliance HC600 E51 HP hair Clipper with your letter of 19.01.2009. In accordance with guarantee claim, please find enclosed a replacement appliance.

We hope that you will enjoy using this appliance for a long time to come and will choose the Remington brand in the future.

Pretty cool if you ask me, no stupid questions, no endless email conversations, no invoices, nothing, just great service from a company that builds great products.

To the left is the old one, to the right is the new one with the charger

Of course, I’m still pondering on why they sent the whole clipper. My guess is that they don’t have spare chargers sitting around, meaning that they will have to “strip” one out of a clipper and without charger it is useless. Also, it might more expensive to order a charger or to search for one on the local market ( interesting politics and logistics, if you think about it.) More important they know that a happy customers worth a lot, but a extremely happy customer is worth more and that is what they got. Therefore their “wishes”, of me choosing the Remington brand in the future, will come true. In the meantime I blog post will do.

Originally this was the title of this post:

Removing your battery from your MacBook, will decrease its performance.. So what?”

I still feel the same, however I changed my mind, when thought about it from a broader point of view. If your laptop, either made by Apple, Asus, Sony, HP, Dell, slews of the performance of the CPU if its ONLY running on the power (no battery), do you care? In my case it depends, for a few it might be important, but most users might not care. As its stated in “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum“, its better to make 20% happy, than trying to satisfy everybody. More on this later…

It is reported that “Apple notebooks take huge performance hit with battery” and Apple apparently acknowledge this some time ago. After pondering on it, I got to a conclusion: so what and who cares? Is this important to most Mac owners ? My guess is that the majority will care less, what they care about is that their laptop works, in such way that they don’t have to think about what is going on under the hood. They don’t even want to think about the hood, they just want to concentrate in their books, designs, emails, art, etc. , they want to be able to create and worry about other thing and not the pains sometimes one has to suffer with computers.

Looking more into the the reduction in performance, it seems  logical, because one of the main parts of the device is not connected to it, meditate about it. Take cars for example, your car can run without a battery, but will it start? Will you be able to play some music on the stereo? Its all about the tradeoff, you give something, but you get something else: trade. Expanding more on the car example, will it be great if your car will calculate how many kilometers were left, when you are bellow one third of the full tank. Even better if it will ask me if I will like to go into “gas saver mode”, while detecting that you haven’t gone over 50 km in the last 10 minutes. It could be possible, but will complicate things more, making the care more robust and rise the cost for: tradeoff.

Here is clear example about tradeoff Wii vs Play Station 3

Its interesting to read the comments in the post mentioned above, how this is not news, talk about tradeoff or criticized Apple decisions. Here is little secret: if you don’t like it, don’t buy it, if you don’t like Apple buy another thing. I don’t like them that is why I own a “Dell From Hell” XPS 1330. I’m satisfy with it, I love the fact that has a small adapter (as MacBook). I understand when I need full power and brightness in the screen and when I need 4 hours of battery, and I appreciate the freedom of choice. It doesn’t run hot because it has a 5400 rpm and integrated video card, I don’t need more because I don’t play games. I used to have 17in, 10 pound monster, with a 2 pound power adapter. I was giving up something that now I value more than the value of having everything. I want mobility, portability, comfort. I identified that new value and decided to trade for it.

Dell from Hell – source

Back to making 20% happy: that is why Apple does best, he makes them really happy. If you think Apple design decisions are stupid, then Apple is not designing for you, is for others that find their products worth the so called “premium”. I don’t like their products, but doesn’t mean they make crappy ones, its just not for me (or maybe you). Someday this might change, like when comfort became more value than power, in the meantime I will continue to learn from Apple, understand their customers and have fun posting about it.

In Tegucigalpa (Honduras) you will find individuals in the stop lights try to make a living by selling you some sort of product or service. In other occasions you will find kids asking for one Lempira* or any kind help. Its common to find kids offering to clean your windshield in exchange for some change.

Couple of weeks ago  some teens where doing some tricks with fire and other kids where cleaning the windshields. One of the last ones offered his services and gave him “one lempira” and told him the front was clean. He responded that he will clean the back and I told him not to worry. The interesting part was that he insisted to clean the back window, even when traffic advanced and stop 30 meters from the starting point. So, I agreed and proudly he clean the back.

What made this event stick to my head and ponder on the convection of the kid to not receive money for free, but do some work in exchange. In contrast when you buy a service or product from companies today, they tend to not be so eager to make your money worth. Once they see the money, they just relax while the customer stress up because its not receiving what it paid for.

More interesting is that a kid in the streets thought  me two things: something about business and that everybody has something to teach you.

*Lempira is the currency of Honduras

Currently I’m looking to buy a new laptop, the one I have right now works fine, the challenge is that is 17 inch. It’s becoming a hassle to carry it from one place to another, especially when studying a master abroad. In Honduras you will find many places where you can buy a new laptop, especially if its a DELL (I want a XPS m1330). I’ve been looking for places where to buy one with the specs I desire and it has been tough, especially because I want a video card and LED screen with mine. But this is not a post about a laptop, instead is of a remark:

“Honduras is the only place in the world (not sure but it feels like) where the customer has to chace the seller and not the other way around”

Customer service here sucks, and companies and business that provide a good one, tend to be successful. People say they will call you, send you an email with the price, availability, etc. but they never do. It reminds me of “games” some girls like to play here and even some guys. If you think about it, this is a cultural thing, your word here its worth nothing. Thinking more about it, I feel sad, knowing that people who run this country lack commitment to their word or don’t think before they speak out or promise stuff. And trust me, its so easy to get caught up in this “habit” of Chasing people around that should be chasing you around, its easy to just make our word, our promises… worthless. Why? Well somebody said once (can’t find the author):

“the person makes the habit, then the habit makes the person”

I have had this topic on my mind for a long time and wanted to write a blog post about it. It was going to be on how the only good customer service left, can be found in Apple Stores and at my mom’s store. Concluding that Apple some how, found a way to train their staff to provide good customer service (and my mom just rules too much). But all this changed this weekend, the reason: I went shopping for a traveling Backpack (see image bellow). Also, like this blog post, for a long time wanted to buy one, but I never got totally convinced.

Source

I like to travel around and is tough to do it with regular luggage (although I don’t travel as other do, I travel ). I always went to checkout the bags, but never understood this product and is tough to buy a product when you don’t understand it. You may ask yourself, what is to understand about a backpack? Trust me there is a lot, but at first glance the only thing I saw was size, materials and the brand name. I thought this characteristics defined the price, although they have a saying, they share the responsibility with other properties or characteristic of same importance.

I went to InterSport in a outlet shopping center in the outskirts of Stockholm. I went in to the store and like always I helped myself to checkout the bags. After five minutes an a employee asked me if I was looking to buy a bag and I told her, yes. What happened in the next 30 minutes was mind boggling, I got a crash coarse on backpacks. I mean I was amaze by how much is to this bags and she did a very good job. She went around explaining each bag, trying to find out my needs, what will fit me, my type of travel, etc. She made me try them and see how they felt and fit. From that point one can get  a feeling that this person knew what she was talking about. The way she dealt with me was very good, because she sensed in a good way, I was price sensitive and tried to find the best value for me. Also remembered me about the 30 day return policy most stores have in Sweden. So, I bought it and follow her instructions to fill it up with clothing and test it, if I don’t like it I will return it, that simple.

Of coarse this doesn’t make us understand if this is an abnormally or is there something to learn from the shopping experience. And things didn’t click until the cashier commented that she is very experience in this because she hikes and loves to hikes. That was my moment of “ahaaaaaa”. Well it was like an hour later after I was able to digest everything, but it was thanks to the conversation with the cashier. The key word here is love, a word that is used so lightly this days, but still is very important. What does apple store clerks and this lady have in common? You guessed right, Love for what the product or service they are in charge of (selling or helping). Yes indeed they love it. Apple customers are the best sellers you will find, because plain and simple, they love their products and is easier to sell something you love  contrast when you don’t. [Clarification for any smart ass: in the contrary if you sell a person you love that means the opposite]

Finding people that provide customer service and are crazy about a product is tough to find, that is why ladies and gentlemen, good customer service is a rarity these days. And is not an easy task to make people love a product that they own or don’t have a saying on how is made. So there lies the challenge: how to train people to love the product or service they are providing customer service for. Maybe next time you put an ad for new employee, the main requirement: “love our product”.