Comments for Share Tactics

Comment on Customer Caring: A One-way Street by analysis

analysis — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:17:51 +0000

For what it's worth, I think there are many customers who DO care about the company and try to help. I also think many companies actively use that to their advantage (3M, BMW) while other spurn it (any Detroit automaker). I mean, just look at the 200,000 Mile Club ... or the various opinions supporting help for Chrysler now that the government has helped the financial world destroy itself ...

Comment on What Wags What: Business Process Redux by Alan Wilensky

Alan Wilensky — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:51:06 +0000

I took on a training consultancy as a sub. The client was a Northern Canadian Oil Company with the most dysfunctional work and IT processes, and a BIG SAP system…in short, a mess.

I asked the prime contractor, a good colleague, “how do they make money with all of these broken, half functional systems and processes?”

He answered, “They are an oil company, they make money no matter what – they made money when they were mainframe based, client server, thinclient, WAP, tin can and string. People jsut send them profits.”

Comment on Customer Caring: A One-way Street by Dave

Dave — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:05:12 +0000

That’s absolutely true. Frankly I find it amazing that so few companies will actually APOLOGIZE when they’re clearly wrong – even if it’s an empty apology like “I’m sorry you were inconvenienced.” I’ve found a simple apology to greatly change my perception of the company.

For Chrysler (there’s no DaimlerChrysler now) the problem was compounded by two factors – dealing with customers through dealers, and an absolutely horrific parent company that hated Chrysler itself and its customers, because those should have been Mercedes customers. The old company had been making strides towards intelligent dealings with customers; those were jettisoned to save a few short-term dollars.

Weblogs have defused numerous situations for some companies – Adobe when facing angry Mac users for not having a 64-bit Mac Photoshop CS4 (which turned out to be partly due to Apple reversing support for 64-bit Carbon), Microsoft with angry Mac users on Office 2008 (describing the difficulties they had and describing their own legacy code in unflattering ways), and even General Motors with Bob Lutz’s blog, when he’s not putting his foot into his mouth.

Still, as long as companies continue to put their own processes on a higher level than customers’ time and convenience, customers will continue to put their own problems far ahead of the company’s convenience. That includes horrific “push 7 for batteries, 8 for battery holders, 9 for cables, and 0 to hear this message again” type things (with the usual five or six levels), putting the customers through insane testing algorithms (“did you reinstall Windows? then I can’t talk to you about your mouse not working,”) and, if we’re talking cars, “Leave your car here for a week and we’ll see if we can figure it out, or at least find a way to blame YOU for it.”

Comment on Talking to Zoho Creator with Email by Dennis

Dennis — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:03:27 +0000

I see the Email as a data uploader, as a great opportunity for me to optimize my system. Have anyone created a system like this? Is it possible to see ho it is done?

Hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks for a very simpel and yet useful system!

BR Dennis

Comment on Fearing Facebook JavaScript by Neil Mix

Neil Mix — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 13:28:08 +0000

Hi Pete! Nice post. Drop me an email sometime, would love to catch up…

Comment on Why I Want to Like Coghead But Can’t by Pete Thomas

Pete Thomas — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:17:44 +0000

Steve, thanks for the comment. While I don’t see myself spending much more time with the CAS unless a significantly different interface and sharing/publication model were to surface, I watch the online application development space (or whatever we’re calling it) the best I can and will certainly pay attention to how Coghead is changing. As far as addressing my concerns goes, I wouldn’t expect anything less from a company of your caliber and am sure improvements will eventually surface. For now I’m dividing my attention amongst other sites but I know you guys have some serious fans out there and wish you the best of luck expanding your user base and leading the company to success.

Comment on Why I Want to Like Coghead But Can’t by Steve Smith

Steve Smith — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:51:41 +0000

Pete – It seems like you have done some homework. We are obviously disappointed with the conclusion, but appreciate the honesty and value in your feedback. We have several projects underway to address a few of your concerns. If you would be willing to continue sharing, we would very much like to hear more about your experiences. And of course we will hold open the door here at Coghead should you decide to return. Cheers!

Comment on A BPM state of mind: The Morning Routine by Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive Open Thread: What’s Your Morning Routine? «

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:22:24 +0000

[...] it’s important to get showered and dressed before starting to work. And Pete Thomas brings a business process management (BPM) perspective to the morning routine, looking for ways to optimize for time and health by doing things like [...]

Comment on Talking to Zoho Creator with Email by Victor

Victor — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 23:29:10 +0000

It’s great that Creator is getting REST and web service API’s. When is this going to happen for Zoho CRM???

Comment on Talking to Zoho Creator with Email by Pete Thomas

Pete Thomas — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:35:11 +0000

Thanks for stopping by, Hyther.

That’s great news about the upcoming APIs, I’m very much looking forward to working with them.

Thanks to your team for a great product and keep up the fantastic work!

Comment on Talking to Zoho Creator with Email by Hyther Nizam

Hyther Nizam — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:13:58 +0000

Pete:

This is really cool mashup. We haven’t thought our email-to-form feature could be used this way

Since you opened up this topic, let me disclose it here. We are working on both REST and web service APIs for creator. Will ask my team to give you an early access.

Looking forward for more such innovative way of using zoho

Hyther

Comment on Customer Satisfaction: The Kia Difference by The Car Geek

The Car Geek — Wed, 30 May 2007 01:15:05 +0000

Kia Surprise: The Picanto Style

�Life is colorful with Picanto�. This was the statement asserted by Kia Motors Corporation as they launched the all-new 2007 Kia Picanto. What colors would it bring to new car buyers? The Picanto, one of the promising quality cars of Kia, has brought…

Comment on Zoho Creator as a Platform, Part I by links for 2007-04-28 « Andy’s Blog

links for 2007-04-28 « Andy’s Blog — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:30:32 +0000

[...] Zoho Creator as a Platform, Part I « Share Tactics (tags: zoho creator login form) [...]

Comment on The BPM Mindset by Pete Thomas

Pete Thomas — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 18:33:34 +0000

Definitely, Ron. I think the someone is at the VP or Chief level and the something is an enthusiastic, strategic commitment to approaching organizational process improvement across all departments. I understand Gilbert’s point to be that unless their is existing, executive sponsorship of cross-functional approaches, efforts run a high risk of being sabotaged or just running out of steam. Just one department or just one project expecting to implement improvements that have impacts outside their sphere of control historically underwhelm as they run into political or other silo-centric barriers.

Thanks for the comment!

Comment on The BPM Mindset by rshevlin

rshevlin — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 18:11:54 +0000

“if a company doesn’t already have a corporate culture that demands the utmost attention to and respect for cross-functional end-to-end processes, one department or project within that company shouldn’t really take on, much less expect benefit from, a BPM initiative.”

then how will it start? SOMEBODY has to do SOMETHING, no?