Losing Business with Business Automation

Automated customer service emails have their place. But when they are not in line with customer expectation you can end up doing more harm than good.
On Friday Jan, 17 I took a flight on US Airways from San Antonio to Phoenix. I experienced the worst service in my history of flying, which is saying something since I spent the equivalent of one full work month on a plane in 2007 (about 160 hours for those told there would be no math) . Never before had I written an airline as the bar is set pretty low with regard to guest experience and I am generally understanding of the airline plight. Airline employees deal with unhappy and rude customers all the time, and 98% of the time the problem is out of their control like flight delays or being out of Coke cans mid flight.

But attitude and how a job is performed is completely in the control of any employee. The kicker for me was getting off the plane to wait for my carry on bag to be delivered (small plane) and watch our bags get "launched" by an employee three feet up over a railing and fall about three feet to a landing. Thankfully I didn't have anything fragile in mine, but I saw one laptop bag go airborne (as it's owner cringed) and one garment bag get a hammer style throw.

Since my iPhone does not have video capability (one of its major limitations) I tried to get my camera out to take video but was too slow (I think it would have made an interesting YouTube upload). I sent a note to US Airways, but not an "angry customer" note. I told them the story of my experience and ended it saying I did not want anything in return but hoped customer service would be a higher priority.

The following day I got an automated response from US Airways apologizing for my "travel difficulties" and a $75 non-transferable travel voucher. I suppose I could have just accepted this as the reality of things, but I felt a bit insulted. US Airways could have quickly validated if I had a frequent flier number (which I do) and found my Star Alliance status. My guess is they could have also discovered I spent over $2200 in airfare since January 1, 2008 (30 times the voucher amount).

I sent a response email to customer service saying I did not want the voucher I just wanted better service the next time I flew. They sent another email apologizing for offending me with the voucher and that my concerns had been delivered to the appropriate management. I ended feeling again like my experience stunk.

US Airways could have righted my experience one of two ways. Picking up the phone after the second email would have been ideal. It would have made me feel appreciated and ensured they understood I was not angry but disappointed. Obviously they cannot do this with everyone, but the reason for loyalty programs is so you know who a customer is and what losing them may mean. Second, though I did not want anything, a full fare voucher would have told me they really wanted me to fly with them.

The point of business automation should be to improve the guest experience, not the other way around.

Set Goals Instead of Resolutions

I've been meaning to do this post for a while, but have been lazy on the post front. It's now almost February, but my post for the 2008 new year is don't set resolutions. In stead set goals. Not widely outrageous goals, but goals that are achievable and broken down into increments. They should be challenging, but also attainable.

On September 26, 2007 on a flight from DFW to Charlotte I made a list of my two year goals. I was reviewing it this week. I've done well in some areas and not so well in others.

Q4 2007
Professional

• Establish my niche in consulting where ever it may be, hotel ideally
  
• Bill 20 hours per week
  
• Start posting meaningful content on hospitality technology made simple every two weeks

Personal

• Read my bible every morning for at least 15 minutes - have not done
  
• Get out of the rat race and keeping up with what we think is the requirements of success
• Run every 3 days at least - sometimes yes, right now no
  
• Read one book per month on something and keep doing it
  
• Finish house - not even close
  
• Post to k.sturm blog at least every 3 days - not quite there

Q1 2008
Professional

• Bill 20 hours per week
• Post meaningful content on hospitality technology made simple every two weeks
• Speak in some capacity at an industry conference
• Have business plan for new company idea complete with market analysis, 1 year, 3 year, 5 year revenue forecast, and mocked up design

Personal

• Have a plan to live “below” our means allowing us the financial freedom to take trips and live free
• Begin taking a one week trip per quarter with Chrystal and Brody somewhere fun where we don’t work at all

Q2 2008
Professional

• Bill 16 hours per week and increase hourly rate
  
• Hire first employee/subcontractor for kevin sturm Consulting billing 20 hrs/week
• Speak in some capacity at major industry conference
• Have a second draft of business plan in place and start moving forward
  
• Find a developer that will “drink the cool-aid” or get venture capital funding…drink the cool-aid is way better

Personal

• Go on Potter’s Clay construction team (not sure if this will be possible with baby due)
• Be training for Marathon or Triathlon

Q3 2008
Professional

• Give Keynote Session presentation at industry conference
  
• Be at least one quarter into v1.0 of new business
  

Personal

• Visit Opportunity International bank in Mexico or Africa
• Run a Marathon or do a Triathlon

Q4 2008
Professional

• Hire second employee/subcontractor for kevin sturm Consulting billing 20 hrs/week
• Speak at hospitality technology industry conference
• Sign up early adopter customers for v1.0 release

Q1 2009
Professional

• Speak at hospitality technology industry conference
  
• Release v1.0 of new business venture
  
• Attend industry conference on new business venture
  

Q2 2009
Professional

• Speak at hospitality technology industry conference
• Release v2.0 of software
• Speak at industry conference on new company venture
  

Personal

• Attend TED Conference in San Francisco Long Beach with two friends

I Love My Job

I flew down to San Antonio today for a consulting gig at the Westin La Cantera. I have a really bad cold so flying was brutal. My ears are still plugged up. This place is uber nice and I got a sweet room with a view of the property and surrounding hills (photos below). It was really nice to relax for a bit in a nice room with a spectacular view. How great is it that get to come stay at a nice hotel for work! I love my job!Now I'm off to have dinner with my father-in-law.

What's Your World View?

I had coffee yesterday with a friend and business colleague. We worked together at my former company and both left about the same time to go out on our own. He is doing consulting now as well on sales stuff and is a very smart guy. We got to talking about travel and how we were enjoying the opportunity to travel more. Chrystal's friend Sarah is going to be in South Africa for a couple of years so I was telling him that we are planning on visiting her at least once, and while we are there visiting at least one bank with Opportunity International.

My friend had never heard of Opportunity International so we got on the subject of micro finance lending. Inevitably it turned into a political conversation and he expressed an opinion that most African countries (and other 3rd world nations) are in the position they are in because of their own fault (political corruption and such), and most of them were better off in every economic way when under the rule of a colonial power. This is not the first time I've heard this comment, and each time I do it saddens me. It saddens me not because someone does not agree with my opinion, but that someone who is very smart with a college degree and has traveled extensively throughout the world can look at the situation of extreme poverty and respond with, "They created this problem for themselves and need to fix it. If we give them our money their corrupt government is just going to steal it from them anyway." I may be overstating his position but it was clear that he did not find it realistic to try and end world poverty. (I define poverty in this case as the 50% of people in the world living on less than $2 per day.)

I recommended that he should read "The End of Poverty" by Jeffrey Sachs (I've posted about it before here). I also asked him, "If they did create the problem are we not in some way, as the wealthiest nation on Earth, responsible to help them?"

I know that there are at least a couple of readers of this blog out there and I'd like to know your thoughts. Can we as Westerners (or a least Americans) actually make a financial difference in economic support of 3rd world countries, or are we really just giving our hard earned money to a problem that will always exist?

Further more, if you are the in the top 10% of income earners in the US do you have a responsibility to help?

That's Disgusting!

As a frequent traveler this video makes me want to throw-up. I've stayed at each of these brands multiple times and drank from hotel drinking glasses bunches of times. I'm always a little wary of the bedding and check to ensure it appears clean (I once found dirty underwear in my hotel bed!), but I've never found the glasses to appear dirty.

This is one of those things that would make me just not drink from the glasses though.


Don't Ever Drink From Hotel Glasses

Dinner of the Traveling Type

Sometimes when I travel the thought of airport food just isn't appetizing, so the free food in United's Red Carpet Club turns into dinner. Crackers and cheese with carrots and ranch dressing washed down with a Coke. Chase it with a chocolate chip cookie...who could ask for more?

In Flight Entertainment

I've always been an isle seat person. But recently I've been enjoying window seats because of the in flight entertainment. I've been spending time on each flight being amazed at the world we live in, just looking out the window of the plane.

Here are few shots I caught from recent flights.

Seattle to Los Angeles. I love flying above the cloud line and absorbing the amazing view it creates.

City of Angels downtown

On your next flight put your book, magazine, or computer down for ten minutes and just admire what you see.

Don’t Have/Be Lazy Customer Support

Have you ever have one of those days where you were having a really great day, and then a single experience turns it all around? Like the kind of experience that leaves you with a head ache and you want to scream into a pillow. Today was one of those days.

It’s about 9:00 pm tonight and I was supposed to be on my way to Macao as of about 30 minutes ago. But there was a change of plans and I had to cancel my trip. I had booked a $6000 business class ticket on Thai Airways through Orbitz so I wanted to be very sure that I got refunded for the fare when I canceled. I placed a call to Orbitz at about 11:45 am this morning, and below was how I spent my afternoon.

11:45 – Place 1st call to Orbitz and run through this annoying automated prompter that loops back to the beginning if I hit zero. I finally get to Customer Support after 5 minutes and tell Customer Support I need to cancel the ticket. They put me on hold for about a minute, and then tell me they can’t cancel the ticket. I have to call Thai Airways directly and they give me the number.

12:00 – Call Thai Airways and get an answering machine saying they are closed and won’t be back open till Monday, and to please leave a message. This is where I get a bit confused…because apparently the Thai Airways office at Los Angeles International Airport is closed on the weekend.

12:10 – Call back Orbitz and again have to go through the annoying automated prompts. I get a real person and tell him my situation. He puts me on hold for about 10 minutes (this is my guess because I got to hear the full version of Pachelbel’s Canon just over two times) and tells me that there is nothing he can do and I need to call Thai Airways. I ask him if he is sure and tell him there is no answer, so he gives me the number to the Thai Airways New York office because they should be open.

12:30 – Call the Premier Executive number for United and ask them if they can cancel the trip since the first flight is on United. They say they can cancel the Santa Barbara to Los Angeles leg, but that is all. I ask them to do that, and say thanks.

12:40 – Call Thai Airways New York number and get the same answering machine.

12:45 – Go the Thai Airways website and spend 10 minutes trying to find a number to call that I don’t already have. Google eventually helps me get to the London and Bangkok office phone numbers.

1:00 – Call the London office for Thai Airways and get the same voice mail message.

1:05 – Call the Bangkok office which is HQ for Thai Airways. Again I’m into an automated voice system that is hard to understand because of the thick accent. I try to guess on the right number to press so they speak English and guess wrong so I have to hang up because they are not speaking English.

1:10 – Call the Bangkok number back and this time understand the prompts so I get to the English reservations system. The automated response says there is a very high call volume so I will have to hold. It then tells me that I can fax in my request and they will get back to me. I sit on hold for a full hour and no one ever picks up.

2:20 – Call back the Los Angeles, New York, and London office again to see if I can get through. Get voice message at all three numbers.

2:40 – I call Orbitz back a bit miffed at this point. Go through the same annoying prompts and get to another new customer support person. I tell him my situation. He pulls up my ticket and then proceeds to go through every leg of my itinerary with flight number, departure city and time, arrival city and time, asking for verification. After this he tells me because it’s an international ticket he has to transfer me to an international agent. I’m thinking why did the first two guys not do that?

2:50 – Get transferred to an International agent (Henry) and I go through my situation for the fourth time. Henry puts me on hold for about 15 minutes and comes back on the phone and tells me that I need to call Thai Airways. I’m a pretty patient person, but at this point I lose it and rant for three minutes on how poor the customer support is. He says sorry and puts me on hold for another 15 minutes to see what he can do. He comes back on and asks me if I purchased a fully refundable fair. I ask him if he is serious, and how can he not know that by looking at his computer. He says he doesn’t, and I don’t know either because it’s not on my confirmation email. He puts me on hold for another 10 minutes and then comes back on the phone saying I bought a fully refundable fair and he can refund the ticket. I say “GREAT” and can he send me an email confirming that it has been refunded…and he says “NO” (I’m thinking WHAT?) but is willing to give me his name and reference number. I say no, I want a confirmation email from Orbitz saying that they are going to cancel and refund my ticket. He says he can’t do that. I ask why, and he says it’s not possible. Then he tells me I need to call the insurance company that Orbitz uses to insure international tickets to get a refund for that portion of the ticket. I don’t even ask why Orbitz doesn’t handle that at this point, and write down the number. Then he tells me that I’ll be receiving a confirmation email of the cancellation (Did I just get told this was not possible?).

3:20 – I hang up the phone irritated and with a headache, check my email, and see that Orbitz sent me a Customer Service Survey at12:45 pm. I have not filled it out yet because I don’t want to waste any more time on this today. I fill out most of these surveys whether good or bad, but I definitely will fill out this one.

It took me over three hours to cancel an airline ticket because of lazy customer support. I’m guessing that if the first person would have just followed procedures and took initiative I would have been done in about an hour.

Don't Miss the Runway

Yesterday I traveled to a client location in Loleta, CA...which is almost in the middle of nowhere. To get there I had to first fly from Santa Barbara to San Francisco and then Arcata, CA. The airline announced when we got on the plane in San Francisco there was a thick fog cover over the airport in Arcata and we may have to land in Redding or San Francisco if the fog remained.

Well, we got over the airport and there was still a really thick layer of fog, but we had this awesome pilot that went for it anyway. We entered the fog and I was scrambling to get out my camera and grab a quick video because I couldn't even see to the end of the airplane wing, but was too slow.

It was crazy because we were in the fog for about two minutes, and then "poof" there was the runway about 10 feet below us when we cleared the fog. By the time I got my camera going we had already landed, but you can see how low the visibility was.

Picture taken with my Cingular 8525

After landing we all gave the pilot a cheering ovation!

Vegas Baby!

I was out of town for a couple of days and wasn’t able to blog. I actually missed doing it because I’m beginning to find it fun. I really need to get on being able to blog from my phone. I’ve got things all setup, just haven’t done it.

I spent Thursday through Saturday in Las Vegas, both for work and for a bachelor party. My buddy Ryan is getting married in a couple of months, so he decided to have a get together with friends for the weekend. It’s funny when I tell people I went to Las Vegas for a bachelor party, it automatically comes with all these assumptions. But we are really a pretty tame bunch so the weekend consisted of poker, blackjack, a round of golf (when it was 110 degrees!), and eating.

We also did a bit of beer drinking as well, but nothing excessive. We stayed at Monte Carlo and ate every meal at Monte Carlo Brew Pub because they had good food and awesome beer pitchers…it’s a huge tap!

I also played real poker for the first time…meaning with real money. I have played poker, but only goofing around with chips and friends…no money. I played “two-four” hold ‘em because I’m way too cheap to play “no limit”. I ended up winning about $25 on the first day and losing about $25 on the second, so I felt pretty good about things. I can’t say the same for my luck with blackjack…

We gave Ryan this crazy shirt that listed a bunch of things he had to do…but I had to leave before he could do them…bummer!

Road Show

I was just perusing this blog from a guy I know, Deyl, and found this cool website called TravBuddy. It highlights all the places you've traveled to, and lists the percentage of the world that you have traveled to.

I feel like I do a lot of traveling, and seeing that I have only been to 7% of the world makes me want to travel more.

Here is the list of places that I would like to go, and continue to update the places I've visited. These are in no specific order, as that order generally changes depending on the time of year and time of life.

1. Costa Rica
2. Brazil
3. Argentina (summer skiing)
4. Switzerland
5. France
6. Spain
7. Italy
8. Greece
9. Czeck Republic
10. Isreal
11. Egypt
12. Kenya
13. South Africa
14. Japan
15. Denmark
16. Russia
18. Ireland
19. Thailand
20. Botswana
21. Australia
22. New Zeland

I guess i better get going, because there are a lot of places I want to go!

Snow Day

For President's Day weekend Chrystal, Brody, and I went on our annual ski trip to Utah. My college buddy David has family in Salt Lake City that we stay with - which is great because it means we don't have to pay for a hotel. His father-in-law Frank also feeds us like kings every night, which is pretty awesome. The last night we had elk loin, which was so good. I'd never had elk before, and it very tender and flavourful.


We had another dream ski day this year with fresh powder. The white stuff fell all day long, so the snow stayed fresh the entire day. Check out the video of us shredding it up. The order of shredders is David Wold, Jeremy Wold, and then me. David turns into a "super-shredder" when the video camera shows up, and I turn into a wanna-be super-shredder. I had a few slide outs on this run, but had a great time. If you watch closely you can also see Jeremy's friend Lucas take a little jump off the side of the screen. The video was taken by Matt Miller, which means he didn't get on camera...which is a shame because he's a bad boy on the double planks.

Of the four of us, I'm definitely in the worst shape and the least talented skier. But, the three of them are nice enough to wait around for me when needed and tolerate my incecent "holy crap my thighs are burning" comments. Every time we go skiing it makes me wish that we lived closer to the mountains so I could do more skiing. It's one of those sports that I really do love, but only get to do it once a year...maybe twice at most. Some day I hope to ski 20 to 25 days per year...one can dream!

Fun with Photos....

Okay...so I don't pretend to be a good photographer. Wait...I do pretend to be a good photographer, but I'm really just a hack that gets lucky with a photo sometimes. I was playing with some photos recently in ACDSee, which is a pretty cool photo editing software if you don't know how to use photoshop, and realized we took a couple pretty good pics. So I figured I'd show them off to the world.

This is series of shots at Hoover Dam. The fam and I were driving to Flagstaff from LV and decided to stop off and take some dam photos. I think I took some pretty good dam shots.




When Chrystal and I realized we were like 70 miles from the Grand Canyon at my sisters place, we said we couldn't be that close and not see it. So we drove for about 1.5 hours, spent 30 minutes look at the Grand Canyon, and then drove the 1.5 hours back. But we got some nice pictures out of the trip.




This is a shot at the Grand Canyon, but just of a bench that we thought was pretty cool.

Why I love Santa Barbara

I had a great time in SB this Memorial Day weekend, and was reminded again why I love living in Santa Barbara. So it's true that Santa Barbara has the most overpriced housing in all the US...but it comes down to it I think it's worth it. Below are a few of the reasons that I think Santa Barbara is an awesome place to live.

1. There are more restaurants per person in Santa Barbara than any other city in the gool 'ole US of A, and I love to good food (I have no idea if this is really true, but I hear it all time).

2. There are ocean views on one side and moutain views on the other, and I love to live in a place with great views.


3. When it is cold it's 60 degrees,and when it is hot it's 80 degrees, and you really can't beat weather like that. Santa Barbara has the perfect climate!

4. Culture. Santa Barbara has great culture and community: art museums, history museums, artists, technolgy, 4 colleges, every type of restaurant, I could go on and on.

5. REALITY. I just love this church, from the pastor to the location to the people. It's just flat out a great church!

6. The BIG DOG Parade...you haven't lived till you have seen people and their pets dressed in matching outfits parading down the street as if it was normal.

7. iModonnari. We went here today, and it's is always an awesome time. Here are a few of my favorite shots from this year. These are chalk drawings on pavement, which really should amaze you.


8. THE DOGHOUSE on Milpas Street. This place has awesome hotdogs and a great story! If you haven't been, you need to check it out.

I could really go one, but I need to stop now.