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No, that title isn’t a typo. It’s a sarcastic comment on the “genius” of the login screen for the iTunes Genius feature which, as it turns out, is the same as the iTunes store login. It took me four tries to figure out how to log in.
Not so Genius. Read on »Every once in a while I file a support issue with some service I use. The customer service rep confidently replies with an answer. The last one, at a place I won’t name, suggested that I clear my browser cache. Of course, I had done that, multiple times on multiple browsers. That’s fine though. That [...]
How I *want* to be treated -»We are motivated to do good, even great, things for friendship (social norms) and we expect to pay for commercial goods (market norms), but when we mix these, bad things happen in our social lives and for companies that get this wrong.
What are social and market norms and why do I care? -»You weren’t planning to buy the premium edition, but somehow that’s what you came home with. How did they get you do to do that? Easy. The Contrast Principle
Don't think you can be taken in? Read on -»It seems that every corporate website has some place to handle problems and complaints. But shouldn’t you have a place to handle happy customers? The unhappy customer may be unrecoverable, but you want a long-term relationship with happy customers.
Keep happy customers »We all know one “magic word”. Please works well, but there’s another word that you must know if you want to get your way and must recognize if you want to be less susceptible to manipulation.
The Other Magic Word. Click to find out -»Companies often fail to use the technology they have. US Airways had all the information they needed in some database, they just couldn’t make it available in the right place at the right time. Result: terrible experience for their customers.
Read how bad data management makes bad customer service at US Airways -»You’ve no doubt heard of single-issue voters. People who vote for a candidate purely based on issues like abortion, capital punishment, gun control and so on. But what about single-issue customers? That is, customers who won’t patronize your business because it’s so unfriendly to smokers, vegetarians, or whatever. How many of those groups can you [...]
How businesses should really count vegetarians (and other single-issue customers) »I occasionally think it would be fun to have “business” cards that are just for fun, but I don’t usually want to pay a lot. I recently saw a VistaPrint ad for 250 free business cards (affiliate link), so I wondered: Is Vistaprint really free? Answer: It’s not quite “free” in the end because you [...]
Is Vista Print legit? Read on »
There’s not much to say. This site is maintained (to put it charitably!) by Tom Lambert, a historian by profession, an outdoorsman by avocation and a geek by nature.
If you have a question, comment or injurious insult, go ahead and send me an email.