Slightly Askew

You either put up, or shut up.

And when someone does put up, it’s worth mentioning.

Swanfest is this weekend. Three days of live music and DJs in a little pub in the middle of Ipswich. The pub is called The Swan. Everything becomes clear.

I’d like to consider Damo - the landlord - a good friend of mine, although I haven’t okayed this with him yet. And what he’s doing is quite remarkable. They’ve got wristbands, programmes, t-shirts, and even VIP passes (of course I have).

And the bands are great too. I went to see Rosalita and Cheeky Cheeky and the Nosebleeds last night, James Severy is playing tonight, and my beloved NovaSouls are playing tomorrow night.

There’s no clever marketing plan, no focus group, no SWOT analysis. Just a damn good time.

Look hard enough and you’ll always find a reason not to do something.

Stop looking, start doing.

Two of my best friends - Danny and Katie - are hairdressers.  Brilliant hairdressers, in fact.

This means two things:

1. Looking this good costs less.
2. I don’t go into salons much.

I went to Katie’s salon today though.  It’s spanking new and pretty swish.  So swish in fact, I could’ve had a glass of cold Budweiser while my barnet was being chopped.

I questioned Katie about how they get around licensing laws.  Turns out that you don’t buy the drink; you rent the glass.  The drink is effectively free.

They don’t make a profit on it either; it’s done for the benefit of the customers.

Which is pretty cool I think.

It demonstrates that not every element of your business should make a profit.  Some elements that only break-even are worth talking about.

So what about if you made a loss?  What if those drinks were absolutely free?  What if I was brought a cold Budweiser without even asking for one?

Cold Budweiser, sir?

Yes please.  I’ll happily drink it, relax during my haircut, and then tell all my mates about your salon.  Never underestimate how much blokes talk about the time I got a free beer.

I know of companies that give away £10 vouchers if you refer your friends to them.  Why not spend £10 giving a service worth talking about?

Imagine there are twenty-five people in a room.  You’re about to open a great new shoe shop and you want to know what size shoe most people want to buy.  You pass around a piece of a paper and everyone writes what shoe size they want to be stocked.  If you take everyone’s opinion into account and do a bit of maths, you’ll get an average shoe size.

Similarly, you can take an advert for your shoe shop into that room of twenty-five people.  You pass it around, let everyone have their input, and make changes based upon that input.  The result is exactly the same: you get an average advert.

Do you want average?

It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be

If an idea of yours has ever been greeted by blank looks and general indifference, well done.  Keep up the good work.

Don’t worry, the book will explain everything.

Me and the lady were being good citizens on Saturday: paying-in some money for a friend at a high street building society who are, apparently, proud to be different.

In walked a young couple.  They went to one of those ask-a-question queues (we were in the cashier queue, there was a queue for the machines, and a queue of people wondering what queue to join).  The male-half of the couple spoke.

I’d like to change my address please.

I really wanted to make an amusing comment about needing an estate agent instead of a building society, but my seldom-seen restraint kicked-in.  The customer services representative (or whatever his job title was) responded.

Okay sir, I’m going to need you to fill in one of these forms.

As if people don’t have enough bloody forms to fill in when they’re moving house, I thought, restraint still intact.

Well, how long’s it gonna take?  Cos I’m trying to buy something over the internet and I can’t cos my address don’t match the one on the card.

Surely it would be instant, wouldn’t it?  All they have to do is change a record on a database.

We have to post it to central records, sir.  It will take a few days….

…but since I’m in a good mood, and it’s an exceptionable circumstance, I’ll do it for you today.

What?

You’re in a good mood?  What’s that got to do with some bloody customer service?  Just change the fucking address!  And if you can do it instantly for them, you can do it instantly for every other person that needs to change their address.  I can’t imagine they get more than five requests a day.

If there’s a logical shortcut that improves the standard of customer service, make that shortcut the standard.

Surely?

Anyone who’s read the the bit on the left that says a little about me will know that one day I hope to have a cat.  Writers have cats.  Farmers have cows.  Scary people have violent dogs.  That’s just the way the world works.

Caroline found a cat last week.  It was crying by the roadside.  She brought it home and gave it food and water.  It was gone the next morning, but it came back.  Again, we gave it food and water.  We gave it our attention, and it stayed with us in the garden until we went indoors.  The next day it came back again.

Give a cat food and water and it might come back.  Show it some affection too, and it almost certainly will.

Maybe cats are like customers.

If you give customers a product or service at a good price, they’ll come back. But only until they find someone else who offers a good price.

If you give customers a great product or great service at a good price, they’ll come back.  But only until they find someone else with a great product or great service at a good price.

So how do you keep them coming back after that?

Make them smile.

Happiness is a bloody powerful emotion.  Some songs make me happy.  Some adverts make me happy.  Some products make me happy.

Make me happy and I will remember you.  I will keep coming back to you.  Great products, great service, and good prices are what I expect from any business with half-an-ounce of common sense.

Do more.

Here’s an interesting idea.

And here’s my attempt.