I love it when folks are helpful, even when it’s at the end of the check at the end of the meal: Tipping Etiquette:

This is the bottom of a check at a restaurant. What do you think of this? Is it a good customer experience or presumptive?

I love it when restaurants get “presumptive” because if they were being presumptive, they would have gone higher than 20%.

Via Branding Blog

I tried to order a couple blazers from Eddie Bauer on Cyber Monday via their website. I tried four times. The site allowed me to get all the way to pay and they then threw me an error.

After the 4th try I called their 800 number to order and the call dropped. By night, I tried again. I got through and all appeared well. I even paid extra to secure 3-day shipping.

Today is 4 December and the blazers have not arrived yet. They still may come today or maybe on Monday before I ship out to Berlin for three weeks.

I called up today to see if they’re en route. I was doing it between things and didn’t have the order number on me, though a smart mail order retailer really should work harder to put the stress and suffering — the hoop-jumping — onto the shoulders of the vendor rather than the customer.

She couldn’t sort me out on the phone, asking me to run down all of my contact info, address, city, state, zip, and phone.

She then told me there was a wait, asked me if I would like to wait or be called back. I asked for a call back.

She confirmed my number and she had it down wrong. I corrected the number and she confirmed that a customer service rep would be back to me with no wait.

That was over two hours ago. Was there indeed a two-hour plus wait? Did she take down my number wrong again? Did she hit “delete” instead of “save?”

Did the bridge between her and her customer service rep burn? Break? Collapse?

The only solution now that I consider appropriate is expediting the blazers to me, gratis, to Berlin — assuming they don’t arrive today or Monday.

I have been discussing this on Twitter for the last couple hours, @replying to @eddiebauer every time.

Why don’t companies like Eddie Bauer cover their social media properties like Facebook and Twitter with the same 24/7 full-coverage that they do their hotlines and order numbers? I have been monitoring the @eddiebauer feed on Twitter and the coverage seems to me only during the work-week, Monday through Friday, and only a few spotty hours over the course of the day.

Social media is obviously someone’s second job or secondary task. Just in terms of crisis management and crisis mitigation, this sort of laissez faire attention to social media engagement and responsiveness is counter-productive and actually quite dangerous.

As we all know in social media, if you want to start a negative campaign against most companies, start it Friday night or Saturday morning because most companies take their PR and customer service eyes off the ball from quitting time Friday until they’re surprised and start freaking out at around 10AM Monday morning.

We’ll see what happens now!

UPDATE: After another call to a very clueless call center employee, I was able to get a customer service specialist who quickly and deftly found my order and told me it’ll arrive on Monday before 7PM — still too late for Berlin but at least I am have the order confirmed.

Now, I have a FedEx tracking number and the works.  I guess I should have expedited the order to over-night — the three day was a wash — I ordered on Monday and it is Saturday and there was Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday — and I should have received it on Friday, right?

So, why is it arriving on Monday — to me, though at least I am validated that I am not crazy and the order does, indeed, exist, I don’t believe they were able to get me the blazers in the three days promised.

FURTHER UPDATE: I checked up on my tracking number over at FedEx and the blazers were delivered on 3 December at 3:02 PM; however, the address on the package was wrong — the label had the apartment as 13 instead of 131 so it couldn’t not have been delivered.

So, the operator on the phone took down the wrong address.  Apartment One-Three-One doesn’t sound anything like Thirteen, does it?

I just received my brand new Lenovo ThinkPad x201 and I have just set it up. (UPDATE: Here’s the story of this amazing laptop and my customer service experience with Lenovo and the very happy ending: Lenovo Stepped Up and Completely Restored My Brand Loyalty)

It arrived a few days ago — Tuesday — but I was out of town so my associate Sara picked it up. Solid state hard drive, 8 gigabytes of RAM, Windows 7 64-bit, and a 9-cell battery.

That means it is pretty badass and I will rant and rave about the ultimately amazing customer service experience and the unfortunate stress out at the end.

I just wanted to update the news I little before the corporate affairs team at Lenovo — you know who you are — have a complete cow.

I love the columns of Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times. She is gentle, genteel, and yet her business acumen is neither soft nor customer-centric.

Today’s column,  “Time to spit out more words of praise for Apple” says it right: “it is OK for a CEO to be rude to a customer” if that customer is being completely unreasonable.

I can’t say I agree — I leave that sort of unpleasantness to Mark Harrison, my CEO — but I agree that a CEO can do whatever he wants, though there are always cause and effect.

That said, I applaude Lucy’s opinion and look forward to seeing if there will be any fall out and what the nature of that fallout might be.

Might it be more pot-shots and griping or does someone have a compelling counter-argument for Ms. Kellaway’s words?

Thank you to Angela at Lost Property at the Lost Baggage/Luggage office at Reagan National Airport (DCA) and the lost property and lost and found folks in Philadelphia for taking the loss of my treasured Lenovo ThinkPad x61! Within a couple hours of leaving my laptop in the seat back of seat 14A on the red eye flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Philadelphia (PHL) — I guess I was grogged-out — they had discovered it, called me to let me know, secured my FedEx number, and here it is at 0900 the very next day, merely 24-hours later. Again, thank you US Airways. I will never forget this — it is the little things, guys, that make loyal customers!

Got a WindCutter for my Zoom H2, originally uploaded by Chris Abraham.

I ordered a StormChaser Black WindCutter for my Zoom H2 along with the WindTech 20/421 Large Diaphragm Foam Windscreen cut for the Zoom H2. What I have learned so far is that under most indoor circumstances, you really don’t need either the foam or the fur windscreen indoors because it very well can deaden the sound. Outside, however, if the war is between the rush of the wind overwhelming any voice quality and a little deadening, then grabbing a WindCutter is a very good idea.

I almost forgot to mention that WindCutter has the best customer service that I have every enjoyed in the form of Rebekah Stamp, who walked me through everything I needed, gave me suggestions, checked in on my order, and generally made my experience with WindCutter a Best in Show online buying experience.

Oh, and to make all this even better, I Googled Ms. Stamp and discovered that Rebekah is the owner of WindCutter!  Also, you can check WindCutter out on Twitter and Rebekah Stamp on Facebook, too.

Holy mackerel! Connie Bensen has one hell of a comprehensive list of tasks for which an online community manager needs to be responsible! I mean, if this is a contiguous list, this describes quite an experienced and senior person, that’s for sure. What this shoes you is that the job of OCM is not an entry-level position.  Please be sure to check out Community Manager Responsibilities and Goals.

1. Online Marketing, Outreach Strategies & Building Brand Visibility

• Contribute to the development of the Company’s online marketing and outreach strategies.
• Foster a sense of community around the brand at both the brand properties and on the web at large by building relationships.
• Contribute to the Company’s web strategy so that customer communications at all touchpoints are maximized.
• Monitor key online conversations and events to make sure Company is participating effectively & is being represented.
• Participate in social networking sites:
• Claim brand names on social networks by creating profiles to protect the brand.
• Identify & participate in social networks where appropriate for your brand & Company.
• Manage, maintain, and ensure the success of the Company blog
  • Ensure that it becomes a viable tool for communicating to Company’s customers
  • Encourage, recruit and provide Company & outside “experts” with the resources to blog
  • Promote the blog by increasing awareness of the blog’s potential both within Company and externally

2. Public Relations

• Identify influencers in your industry. Establish relationships, partner & collaborate with them.
• Engage and motivate the Company’s most active online advocates & ensure that their efforts are recognized.
• Respond to crises in a timely and professional manner.
• Coordinate the efforts of evangelists, forum moderators, & advocates so that affected Company projects are executed efficiently & in a timely manner.
  • Provide leadership to motivate & maximize the impact of online community’s efforts
  • Encourage WOM: teach them how to start the conversation & sustain it
  • Establish the goals, identify objectives & timeline
  • Break down the goal into tasks, deadlines & manage the projects to meet the goal.
  • Ensure that projects are completed & those involved are compensated & recognized.

3. Customer & Technical Support

• Become one with the product(s). Learn it inside & out.
• Listen to customers and gather their feedback. Thank them for their input.
• Route customer needs to the appropriate department.
• Be responsible for the administration of the Company’s online brand property(s).
  • Ensure that a positive environment is maintained that reflects Company’s commitment to excellent customer service.
  • Work closely with Company’s IT manager to ensure that the goals of the forum are met.
  • Monitor online forums, identify potential problems & issues & promptly communicate them to the IT Manager as appropriate
  • Practice excellent judgement in communicating with customers about potentially controversial topics.
  • Advocate for the customer’s needs but balance that with the needs of the company & diplomatically communicate that to both customers & Company

4. Product Development & Quality Assurance

• Communicate customer suggestions and provide ideas for product improvement.
• Participate in discussions on product use.
• Report product defects.

5. Sales & Business Partnerships

• Identify and route potential sales opportunities to the appropriate teams.
• Be proactively strategic in building relationships that will result in mutually advantageous business partnerships.

6. Internal Web 2.0 Ambassador

• Encourage internal communication & provide leadership for cross functional efforts.
• Develop guidelines to ensure that Company’s online outreach is both effective and consistent with the organization’s image and overall communications strategy.
• Increase awareness of web 2.0 tools across the Company and provide training in their use.
• Teach, guide, & encourage those that are new to Web 2.0 tools and culture.
• Be available to staff across the Company to assist them in identifying & using online tools to help them achieve their goals related to their position.
• Advocate for the culture shift that’s required to be a customer-centric company.

7. Reporting

• Participate in creating the online community plan including a budget
• Track and report the following on a regular basis:
• Quantitative measures as outlined by business goals
• Amount of activity at community site(s)
• Qualitative report of consumer responses
• Suggestions & feedback for management & executive levels
• Identify & offer solutions for breaking down barriers between customers & corporate. This includes identifying needs that aren’t being met from the customer’s perspective & being involved in the discussion as to whether the needs are valid, can be met and if they will benefit the organization as a whole.

8. Goal Setting & Professional Development

• Stay up to date on new social media tools, best practices and how other organizations and companies are using them, so that the company can continue to be an early adopter of emerging technologies.
• Participate in professional networking by interacting with peers and thought leaders in online arenas & attend events.