I'm a believer.... in eBay.
I'm sitting on my couch in near complete disbelief. I saw a trend starting early in the 1990's (some will say earlier or later) where customer service became scarce and unimportant and the focus was on becoming bigger, better, more efficient, less caring, less individual and always -- more profitable. It was a concerning trend because people were not the focus, money, tech and growth were. It made for a great bubble and made for some quick millionaires. It was also extremely short-sighted and led immediately afterward to the natural byproduct of greed and hubris -- a fall! We've all seen the effects of that.
In any case, this is a long-winded way to say that I'm becoming a believer in customer service coming back in vogue, and some very big companies leading the charge. Take, for instance, eBay. I had written a scatching blog entry detailing an issue I had with eBay, the Post Office and a seller who didn't quite follow his own rules. I took issue mostly with eBay, because they had a program in place to provide buyer protection when customers were short-changed or didn't get what they ordered. It's a wise move on their part to have a program like that, particularly because there are some less than reputable folks selling on eBay. They also do have programs in place to eliminate that kind of chaff -- and I've always felt like doing business on eBay was pretty safe. So I was blown away when I contacted their buyer protection team and got shut down completely. Then I received an e-mail talking about how valuable this program was, which included the CEO's name. It was somewhat like throwing kerosene on a fire -- I was still pretty irritated with eBay. I hadn't shopped on their site, told everyone about my experience, and posted here and on all my other social media outlets that eBay wasn't taking care of the situation. So I Googled John Donahoe and found his e-mail address and forwarded him the message that had his name and eBay's buyer protection commitment on it -- expecting that in the best case scenario, I'd get some campy form response telling me how valuable my feedback was (why do people do that? Just proves it's not!).
eBay didn't take the easy way out. I got a phone call this morning from a great gentleman on their team who had received the e-mail directly from John Donahoe with a request to look into it. Apparently the boss takes customer service and the concerns of members quite seriously... we talked for a while about the case, the details of which are in my old blog post here, if you're curious. In the end, eBay is taking care of the loss by crediting me with eBay credit (a perfect solution, actually -- it keeps my business with them). But more importantly, it demonstrates that they are interested in taking care of me -- an individual. I appreciate that more than I can say -- and so I am recanting my blast of eBay -- and I'm telling you that this company deserves a good look -- they're doing something very, very right. :-)
During my recent case, I'm about 95% certain the fault was with the USPS -- that's an organization that never has cared about customer service at its highest levels (and I still hold out that this is true; I challenge anyone to prove otherwise!). eBay, though, rocks.
Thanks for restoring my faith!
Joe
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
We The People -- only need you for one term, thanks...
Cross posting from a comment I made on friend's Facebook wall post:
Brian's got a point - we waste a lot of services to keep stupid people alive -- unfortunately, they're probably the same stupid people who are voting the tea bag way. Ben's got a point that people don't want to spend money that they worked hard to earn on things they don't see as valuable. Government doesn't appear valuable because they suck at doing things efficiently. If we can improve their efficiency, we'd have a lot easier time to justify paying their salaries and expenses.
The problem with the tea-heads is that they think all government is evil and that the Constitution prohibits all forms of government not explicitly called out by the framers. Couple things wrong with that assertion --
1. It has nothing to do with any local, state or non-Federal government. That's up to the state Constitutions and local government bylaws and guidelines. A locality can't say it's okay to murder, but they can say "We're not going to charge you taxes to live here." They wouldn't survive, because taxes are a necessity, but they could theoretically say that.
2. The framers wrote the Constitution 224 years ago. We've made a few revisions since then, many of them valuable ones, clarifying the intent of what our society believes is right. "Giving" women the right to vote should have been in the original document, but society at the time didn't think they were competent to the task. That was obviously an error in judgement. Why would we think that other errors in their judgement didn't exist? Why do we hold this document up as infallible, when we've got clear evidence it had bugs?
3. The image that most tea-heads have of government is an "us-vs-them" mentality. Government is of the people and by the people, remember? Those idiots up there running "government?" They were working at the office down the street last week. Remember that those government incompetents in office (all public governments in the US) were elected by the people. If the people really thought they were doing the job that poorly, they could replace them, even mid-term if necessary. The problem is that we've built up this image that politiicans need to be political and need to serve more than one term. If we could get our public servants to serve us for a single term, focus all their energy on solving problems and not on getting re-elected, getting their friends elected (while in office), etc., we'd be able to really get the people who were interested in taking time to get the thing done right. Imagine, for instance, if you didn't have to worry about what you were doing to do when your term came up -- that you didn't have to spend time and effort fund-raising, smearing your opponents, etc.; that you could focus on doing the job at hand and answering only for the body of work that you put out, not the life that you lived for the 40 years before you got into office. Great examples of this: who thinks that anything Strom Thurmond, Robert Byrd, Ted Stevens or Joe Biden did in their last days in office was their best work? Did they accomplish a few things? Sure. Were they fired up to get the will of the people done? Eh, not so much. They wanted to stay in power. Why would we have someone doing the same job for 51 years (Byrd) when he wasn't even able to read the legislation the last few years of his life? Why would we allow them to shape the future of our country?
It's time to get the future out of the hands of a few old grumpy men and women (Nancy Pelosi? Get outta here!) It's time to return to people who don't want to spend their lives consumed with the need to stay in power and in charge. George Washington wasn't necessarily a great man, but he had a great idea of service -- serve the Country and the greater good for a little while and get out. Abe Lincoln was nervous as hell when we got elected President -- and with good reason, as he had a pretty rough road to walk. The road right now is equally rough (albeit for different reasons) -- we need to find someone who will take on the task and then go home. I think all political office should be for a single term; there are plenty of people who are capable of running for and excuting the various political offices. For those who say there's a need for continuity -- continuing what? Bad polcy-making, bad power-grabbing, greed and other evils? Why? If we really need continuity in office, cascade the terms of related offices and have each change of office include a period of time for transition where the incumbent keeps the office and authority for the first half while training the new occupant, then switch for the other half. People do this in corporate America all the time -- CEOs (arguably much more difficult a transition than most political offices), VPs, Chair of the Board, etc.
If we want to eliminate the waste and fluff from government, we've got to stop people from focusing on the short-term -- and the only way I can see to do that is get them stop focusing on themselves, their careers and their cronies and to focus on what WE THE PEOPLE need. What say ye?
Brian's got a point - we waste a lot of services to keep stupid people alive -- unfortunately, they're probably the same stupid people who are voting the tea bag way. Ben's got a point that people don't want to spend money that they worked hard to earn on things they don't see as valuable. Government doesn't appear valuable because they suck at doing things efficiently. If we can improve their efficiency, we'd have a lot easier time to justify paying their salaries and expenses.
The problem with the tea-heads is that they think all government is evil and that the Constitution prohibits all forms of government not explicitly called out by the framers. Couple things wrong with that assertion --
1. It has nothing to do with any local, state or non-Federal government. That's up to the state Constitutions and local government bylaws and guidelines. A locality can't say it's okay to murder, but they can say "We're not going to charge you taxes to live here." They wouldn't survive, because taxes are a necessity, but they could theoretically say that.
2. The framers wrote the Constitution 224 years ago. We've made a few revisions since then, many of them valuable ones, clarifying the intent of what our society believes is right. "Giving" women the right to vote should have been in the original document, but society at the time didn't think they were competent to the task. That was obviously an error in judgement. Why would we think that other errors in their judgement didn't exist? Why do we hold this document up as infallible, when we've got clear evidence it had bugs?
3. The image that most tea-heads have of government is an "us-vs-them" mentality. Government is of the people and by the people, remember? Those idiots up there running "government?" They were working at the office down the street last week. Remember that those government incompetents in office (all public governments in the US) were elected by the people. If the people really thought they were doing the job that poorly, they could replace them, even mid-term if necessary. The problem is that we've built up this image that politiicans need to be political and need to serve more than one term. If we could get our public servants to serve us for a single term, focus all their energy on solving problems and not on getting re-elected, getting their friends elected (while in office), etc., we'd be able to really get the people who were interested in taking time to get the thing done right. Imagine, for instance, if you didn't have to worry about what you were doing to do when your term came up -- that you didn't have to spend time and effort fund-raising, smearing your opponents, etc.; that you could focus on doing the job at hand and answering only for the body of work that you put out, not the life that you lived for the 40 years before you got into office. Great examples of this: who thinks that anything Strom Thurmond, Robert Byrd, Ted Stevens or Joe Biden did in their last days in office was their best work? Did they accomplish a few things? Sure. Were they fired up to get the will of the people done? Eh, not so much. They wanted to stay in power. Why would we have someone doing the same job for 51 years (Byrd) when he wasn't even able to read the legislation the last few years of his life? Why would we allow them to shape the future of our country?
It's time to get the future out of the hands of a few old grumpy men and women (Nancy Pelosi? Get outta here!) It's time to return to people who don't want to spend their lives consumed with the need to stay in power and in charge. George Washington wasn't necessarily a great man, but he had a great idea of service -- serve the Country and the greater good for a little while and get out. Abe Lincoln was nervous as hell when we got elected President -- and with good reason, as he had a pretty rough road to walk. The road right now is equally rough (albeit for different reasons) -- we need to find someone who will take on the task and then go home. I think all political office should be for a single term; there are plenty of people who are capable of running for and excuting the various political offices. For those who say there's a need for continuity -- continuing what? Bad polcy-making, bad power-grabbing, greed and other evils? Why? If we really need continuity in office, cascade the terms of related offices and have each change of office include a period of time for transition where the incumbent keeps the office and authority for the first half while training the new occupant, then switch for the other half. People do this in corporate America all the time -- CEOs (arguably much more difficult a transition than most political offices), VPs, Chair of the Board, etc.
If we want to eliminate the waste and fluff from government, we've got to stop people from focusing on the short-term -- and the only way I can see to do that is get them stop focusing on themselves, their careers and their cronies and to focus on what WE THE PEOPLE need. What say ye?
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