The Lewis Show

Anytime I post about people's ills, I want to say quickly that I am no doctor. So goodness gracias, please do not take my rhetoric as medical advice. The last thing I want is for my wit to kill somebody. People seriously get sick and this is for the rest of us. I always have believed in the power of placebo. Not so much the power of the sugar pill itself, but the power of the mind. In fact, I'd probably put some Scientologists to shame with my strong belief that we can will away most of our ills. I'm sure I've on many occasions willed away a slight cold or escalated one on the occasional Monday. The Box That Says It All Boing Boing earlier this week posted a funny short piece about an Etsy user who is now marketing boxes of Extra Strength Placebos. I see this as utter brilliance and I also (as the writer) am kicking myself for not thinking about marketing this sooner myself. So this magic sugar pill will apparently cure all your ills as long as your mind i...

I'm reading through my timeline the other day and I thought of an interesting course of action Twitter could take to grant them more of a foothold in people's digital lives. Google has brilliantly created an apps platform to keep their users within their environment. I can start a typical day loading Gmail, then Maps, Docs, Voice, Reader, and so on. I can do all of this on their cloud based operating system or I can do this on  my desktop. There's so much rich integration, I'm hard pressed to go outside of that space because so much of my cloud life lives at Google. In Twitter now there are events, location check ins, photo/video sharing, and so on. People don't just post what they're watching or eating anymore. But those tweets just kind of float into my timeline for a second and then they're gone. It's not just a space where people banter on endlessly anymore (unless you're Charlie Sheen). I would have to star every other tweet of importance or...

A quick look at the satellite tells me that we are due for nearly a foot of snow in the Richmond area this weekend. Guess it's time to prepare for the end of things. The South is unique when it comes to preparation for this cataclysmic event. My Northern readers have all been slowed down by snow, but never completely shut down by the white stuff. In fact, most are lucky to miss a morning's activities with rarely a cancellation of school, work, church, or other social events. These Northern readers also find how we deal with the four letter S word to be completely humorous. At the first mention of snow, people begin to stock up with milk and bread in fear of this apocalyptic frozen precipitation. Why milk and bread? I've always wondered that. I can understand the need for bread, but if one loses power for a week, water may last longer in that refrigerator. The dairy industry thanks you, I guess. Many buy (I prefer the word waste) at least a week's worth of extra su...

I have done some quick best of posts, now for a worst of post. This relates to my customer service posts recently as well. Here's a short list of local establishments that have rude customer service: Ukrops - Across from Va Center Commons. One of their managers finds no problem of wrongly accusing someone of writing bad checks. Is it any wonder Ukrops will be no more? They did themselves in. I would consider shopping there again when the management at that store offers an apology for falsely accusing someone dear to me of wrongdoing. It would just be more the same at Giant or whatever they will become. Sears Outlet - Despite every attempt of regional managers trying to make things right with me, I will never do business there again. The manager at the store would not even give me his name when I needed to address a serious problem with my lawnmower. Until he apologizes to me personally, I recommend no one shop at that store. Other Sears stores are fine, but I've been wron...

I wanted to touch on another topic in my customer service series. Time time I'm directing my attention to companies. Recently a company and major partner changed their phone menus to a complete voice activated system. Many of you have experienced these new phone prompts that do not involve pushing a button for an option, but forces you to speak your option. Those spoken options teach the phone menu the direction for your call and on paper are supposed to get you to the right place. I understand the need for this process. Especially in companies that have a department for everything, nothing can be more frustrating than sitting on hold for a long time just to end up in the wrong department. It's just not so easy to hit a button and be in the right place, I understand the need to specify departments, just so that's known. Companies are convinced this is something that will benefit customers and it's something that customers want. I don't know where they're ...

As promised I wanted to finish my two part series covering customer service over the phone. I am really grateful for the responses I got from the last post. This is something that affects us all. We have good and bad experiences and it seems when talking to people, there's a lot more of the latter than the former. To briefly recap the last post, my tips focused mainly on knowing what you need, determining the pace of the customer service rep, and tips to win them to your side. Most of the time, they can make things happen to your favor, but when they can't, a sign of a good rep is that he or she will try to find you some satisfactory alternative. So what happens when you don't get that savvy employee who knows the in's and out's of the company? What can you do to get what you need from someone who's new at a company? This can be one of the more frustrating experiences, and a lot of these will only work depending on the circumstance. A new phone represent...

That initial thought of 'customer service' today makes us cringe. Our next thoughts immediately recount dreadful experiences that involved tears, yelling, and even cursing. That's happened to all of us and things only sometimes seem to be getting worse. Our minds rarely race to that great service experience despite how rare or recent they seem to be. So what's the trick in this new technical service age? I want to take a few posts to go over different scenarios and how we can all do our part to make customer service what it's truly supposed to be....a tolerable experience at best. Companies in this day and age see customer service as a cash cow. It's a part of the budget that just eats away at resources, while barely producing new business or sales. As a result, the customer is often left with long hold times, service reps based overseas, or annoying voice mail systems. These companies are pushed daily to find ways to cut costs by reducing paper, assigni...