Where are you?

Jim Killeen was lonely. He wanted to find himself... Well, people that had the same name anyway...

This is a very interesting project. It all started with an egosurf -- Jim searched for his name on Google. He found quite a few people that shared his name and decided to meet as many as he could. The movie is well done and quite interesting. He meets quite a few interesting people (a priest, a cop, and a swinger to name a few) all over the world.



Have you egosurfed recently? You might be surprised with what you find... Go ahead and try! Use the search box on the right side of this page and select the "Web" button instead of "A World Discovered".

A new "unicycle"?

Technically it does have two wheels, but...

I found this really cool motorcycle while perusing the Like Cool site. I'm not much of a motorcycle fan, but I think you'd agree that this one really stands out.

According to the site, "operation of the 54.4 kg (120 lb) machine is simple, in fact it's so simple there are no controls except for an on-off switch. To go forward you simply push your body weight forward to tilt the machine. To back up, just lean back on the seat to tilt it backwards and back it goes."

It's kinda like a Segway for the really fast crowd.

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Care Label

Why risk it?

Sometimes it's just easier to let someone else do the work. On the University of Colorado's Physics Education Technology site, there are literally dozens of physics-based simulations to play with and learn from. You can play the classic aim and fire simulations (complete with human cannonballs), or study wave theory or, in honor of Earth Day, study the greenhouse effect. Almost makes me think maybe I did learn something in high school...

"Today's your lucky day!"

Those were the first words that greeted me from a very chipper and bouncy 4-year old this morning.

"What do you mean," I asked.

"We get to go get Mommy tonight! So it's your lucky day!"

Out of the mouths of babes... :-)

I think I've manage fairly well, all things considered, but we've all missed her.

Is there a reason this guy doesn't have kids...

...anymore?

All alone...

...with the kids this past weekend and part of this week as my wife visited relatives in Florida.

Happy to say that there have been no major issues so far! :-) My wife made me a "no-mom-schedule" document for me to use while she was gone. It had the kid's schedule on there as well as some of the other family events, etc so I didn't miss anything. It helps a lot to have someone do that when you're not used to the schedule of events. I know the major things that go on around here, but she has, by default or design, taken care of the kid's schooling for the most part -- and I really appreciate that! I know that they go to school, and roughly when they leave the house, but I'm not here to involve myself in it each day, so it's all her! Their project due dates, the forms to return when, etc., being listed on the schedule kept me from having to respond to an email from a teacher asking where that piece of paper was.

So far I think we've all had a good time. We've done special things -- just Dad and the kids. We've kept pretty much the same schedule and rules (so as not to upset the balance of nature or parenting when Mom gets back.) They've not had free rein, but we've done some things that we might not have otherwise done... ;-} No one has been seriously hurt. No one is lost or locked up. Mom's vacation is not over yet, but I think I'm holding down the fort OK... I've even gotten a chance to get a few things done around the house that I'd not been able to do until now!

Science Tattoos

If only I had been this brave in Chemistry class I wouldn't have worried when I lost by crib sheet.

To see more ingenious science-based tattoos, visit Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium blog.

Robots

My recent dealings with BCC made me think of the Disney movie Robots where Ratchet, the new, evil president of Bigweld Industries ceases making replacement parts and only makes new parts leaving the older robots to become scrap. I kind of feel the same way. Like scrap. In the movie, the robots only had one source of parts (save for the McGyver-esque mechanics of Rodney Copperbottom), so BCC, I mean Ratchet could do as he pleased. In the real world, there are plenty of automotive companies looking for my dollars. Maybe I should give them a chance…

Strike two

Got a letter today from the Liaison looking into my wife's brake issues… Not sure how much he looked, but what he stated was "Customer is responsible for repairs not covered by warranty." End of story.

What does it take?

Go get a drink, this one might take a while to read…

My wife's father used to work for one of the Big 3 automakers before he died many years ago. As his survivors, my wife used to get a discount and so she, and then we, bought cars from that manufacturer (I'll abbreviate BCC – Big Car Company). Then, a couple of year ago, BCC decided that due to her father's divorce a couple of years before he died, my wife was no longer eligible for the discount (after 20-some odd years of her family using that same discount including on the one my wife was driving at the time of our purchase attempt!). Though frustrating at the time, we simply used my employer's slightly less generous discount and bought a car from BCC anyway.

Fast forward a few years. That vehicle we purchased has now had at least five brake-related repairs (the latest just last week!), two transmission issues (including an entire replacement), and several other much more minor issues. The car does not yet have 60k miles on it! To me that's a little excessive.

The most recent issue is just the icing on the proverbial cake. Last Saturday, the family was shopping a half hour from home. When we returned to our vehicle to leave, the car started fine then, after about 50 feet, stalled. Restarting the car, the engine ran extremely rough, then stalled again as we tried to move forward. We also lost transmission control – no forward and no reverse – intermittently. These were the same symptoms that my wife experienced last year when they ended up replacing the transmission. We called a tow truck and had the car towed to the same dealership that did the replacement last summer, expecting them to find additional transmission issues, and made some short-term alternate transportation arrangements.

When I heard from the dealership on Monday (I had to call them, by the way), they said that the processor, the brains of the engine, was submerged in water and that was what was causing the issues. The transmission was a symptomatic casualty, but not the root cause. They had no idea where the water came from (it had rained the night before, but we had driven in the rain many times since purchasing the van). They could offer no reasonable source of the water. Had I driven the van through a puddle 5 feet deep? No. Had I been in an accident with the vehicle? No. Had I poured 25 glasses of water down a channel that didn't exist into a cavity I couldn't reach in the firewall between the passenger compartment and the engine? Uh, not that I can remember…

Two questions pop out here. One, the more obvious one, "Where did the water come from?" and two, "If there is an electrical component susceptible to water damage, why wasn't it sealed to protect it from that water?" Answers: "Don't know" and "no water should've been able to get in there."

Having JUST gotten the vehicle back from the brake repair LESS THAN A WEEK BEFORE THIS, my irritation level was understandably a little higher than baseline when this issue presented itself.

This just doesn't make sense. I was getting no help from the dealership, so I escalated. I escalated at the dealership and had the distinct pleasure of talking to someone their website identifies as their "Customer Relations Manager" who is not someone who should even be allowed to talk to customers. I eventually talked to the Service Manager. Same crap! So I escalated to the Manufacturer's Customer Service department. Not sure why I expected anything other than just some call center phone jockey who'd give me the corporate line and toss me to the curb, but I had hopes…that were dashed. No satisfaction there either.

Meanwhile, my short-term alternate transportation arrangements had expired and I was out of options, so I paid the $340 labor costs so that I'd get my car back and vowed to continue fighting for remediation through channels other than the dealership. (The dealership's resolution? Seal the whole housing with silicone and wrap it in a plastic bag, then reattach to firewall. Now I'm concerned about lack of circulation for an electronic component as well!) I did ask the Service manager to escalate through his channels to express my concern over the lack of true resolution to this issue. He confirmed that he had done so, but the technician was on vacation this week… Did I mention that I did the same thing JUST LAST WEEK after the FIFTH brake-related repair? Different dealerships, different tech escalations, but now there should be TWO people looking into this vehicle.

So… that's just the background; it's not really what I wanted to talk about here, but I'll post updates to this saga as something happens – hopefully next week. What I wanted to talk about was customer service. You know, servicing the customer, hopefully with the intention of keeping them as a customer and selling them more product so that the company makes more money… I think that's still the goal of every capitalist company in the world.

Common sense reasons, and surveys prove, that it takes a lot more money to win a new customer than to keep an existing one. Most surveys put it at a five to seven fold difference. To KEEP one customer would cost you say $20, but to replace that customer would cost you $100-$140 dollars. But those are the numbers of video stores, and florists, and moving up to ISPs and cell carriers (both also blind to this apparent "new-fangled concept"), not the range of dollars that losing a customer means to an auto manufacturer. Total sales to one customer alone could reach half a million dollars or more over their lifetime. Granted, sales does not equal profit, but it's an important number all the same to demonstrate scale. And that doesn't even touch on the word of mouth marketing impact a bad experience can have. I can't find the study, and it was probably done before the advent of blogs (like this), and all of the other social networking phenomena, but it said that for every bad customer experience, the average person is likely to tell about 20 people versus just a couple about a positive experience. That can only be worse for the manufacturer nowadays. I've tried to praise the positive companies by name here, while protecting the names (or me from lawsuits) of the outcast.

Think of the positive, FREE publicity that this (or any) manufacturer could get if they just did the little things for their customers in situations like mine. Say they're sorry. Offer a discount on the service. Prove to me that they recorded the issue to the development team to review. ANYTHING! But nothing yet for me.

Most large companies have their share of ACMESUCKS.com websites. Do they troll those and try to win customers who post there back? I don't know, but by then, it may be too late. I'm willing to offer feedback. I'm willing to provide details and work with them to rectify this issue. I've opened the doors for them and invited them in. Others may have just walked away, told all their friends and relatives and BCC would never know what happened, not gotten the opportunity to fix things and make them right. When something like this comes up, I feel it's my responsibility to tell the company. Then my duty is done. How they react is up to them. If I don't tell them, it's my fault. If they don't fix the issue, it's their fault.

Did I mention that I actually work at a BCC facility and have to walk by their internal marketing about the quality gains that they've made, and the posters that say "We're the voice of the customer."? Talk about salt in the wound. Great -- their new cars are top of the line quality. What would make me want to buy one if they treat me like I've been treated in the last several weeks. And, so what about the new cars. What about the ones that millions of us already own? Don't they care about US? My coworkers (as employees of BCC) have said that they're embarrassed by how I've been treated (and they've only heard some of the phone conversations).

I've been fighting off the comments by friends and relatives every time something goes wrong with either of my BCC vehicles (yes, I own two currently). The ones that take the BCC name and make up new meanings for acronyms, etc. (think Northworst Airlines instead of Northwest Airlines as an example). It's getting harder and harder to defend that position now. Other members of my family are driving "other branded" vehicles with over 250,000 miles on them – no issues – or getting 50 miles to the gallon as the price of gas approaches $4/gal. I get reminded of that quite often -- especially during vulnerable times like this. I had even changed my wife's ringtone to play one of BCC's classic commercials when I called (but I've now changed it back to my son announcing my call instead).

I was planning on replacing my van this fall (if it makes it that long). I had a BCC vehicle all picked as a top contender, with really nothing else in the lineup. I'd talked to coworkers who have that same model. I'd found the support forums and looked at BCC's model site. Discount aside, I was still interested in purchasing a BCC vehicle. Of course that was two weeks ago; the feeling is waning. I'm not a lost customer yet, though. They've got another couple of weeks to win me back. The ball's in BCC's court. They need to decide how much they want me as a customer. Is it quicker, cheaper and better for them in the long run to rectify the situation now and earn my goodwill, or to continue to battle the failing auto market because they're losing customers? Their choice.

What do you think? Has anyone provided great customer service to you? Especially in the automotive world? Leave a comment and let me know. One never knows when one might need such advice…

Shuttin' 'em down...

I'll post the whole issue soon, but I've been having a lot of car issues lately -- my car and my wife's car both. It made me remember something -- two of the four dealerships that we've used for maintenance on our cars are gone. Shut down. Closed for business.

The first was where we attempted to purchase my wife's current vehicle. Too many delays, etc forced us to go to another dealership. A week or so later that original dealership shut down.

The second one that closed was actually the one closed to our house, but one that we had never used until my car broke down a half mile away from it. They got the business by default (shorter tow). I was not pleased with the service, but they got my car running (though I'm still not convinced at 100%). I guess I wasn't' the only one not satisfied given that they closed a month or so after my repair. I actually talked to the General Manager of the dealership because of my service experience.

Now I'm curious what will happen to the dealership that just services my wife's car given our record. We'll see...

Full details on my experience to follow (I need to sanitize it a little still).

Strike One

BCC's Customer Service Department said I was out of luck.

BFE

If you search for BFE in Google or any acronym finder, you're likely to find that it means a "way out of the way place." -- rated PG-13 for language :-p

But for me, that was BK (before kids). Now, BFE means Boxtops For Education. General Mills started the program in 1996 in which they donate money to schools and other non-profits by having consumers return a special proof-of-purchase icon found on their products. Many other brands have joined the cause since then and the total donations so far top $200 million! The donations usually go toward the school's PTA or other school organizations that provide general funds for the students' education.

Here's the challenge... Print the list of participating BFE products. Tack it on the refrigerator or somewhere else visible. The next time you go to toss product packaging into the trash (or hopefully the recycling bin as most of these are on cardboard containers) take a look for the icon shown above. Clip it and put it in an envelope so it's safe (it's small and prone to loss if not secured). Every so often, send that envelope to a school that will then transform it into cash! If you know who I am, send it to me and I'll make sure that it gets to a good school, but if not, simply donate it to a local school in your area.

It doesn't cost you anything extra. You don't have to fill out any surveys. You don't have to give any of your personal information to who knows who. It doesn't take much time. Yeah, it may not be quite as rewarding as winning the state lottery (as if!) that claim to provide funds to the schools, but you're giving back in a real way.

Thanks!