3 Steps to Great Customer Service

1. Figure  out what the guests wants

• Be proactive in finding solutions

• Review the trouble ticket and respond within 24 hours

• Ask questions to help solve the issue and engage the client

• Feel free to apologize for their trouble

• Provide a time assessment for a resolution

2. Get it For Them

Accurately

• Ask questions to understand any bigger issues

• Document by sending an email to client and IT or enter in ticket system

• Communicate progress and when issue is resolved

• Follow up with the client after the issue is resolved

Politely

• Communicate using the basics (please, thank you) and other social skills
  

• Resolve in a timely way or renegotiate timeline

Enthusiastically

• Make the client feel that they are the best part of your day

• Do not blame the client (even in jest)
  

• Be cheerful

3. Go the Extra Mile

• Do  something extra for the client that they didn't ask for or expect

Afterwards I was chatting with the store manager and we were talking about the beautiful gray granite floor. I learned that all Apple stores on the planet use it and it is Italian (Pietra Serena) siltstone from the Sienna district and Apple owns the quarry. We then moved to the tables which, again, in all Apple stores on the planet, built by Fetzers,  a 93 year-old woodworking company based in Salt Lake City. The stainless steel walls from a company in Japan. The glass from another specific company in Montreal, I think. So who looks after the long term maintenance of things like the stainless steel walls and the siltstone floors? Dedicated teams that travel from store to store all over the planet. What this does to my brain is really shrink the distances of the world and simplifies the usual complexity in a way that reminds me of localized economic systems, and yet is global. It is like a village buying from the local baker and shoe maker. Except it is a global company operating on a planet wide level – but with the same intentionality in purchasing. Strange.

GoogleFest – Flash Mob to Nominate Ann Arbor for Google Fiber
Friday, March 26
University of Michigan Diag, Ann Arbor
11:57am – 12pm

GoogleFest kicks off with a flash mob from 11:57am to 12pm on the Diag. A picture speaks a thousand words. We will have photographers / videographers at the Diag flash mob to capture HUNDREDS of A2 citizens cheering the A2 Fiber anthem for three minutes. We are going to catapult Ann Arbor’s Google Fiber fight to the national level.

Participating local-area businesses / restaurants / bars will provide GoogleFest discounts over the lunch hour for flash mob participants and the public. Each participating business / restaurant / bar will have a laptop for patrons to fan the A2 Fiber FB page, send a tweet, upload a YouTube video, submit a Google nomination form, etc.

More info on the event

Don’t forget to fan A2 Fiber on Facebook!

Think about how high speed internet connectivity will change your business, life, attitude — then show us in a creative, entertaining and informative 30 – 90 second video how Google Fiber will make your life better. The creator of the winning video will receive a grand prize. There will be multiple runner up videos as well. And the top videos will all have a chance to win an Apple iPad. Videos can be uploaded to YouTube for judging beginning March 17, 2010. The deadline for submission is 1 p.m. EST on March 26, 2010.

Betsy, Zingerman’s graphic designer, jokes, “Can I submit the balsamic video I’m making?” Why not? Balsamic vinegar adds rich sweet flavor to your salads, while Google Fiber in A2 would be just plain SWEEEEET! Let’s win it!

“How are you putting food on the table? Our ancestors killed mastodons and all they had were rocks and sticks.” -Jim Gilligan, How to Kill a Mastodon

“No wonder free-range mastodon is so expensive.” -Ryan Burns

Goal is for 10% of our food to come from local sources. -Jeff McCabe, Food Here Now

A2B3 is an open lunch hosted by Ed Vielmetti every Thursday at Eastern Accents. Everyone’s welcome.

It’s not about subject matter knowledge…. Insane zealotry. -Brian Cook, Building the World’s Most Popular College Football Blog

Cook with your eyes, ears, taste buds… You’re missing out on a whole world of awesomeness. -David Zuidema, Bolognese: You’re Doing it Wrong!

More pics at Ignite Ann Arbor.

via

Print & Fold iPhone/iTouch dock.

via cubeelog

To create the chart, Velo gently scraped Wikipedia’s list of Crayola colors, corrected a few hues, and added the standard 16-count School Crayon box available in 1935.

Except for the dayglow-ski-jacket-inspired burst of neon magentas at the end of the ’80s, the official color set has remained remarkably faithful to its roots!

Ever industrious, Velo also calculated the average growth rate: 2.56% annually.  For maximum understandability, he reformulated it as “Crayola’s Law,” which states:

The number of colors doubles every 28 years!

If the Law holds true, Crayola’s gonna need a bigger box, because by the year 2050, there’ll be 330 different crayons!  Shortly thereafter, frazzled packaging designers rejoice, for to the rescue comes a revolution in household appliances: the new-fangled Replicator-Dissociator!  Load it with the Crayola plugin, and you’re seconds away from every shade in the rainbow – no boxes required!

hat tip.