Archive for February, 2008

About 8 months ago, I purchased an outdoor grill from a company named Jenn-Air. It was a pretty big purchase as it cost over $600 when all was said and done. It also needed to be installed, which included lots of labor intensive things (removing existing tile, cutting the holes for the cooktop and the venting, etc.) as well as all the electrical hook ups to make it safe. This wasn’t any trivial matter to me. Took a while and cost alot.

It was worth it. That thing is awesome! I now have a nice outdoor kitchen-ish thing going with the grill and a little sink. I use it probably once or twice a week where I’ll cook anything from fish to corn on the cob to steaks and burgers. You name it. Keeps the heat out of the house in the summer and food tastes better grilled…

Anyway, about 3-4 months after I bought it, I noticed the Teflon coated grills were flaking. And the flaking got worse the more I used it. I followed the directions on how to keep the grills clean pretty much from day one - only using hot water to rinse them or even just popping them in the dishwasher. So the fact that the Teflon was coming up really was perplexing and a bit disappointing. On the grill itself is an 800 number for customer service - so I called it up and told them of my issue. The customer service rep took my information such as name address, as well as the serial number of the unit, where I bought it from etc. Once complete she said “We’ll send you new grills as a replacement at no charge to you.” And the call was done. It took all of 10 minutes and they were standing by their customer and sending me replacements. I didn’t have to do a thing but call!

Now about 2 weeks ago, I noticed the exact same thing happening on the replacements! More flaking. And let me tell you, I babied the replacement grills. Like you couldn’t even look at them with a metal tong in your hand. They were cleaned by angels blowing on them. Ok they were rinsed in hot water… but gently. As you know, grills can get dirty, and keeping them dirty in an outdoor kitchen is ugly and embarrassing. It’s not an option to let them stay dirty and anyway, they are supposed to be dishwasher safe. So now I thought, well geeze, it must be a manufacturing defect.

This time, I went to their website, clicked on “Customer Care” and then “Contact Us” to see what options I had in letting them know about my recent issue. On that page was a link to their live chat. I’ve used live chat before with some success so I figured why not here too? After filling in their prelim form, I was in the chat room and waited only a few moments to be connected to a customer service agent. I explained again the issue with the Teflon, told them the replacements need replacing and asked if there was something wrong with this model’s grill grates. The agent wanted my serial number, which I didn’t have at work but suggested to her that I was already a registered customer, could she look me up by name. In moments, I was found in the system, the problem was noted and was told to hold on while she asked another department if there were any records of a defect for my model. Again, just moments later I was told that no, the problem seems to be just me and that they would again send me out replacements free of charge.

Now, while I still think there might be an issue with these grills just because of my experience with them, Jenn-Air will continue to get my business and be a recommended company to friends who look for these unique items. Their customer service was tight and impeccable. Any other company should use their example as one to strive for.

• I was given multiple avenues to discuss my problem. Both avenues I used, someone responded quickly as well, there was little hold time. Also, the hours that the agents were available were convenient to me. People have jobs and grills are a weekend thing. Having someone available when your product is being used most was great.
• My records were retrieved in seconds on the second contact point (the chat) based on a minimum of information given from me (the customer)
• Internal conversations with managers or other departments took only a minute
• Responses were concise, professional and friendly - regardless of the medium contacted. The person who typed the chats spelled everything correctly and had good grammar
• I was believed and was given warrenty service with no hassles in a very short time

In an age where customer service seems to be lost art, it’s good to see a company step-up. Clearly Jenn-Air has thought out their customer service process thoroughly, invested in high quality systems so that agents can do their quickly and efficiently and hired good people to face customers.

For me, price isn’t always the driving factor in a purchase. I’ll pay a buck more to be treated well and I think more and more people are doing the same. At least for certain purchases, maybe not a gallon of milk. But even there, if the line at the checkout is 12 deep while 20 lanes are unmanned, it’s not worth the dime to wait and be frustrated. A customer only needs one bad experience to never return. And given the internet, it only takes one angry blog post to keep people away from your store or product. I wish more people blogged about their positive experiences too…

Here’s an interesting article from Computerworld that I read today about the “future” of IT in major organizations. I found it extremely relevant to the discussions in my IT department recently, especially how to interact with our internal business partners.

This article has mostly to do with how job titles are changing in the IT world but they are doing so to reflect the changing way IT is used in other large-scale businesses. This is not a “dot com” thing. This is a real world industry change being done by multi-billion dollar companies - results of which can easily be seen at dice.com and monster.com.

Key quotes:
“Key factors driving the evolution of IT job titles and roles include the commoditization of technology, plus an ever-growing base of new workers who are technologically savvy and quite accustomed to having technology play a background role in just about everything they do.” -Jonathan Thatcher, director of business integration for the Chicago-based Computing Technology Industry Association

“IT is no longer a subset specialty. IT is integrated into whatever work you’re trying to get done,” -Patti Dodgen, vice president at Mosaica Partners LLC

“The IT department is being disintermediated, but in a good way. It is being pushed farther up the food chain,” says Kamud Kalia, CIO at Toronto-based Direct Energy, an $8 billion integrated energy services company. “A lot of stuff IT would have done, they no longer need to do. The problems have been fixed or the technology has been commoditized.”

“At Direct Energy, job titles — especially titles in the 350-person IT organization — are purposely kept vague. “We keep the titles generic, and people can apply descriptive labels to what they do,” says Kalia. “I want them to think of themselves as people who work for this company, not people who work for this company’s IT department,”

“IT will focus more on analysis and be more involved in the early life-cycle tasks [of developing products and services] and less on technology delivery. IT will focus more on simulation, content and information architecture,” The bottom line: “Moving away from technology management doesn’t take IT out of the picture. It changes what IT does.” -Anthony Hill, CIO at Golden Gate University

The biggest take away I had from this article is the fact that finally businesses are seeing past the “IT as order taker” role of the past. I once sat down here with an end-user to do some field work on her business processes and how they could be optimized. When she found out I was in the IT department, she wanted me to replace her mouse as aparently it wasn’t working well. This type of huge gulf in understanding what an IT department is all about is all too common in many businesses and it can be really tiring. I’ve found it to be a constant uphill struggle, one where I repeat over and over what value an IT department who is a partner can bring to a company. And frankly, it sometimes has limited success. I’ve used the analogy of “It’s like trying to explain the wiring of a 747 when the person I’m explaining it to has yet to see fire.” It makes me wonder if companies or groups who are so far behind the curve will ever be able to catch up?

I like sports. In fact I love them. Love the NFL, love college basketball and MLB (probably in that order). My favorite event is March Madness by far, however. I’m also a big fan of watching the premier sports at the Olympics, like boxing, track and field and swimming in the summer and downhill skiing, bobsled and hockey in the winter. Even NHL hockey is fun (in person). I’m part of a fantasy football team every year and while I don’t always do so hot, I know the best players and who generally to draft. I love the pre-season NIT and the Hall of Fame Game.

But man, NASCAR is boring.

About 2 years ago I moved down south for work and family. At the office, guys talked NASCAR all the time. This driver and that, this kind of car and that, alot of talk about restrictor plates and the Car of Tomorrow. Most of which went over my head. I probably know slightly more about cars than Mikhail Baryshnikov. I’m not trying to make a statement about the knowledge of Russian ballet dancers, but…ok yes I am. Anyway, I don’t know much about cars. I can change my own oil and can flush the radiator if I care to. (I did both a few times, but it was a pain to dispose of the old fluids so I just go to Jiffy Lube or whatever now.) Windshield wipers and all the other fluids aren’t confusing. I even once changed the thing that charges the battery when the car is running…er…the name of which escapes me as I write this. It has belts and what not. The converter? No that’s not it. Bah. See? Regardless, I’m no gear head by any stretch.

Hilariously, I joined a Fantasy NASCAR group last year. And won. Seriously! I won the group and was paid $60 bucks for first. Everyone was pissed because I kept chiding them about how I knew nothing, never watched and still was winning. My strategy consisted of putting in drivers every “expert” said to. Who the hell is Boris Said? I didn’t care. He was picked on “road courses” and in to the line up he went. An interesting side note, one of the road courses for NASCAR is Watkins Glen, which hosted one of the largest rock concerts ever with one of my favorite bands, the Grateful Dead. (BTW, do yourself a favor and listen to the soundcheck jam - choice 10. Even if you don’t like improvisational music, this one is inspired.) 

Ok ok…on topic…

I tried this year to watch the whole Daytona 500race and found it so freaking tedious that I had to give up and go edge the yard. (For those of you in cold climates, the yard never stops growing in the South.) They go around and around for hours and get gas and tires occassionally. Sure the cars are fast and sometimes they bump and even crash. I joked with my dad on the phone that I think people watch to see if someone will turn right at some point. See, they go one way on an oval track…always turning left…if they turned right, they’d crash. It was funny if you were there.

The drivers are likely very skilled at what they do although I would hesitate to call them athletes. I’m sure someone will bristle at drivers not being athletes but someone always does. Those same people probably would’ve liked to have seen poker in the Olympics. OK perhaps they are athletic and it seems pretty draining to sit for 4 hours in a 120 degree (or more) car in full body asbestos underwear, even though they now have said underwear cooled the whole time. And you probably have to concentrate pretty damn hard for the entire time. That said, NASCAR drivers are no Michael Jordan, Bruce Jenner or even Brian Bosworth. I will however concede that they are more athletic than John Daly or Fernando Valenzuela.

All that aside, I tried to watch for the nuances. Although the hillbilly announcing the race was no help, I guess there were some…drafting and bumping or some such. Yes changing the tires fast seems to get people back into the race ahead of the guy who was slower. Also, some pit crews mastered the art of the calculator as someone was able to judge if their guy needed to get gas when others didn’t. I’m not sure why they couldn’t just put in a guage of some kind in the car saying how many miles they have left… Apparently it’s a risky thing staying out on the track without getting new tires and more gas. I get it that new tires grip better. Again though, will this keep me awake?

One thing I do know. NASCAR looks GREAT in hi-def.

Why do all the boring sports like golf and NASCAR look so good on TV?

Kate Nash, Foundations:

I really enjoy this song for it’s story-like lyrics and catchy tune. My friend in London said Kate Nash sounds like a “chav” but not being from London and instead being an unsavvy American, I like the accent. It adds to the story telling aspect to me.

I just came across this speech courtesy of Digg. You can read the speech here or watch the embedded video.

This really resonated with me. I myself feel the last 8 years (or so) of the prevailing government’s attempt to integrate a strand of religion very disenfranchising; in an inherently diverse population like America, made up of cultures from all over the world, we need to be more willing to listen and accept and less eager to dictate and exclude.

Obama’s words were related as a prayer: “A hope that we can live with one another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all”. Obvious, yet (in the light of what I feel has been going on in America) profound.