In 1989, the CEO of my global employer allowed me to work from home rather than demand I move halfway across the US to be near corporate headquarters. Two technologies made his decision possible: Overnight delivery and an early fax machine. I was the first distributed worker other than our sales and product service representatives. Flash forward to 2013. I worked for IBM where 45% of its global workforce (and growing) worked from home offices. Those of us already virtual referred to IBM as “I’m By Myself.” We used a shared on-line knowledge base so poorly structured that we often entered the IBM site pretending to be a customer—it was the fastest way to find the information that we needed to complete a pitch deck. Many a day, I thought I was working for a computer, not a company. Distributed work is an…
The wisdom of the wonk
Might Martin O’Malley beat Hillary Clinton in the primary? Not according to Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, who dismissed the declared candidate’s primary chances. Calling the former Baltimore Mayor and Maryland Governor a “wonk,” Milbank’s March 11 column applauded O’Malley’s many real accomplishments but declared him unable to excite the Democratic base. Milbank quotes O’Malley as saying, “We brought crime down by 43 percent. We reduced the number of children poisoned by lead in our city by 71 percent. We cut in half the number of children placed in foster care. We reduced infant mortality by more than 17 percent. We drove down avoidable hospital re-admissions by more than 10 percent in just the first year of trying.” You get the picture. Results. Not miles traveled around the globe, or evidence of caring about women since forever. Neither Tea Party rallying cries, nor being unwilling to admit…
Pulling weeds to improve the customer experience
Grrrrrr….. How often have you ended up raising your voice with a customer service representative or an automated voice system? It happens to me whenever the specifics of my situation fall outside a company’s “rules” for its software or front-line people. I for one get frustrated too often, my impatient self is ashamed to admit. Still I am not alone. Companies that reduce these jaw clenching moments can gain a leg up in the race for creating the best customer experience. My most recent example is a call to my 92-year-old (and getting mentally frail) mother’s bank. The PNC representative refused to turn on a feature that would let me (for mom) direct deposit payments into her caregivers’ banking accounts. This refusal occurred despite my name being on the account and the bank having a record of my having my mother’s power of…
A winning membership business model
The woman wore brown leather hot pants, a beige silk blouse, dangly earrings and over-the-knee black heeled boots. Thankfully, she was thin. Her partner, also in his late 20s, wore grungy jeans and an expensive leather jacket whose collar hit his rock-star-length locks. Next to them was an elderly Hispanic grandmother trying to keep tabs on three grade-schoolers, most likely children of her working daughter or son. An elderly blond women, her face the work of a terrific plastic surgeon, stood comfortably in very high-heeled shoes. Her Channel sunglasses matched the color of her Fendi handbag. Added to the mix was a teenage male covered in tattoos, wearing black flannel Turkish pants and a sleeveless matching top, despite the 72-degree weather. Each shopper’s cart was brimming, all with very different mixes of merchandise and groceries. Welcome to Costco where you feel you are…