Saying Sorry is Good for Your Business
I first heard this story on Radio 5 and it’s here in full in the Daily Mail.
Nottingham University does a lot of excellent research and this detailed study shows how a simple apology can be better than offering unsatisfied customers a cash payout. The experiment was interesting too, in that it was carried out using a company that made sales on eBay. I wonder how much other good research can be performed in this manner?
The levels of satisfaction were actually 42% with an apology and 23% when a cash payout was offered. So it wasn’t just a small difference!
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post talking about the service I got with a freezer from John Lewis.
So perhaps things are getting a lot better.
They may be in commercial companies, but we will really only have completed the customer-relations revolution, when the various Agencies of the Government get their customer focus perfect. There are ones that are good, but there are others that are terrible.
Get it right and it could help the next government govern for a long time.
An interesting aside to saying sorry, is that an old friend used to run a large hospital department. They implimented an immediate sorry-policy and it cut the level of complaints drammatically.
Looking for Lights
I don’t know whether this post will get any results, but I have a problem in finding the right lights for my kitchen/living room. I know what I want, but I can only get them in small sizes. And I want a large one to replace a chandelier.
Conical Wire-Wrap Shade
This was the original ones that my late wife bought, when we moved into this house about sixteen years ago, they came from John Lewis.
Note the bulb which is one a Philips Tornado. They start immediately and are rated as the equivalent of a 115 watt conventional bulb. They are better, but still only a stop gap until we get proper LED light bulbs, that look like a conventional bulb, emit light like a conventional bulb, last virtually forever and run cold on about a tenth or less of the electricity.
Three weeks ago, I bought this pumpkin shaped shade from Homebase.
Pumpkin-Shaped Wire-Wrap Shade
This one is a lot smaller, but although made many years after the original, it has the same design, company and/or machines written all over it.
Then I found this one in B & Q.
Globe-Shaped Wire-Wrap Shade
Again it was identical in similar in detail design and certainly method of manufacture.
I’ve put two on the gallery in the kitchen to replace a wall light.
Lights on the Gallery
What I now need is a large fitting, say about 80 cm. in diameter, made to a similar design for the centre of the room. Perhaps though a globe shape would be best, or at least one with a narrow aperture, so the bulb is semi hidden. I’ve seen one in hotel. Or I might have!
Any ideas?
Ideas – Control Through a Computer Network
I have a pretty extensive computer network in my house and the buildings. It’s all very standard stuff based on Cat5e cabling and a few switches.
I have a couple of cameras on the network to watch over the horses and these work well. Effectively they are cameras with an inbuilt web server that takes an address on the network. You type in that address and you see the pictures.
But there do not appear to be many other devices, that work in a similar way.
For instance, I would like a switch that could sit on the network and be used to switch exterior lights on and off at night. Or more likely when I think there is something suspicious happening. I would just click a small window on the computer screen.
There are other devices I would like to put on my network; speakers, weather sensors and level gauges for my gas tank.
I can’t find anything on the Internet, that you just plug in and start playing.
Go on! Make my day build one. I think you’ll sell lots!
Simple Is Efficient
I watched the qualifying for the Grand Prix at lunchtime and it put forward an interesting proposition.
Since the unfortunate accident to Felipe Massa, the second Ferrari driver has struggled. First Luca Badoer, the test driver was very disappointing. Today, Giancarlo Fisichella qualified almost last. Yet last week, he was on pole and came second for Force India at Spa.
Now the performance of Fisichella is strange, given that his replacement at Force India, Vitantonio Liuzzi qualified in seventh.
I just wonder if the Ferrari has all sorts of gizmos and gadgets that it is very difficult to learn. It’s got KERS for a start.
Whereas the team with the smaller budget can’t afford them and has taken a simpler and easier approach.
A simple and efficient design is always better in my opinion.
60163 Tornado
In some ways one of the aspects of seeing the Winton Train at Boreham, was how professional it all was. Tornado steamed into view at the same speed of all the modern electrics on the line and in a few seconds, she was gone. Are railway engines female like ships?
It was just like how as a child, when I used to see the Streaks (A4 Pacifics) at Oakleigh Park in the late 1950s and 1960s. But then if you read the history of the new-build A1 Pacific, Tornado, you would expect that, as it is just a very professional engineering project, albeit with a rather unusual product.
There was criticism when Tornado was built that this British project had to use a German boiler. Wikipedia says this.
While the manufacturing facilities still existed in Britain to manufacture such a large component, due to the design differences from the originals, the Trust required a supplier with the specific experience of designing, building and certification of steam engine boilers to modern day safety regulations, as required by the European Union’s Pressure Equipment Directive.
In early 2002, the Deutsche Bahn Meiningen Steam Locomotive Works in the former East Germany was identified as a supplier. They possessed the required knowledge as mainline steam operation had continued in East Germany until the mid-1980s, and 70% of its work still involved steam, and they still possessed the powerful plate roller machines.
That to me is a very good reason for using a German boiler. It also cost about the same as a complete rebuild of the boiler of the Flying Scotsman.
In a lot of other areas too, Tornado is modern, in that it can operate under the wires and in a completely safe environment on a modern railway. She also has a modern air braking system.
Let’s hope we see Tornado a lot more in the next few years.
An interesting aside in the Wikipedia article is this.
While Tornado will be limited to 90 mph (140 km/h) on the UK main line, there is a possibility that she could reach higher speeds, if transported to Germany. If she was towed through the Channel Tunnel, according to the Trust, Deutsche Bahn had informed the Trust that Tornado would be allowed to run “as fast as [they] like”.
Perhaps, if there is another Winton train, Tornado could do the whole route!
Technology That Works
The postman came about five minutes ago.
He delivered two pieces of post that mattered amongst all the old junk; a new card for Sky and a Voter Registration Form from St. Edmundsbury.
The card had been flagged up on my Sky system for about a week now. A simple message just told me that the card had been posted and could I check the post. I took out the old card and entered the new one. It worked first time. As it should.
The Voter Registration Card had only one problem. The URL was rather complicated, especially as it included St. Edmundsbury, which is not the easiest word to type. But after a couple of pages and a few clicks, I’d updated everything. Or in my case, just told them that a very lonely man, who spends a lot of his time blogging is still alive!
Seriously though, life isn’t that bad all the time.
But both systems worked without a hitch and with the exception of the URL couldn’t be faulted.
An aside here, is that if you’re developing an on-line system, make sure that the URL is short. There are lots of six and seven character ones available. I even recently acquired mx73.com. Short and memorable.
I just wonder how less stressful our lives would be if so many of the other things that we have to do in our lives were just as simple. We’re getting there, but not as fast I would like.
One thing that works round here, is that when my wife died, the Registrar informed the council, so that I got an automatic Council Tax discount, after I signed and dated the form they sent me. A very civilised piece of joined up thinking.
Do all councils work this way?
And then we have the excellent system for Vehicle Excise Duty, that has cost the Post Offices so much money, as who in their right mind queues for an hour to buy it.
Missing Apostrophes
There has been a lot of talk lately about missing apostrophes. One guy in Royal Tunbridge Wells has gone as far as painting them in where he lives. It provokes this piece in the Telegraph, from the wonderfully named Harry de Quetteville.
But leaving punctuation out of road signs is not new. Look at this one from Ipswich, which has been there for some years.
St. George’s Street, Ipswich
This sign is actually a lot newer than the one at the other end of the road, which was one of the old-fashioned cast ones.
My father was always hot on punctuation. But then he was a printer and was always having arguments with customers about it. Although not specifically punctuation, the thing that really got his goat was when to use the plural form of verbs.
So which is correct.
The Chairman and the Board of Directors request your pleasure at the opening of their new factory.
Or.
The Chairman and the Board of Directors requests your pleasure at the opening of their new factory.
You can argue that in the first, there are more than one of them, so it’s request, but in the second they are a single entity, so it’s request.
Do we have a pedant out there, who can tell me what is correct?
In addition I am a stickler for layout. Nothing annoys me more than when I get a document or read a web page, which is poorly laid out. My father was the same.
There is no excuse for bad design.
Travelling in Style
This picture shows the typical way I travel.
Lotus Elan, Brompton Bicycle and a Paul Smith Case
The Elan was built in 1991-92, whilst the Brompton was made around the turn of the millennium. The case is newer and was a present from my son.
There is space in the boot of the Elan for a lot more than just the Paul Smith case and the Brompton. I actually think that you might get two Bromptons into one Elan.
What is my next trip? Not sure, but I really would like to circumnavigate the Baltic, taking in St. Petersburg.
Butler Sheba Cutlery
When we married in 1968, we didn’t have much, but we did purchase a rather extravagant set of Butler Sheba cutlery. There is very little information about the cutlery on the Internet, except for this small piece in the Design 1965 Journal.
Sheba Cutlery
They are a classic sixties design that was made in Sheffield. The handles are actually a plastic called Delrin from DuPont.
I still use them everyday and they have always been washed in the dishwasher.
If anybody has any cutlery of this design in good nick, I might be pleased to purchase them.
My Brief Case
I went to a school in North London, Minchenden, where carrying brief cases by their handles was very much frowned upon. I still follow that tradition today.
My Dunhill Brief Case
My late wife bought it at Dunhill in about 1976. Admittedly they have replaced the zip twice, but despite its battered appearance it’s still going strong and accompanies me everywhere on business.
That’s what quality is about!
Note that the case has no handle and two very useful side pockets.
The Anonymous Widower 