January 31st, 2008
Much like we talk today about the lawlessness of the west during the early years of America, years from now, people will talk about the lawlessness during the early years of the Internet. The similarities between the Wild West and the Internet are numerous :
- There’s gold in thar hills!
- The primary crimes are money and sex related.
- If you rob a bank (e.g. start stealing money from Amazon corporate directly), you’ll most likely get some attention and will most likely get in trouble. But if you steal from the guys making deposits into the bank, nobody, except close friends and family, really cares.
- While everyone doesn’t carry a gun, most do and everyone should.
We’ve all seen movies and read books about the wild west. Picture Sergio Leone films, Clint Eastwood, swarthy looking bad guys, etc. Honest people open a store to serve the needs of the local community and are often harassed and robbed. Honest citizens live law abiding lives and are harassed and robbed. Typically, the movies focus on and conclude with justice being served. But, in the real wild west, we know this is more the exception that the rule. A posse of entrepreneurial citizens or a heroic gun slinging sheriff might take it to the streets to bring the bad guy to justice but… This was not a common occurrence. In general, the bad guy got on his horse and rode away never to be seen again.
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January 9th, 2008
Sure enough, after defining professionalism in my previous blog, a customer put the professionalism of My Simple City.com to a test. Sometimes knowing what “the right thing to do” is relatively simple. For example, if a customer orders a perfume for their wife and, upon receiving the perfume, the wife admits she doesn’t like this type of perfume, we accept the return, give the customer a refund for the price of the product but we don’t refund the shipping cost. This seems fair and… Professional. (Other stores may refund the shipping cost as well as pay for the return shipping and more. But, 99 out of 100 times, these businesses also charge higher prices for their products so they can afford to have such favorable return policies. We prefer to have “fair” policies and charge you lower prices.) Alternatively, we’ve had customers receive products that are damaged in transit. (As an eRetail business, UPS and FedEx are usually our best friends, but, occasionally, can be our worst enemy.) In this case, the right thing to do is to offer the customer a full refund (including the shipping costs) or a replacement product. Again, this seems fair and… Professional.
Several weeks ago, a customer called with some technical questions about analog and digital cameras, transferring images and more. I remember the call and I distinctly remember saying, I have no idea how to do what you’re trying to do but the product description on the site should be able to help you. The customer at this point went to the website, read aloud what he needed to know about the product and… Ordered a Hi8 digital camera. We shipped the camera promptly, etc. So, several weeks later, we get an e-mail saying the product isn’t suiting his purposes and… He wants to return the product and receive a full refund including a refund on the shipping. There was nothing misleading in the product text on the site, I openly admitted that I didn’t know how to do what he wanted to do but… The product still was not fulfilling the customer’s needs. In general terms, our store return policy in situations like this is to refund the product price but not the shipping price. When we’re at fault, we cover the shipping costs, but, in this case, arguably, we weren’t at fault. The customer didn’t see it this way. The customer felt that he was verbally explicit about his needs, the text on the site wasn’t 100% clear, and more. Our return policy is both fair and explicitly documented on the website. None the less, we took the financial hit, lost time and money on the transaction and gave the customer a full refund. Some eRetailers may say we’re fools. Some customers may say we’re fair. From where I’m sitting, I don’t think this decision was foolish nor was it necessarily fair. With this said, in this case, I do think My Simple City.com did act professionally.
As a follow-up, the formerly irate customer replied with a simple e-mail saying, “Thank you…. I appreciate it… I accept your apology… My faith is restored.” Though My Simple City.com is far from perfect, at the least in this case, we can say we’re professionals who behaved professionally.
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November 13th, 2007
It stands to reason that not all professionals behave professionally. The word “professional” is one of those words with multiple meanings that doesn’t always necessarily lend itself to accurate language. For example, we can name a plethora of professional athletes but we can hardly say that they all behave professionally. They are professionals (e.g. they get paid for the service they perform) yet they do not always act professionally. For more examples of professionals that act less than professionally, just go to innumerable local restaurants, hire a contractor to renovate a room in your house, etc. In 2007, there is no shortage on a lack of professionalism.
So, with that as an introduction, how does one deem that a professional is behaving professionally? Who says that a professional athlete, contractor, waiter, etc. isn’t behaving professionally? I think the answer boils down to one word, expectations. When a customer orders a salad, appetizer, and an entree, unless the customer says differently, he/she expects these dishes to be served in a minimum of two courses and a maximum of three. The former waiter who isn’t a “professional” would serve all three dishes at the same time. The latter “professional” waiter will fulfill these expectation and serve the food in two or three courses. This professional waiter may even ask the customer what they prefer so that he can better understand and fulfill their expectations.
Despite being a small, online retail store, My Simple City.com is substantially more professional than the vast majority of online retailers on the Internet. So, what makes My Simple City.com a “professional” organization. We do this by… Understanding and fulfilling your expectations. While other online retailers are fulfilling expectations as dictated by the organization themselves, we are fulfilling expectations as dictated by you. And, for this reason, My Simple City.com takes pride in being professionals that behave professionally.
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October 12th, 2007
There are many benefits to my running My Simple City from my home. I’m the boss, so to speak. I can be as entrepreneurial as I’d like. I can dress like a homeless person. (To me, this is a benefit.) I rarely pause for lunch, but when I do, I get my lunch from my kitchen which is exactly twelve giant steps away. (I know this for a fact because I just did it. Twelve giant steps.) Admittedly, lunch is often a jar of pickles, but, I get it from my kitchen. There are some down-sides but, overall, the benefits are subtle and good.
Quite possibly the biggest benefit is that I get to interact with my kids. I remember being in corporate America, having tons of work and being interrupted by meetings. Now, I work from home, I have tons of work, and I’m interrupted by my kids. For example, my one and a half year old and our nanny are home all day, except when they go to gymnastics, go to a playground, etc. When they’re at home, my daughter will often toddle into my office, say very loudly “dada” (that’s what she calls me), press her forehead to the floor (it’s one of her gymnastic moves), and then walk back out the door. It’s really not so impressive but… That’s the majority of face-to-face, human interaction I receive on any given day so it’s often memorable.
My four and five year olds are at school most of the day. But, when they get home, they also interract with me. The interruptions are usually thirty seconds or less and are usually only slightly more complicated than from my toddler. A typical interruption involves my four year-old daughter holding something tightly in her teeny clenched fist and asking “Daddy, do you know where I’m hiding my hair clip?” or my five year-old son walking into my office with his full Sunday soccer uniform on (including cleats) only to see if I notice.
Hardly the type of work stories that will impress anyone at my upcoming 25th high school reunion but just some benefits of being a… Daddy that Works from Home.
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October 10th, 2007
On the side, I run a small, youth soccer league in Maryland. And, for reasons that I can only hypothesize about, sports can attract not-so-healthy in terms of competitiveness, overly-aggressive people. Typically, the young players are great. Granted, a kid might cry here due to a loss or scream there due to frustration but, in general, the kids are relatively well-adjusted. The parents, on the other hand, can be slightly less-adjusted. Ninety-nine out of one hundred parents are great. But, that 100th parent who is berating their 9 year-old daughter for running “too stiffly” can be a bit too much. With rare exception, the parent who is berating their child, screaming at me for putting their child on a team of losers, etc. is the same parent who deep-down, and, sometimes, not so deep-down, feels an enormous lack. This is the parent who was consistently picked last in kickball and is still traumatized by this experience. This is the parent who felt he was definitely going to be a major league baseball player and… This dream never came to fruition. Of course the reason why it didn’t come to fruition was a bad coach in college, an injury, or a commissioner who put him on a youth soccer team with a bunch losers. For reasons that are obvious and less-obvious, this parent who never came to terms with their athletic success, or lack there of, acts like a crazy person anytime they are involved with the relevant sport at hand.
Which leads me to business. Why do business people treat their customers so poorly?!? I understand that I’m a bit obsessed with this issue but… Why? You can’t ignore greed. You can’t ignore that some people are immoral and just don’t care. But, after listening to one particularly nutty father this past Sunday, I want to throw out one more theory. My current theory is that, like the coaches spoken to above, the business owners and managers are using their business and money to work-out their personal success, or lack there of, and, as a consequence, they act like a crazy person when they are involved with business and money. For example, a business owner might not give a customer a refund even though it’s 100% justified not because he’s necessarily greedy or immoral, but because the money makes him whole. This not-so-healthy-in-terms-of-competitiveness, overly-aggressive person needs the money. The money makes him feel better about himself. The money makes him feel whole. At least for a little while.
Truth be told, like soccer, business is just a game. There happens to be money involved, it pays for kids educations, mortgages, etc. but, in its simplest terms, business is just a game. We simply keep score with revenues, costs, assets and over-all profitability instead of goals. Which leads me to my final point. I feel for the kids that are being berated. And, strange as it may sound, I feel for the customer who gets ripped-off or treated poorly by a business.
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August 10th, 2007
I have a friend who runs an online retail store. In a word, he does what he calls “good business”. That is to say, he gets lots of traffic, has lots of customers, and makes lots of money. I once met with him to discuss his online operation. I mentioned that his online store tends to receive horrible store reviews. He agreed that this was true. But, he also mentioned that his horrible store reviews haven’t effected his business so much. When I asked why he doesn’t offer better service in order to receive better reviews, his response was, “Why? If I have a customer who isn’t happy with his product, why should I accept a return? Why should I even accept his phone call? If I ignore him, I get to keep my profits.” I said, “This may be true, but you’ll get a poor store review.” He responded, “Yes. This is true. But, I would have gotten a bad review and lost the customer anyway. So, I might as well make a profit from this customer while I can.” I would never mimic his, what I see as, deplorable behavior. And, I don’t say this to be self-righteous or self-congratulatory. I say this to emphasize this retailer’s shady business practices and to bring attention to the fact that there are many online retailers with the same business practices. And, with this said, to this day, I can’t help but scratch my head and ask, “How do online retailers who treat their customers so poorly stay in business?”
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August 7th, 2007
One of the most perplexing aspects of online retail I discovered when My Simple City first launched was the online value of a penny. Shortly after launching My Simple City, we listed one of our Graco Double Strollers within PriceGrabber, BizRate, or one of the other comparison sites. For obvious reasons, the stroller was listed by numerous others retailers as well. The lowest price for the stroller on this list was a store that was selling the stroller for $199.99, offered free shipping, and had a store rating of 1.5 out of 5. We chose to match this price of $199.99. We offered free shipping and, along with our store rating of 4.5, we felt strongly that we were providing the consumer with the best value for this double stroller.
Initially, we did receive a smattering of orders. But, after a day or two, we discovered that the sales for this stroller via the comparison site all but stopped. I returned to the comparison site and, sure enough, the low-price retailer whose price we had matched, had lowered their price to $199.98. The store was charging one penny less and, sure enough, customers were passing us by to shop within this barely-lower-price shop. This was perplexing. We have a 4.5 store rating (vs. their 1.5 store rating), are selling the exact same product, and have a price that is merely one penny more. Yet, the consumer is choosing to shop with them. I decided to look closer at their store rating. The details of the store rating included a handful of 5’s and comments like “everything went smoothly” and a plethora of 0’s and 1’s with comments like: “They charged my credit card, never sent the product, and I have no way to contact them.” “I finally found their phone number via some creative googling and, after contacting them… I have never been treated so poorly. I will never shop with this company again.” Etc. The comments were, in a word, horrible. It was plainly obvious that this store operated in two modes: (1) the sale, shipment, and delivery go smoothly and the consumer is happy and (2) either the sale, shipment, or the delivery doesn’t go smoothly and, as a consequence, the store completely drops the ball and the consumer is extremely unhappy. It was plainly obvious. None the less, for one penny, people were still shopping with them.
We lowered our price to $199.98 and… The sales from this comparison site slowly shifted to our site again. In the “real” bricks and mortar world , I have seen people on innumerable occasions see and walk right past a penny, nickel, or dime. I have seen people say to a cashier, “keep the change” or place the change in a tip jar. But, online, there’s a very different value to a penny.
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August 6th, 2007
This is the first post within the My Simple City blog. Our hope is that you will find our upcoming posts both informative and enjoyable. Whether you do or do not, please let us know. We’ve created this blog for you and, whether you want to comment on the topic at hand or otherwise, we appreciate any and all feedback you can offer.
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