Make It Work bases all of its decisions around bringing delight. We are known for our impeccable customer service and our willingness to bend over backwards for our customers. What you may not know about us is our desire to delight our employees as well. Delight isn’t just for the customers – it starts with the employee!

A perfect example of sharing delight with our employees is the story of former Make It Work-er Peet Guercio.

In his 18 month run as an Neighborhood Technology Consultant, Peet did big things for us. He quickly rose to be one of Make It Work’s star employees by demonstrating a “solve-anything” level of technical knowledge while delighting and befriending all of the customers he came in contact with. Assisting other techs when they needed help with a particularly tricky problem, and developing a circuit of clients that would ask for him by name on every appointment they scheduled.

Superstar Make It Work tech by day, budding standup comedian by night! Lots of MIW employees and clients went out to see Peet perform and gave nothing but rave reviews. Our policy at Make It Work is “red carpet in, red carpet out”, and that’s exactly what we gave him. So when he gave his two weeks notice in July 2009, there were no hard feelings, because we knew he was off to pursue his passion of standup comedy.

I’ve kept in touch with Peet on a personal level since he left, so when he sent me his new standup video, I was happy to tweet it out and help him get exposure.

Little did I know it would spawn such a huge response. Within one day, his video had gone from 100 to 56,000 views! The pure funniness of Peet’s video speaks for itself and I’m not surprised to see its meteoric rise. The kid’s a phenom! I knew it all along, I tell ya.

Make It Work is proud to have shown Peet a delightful time as an employee and encourages him to follow his passion. Give him a view and a laugh here:

If you laugh (and you will), go follow him on Twitter, friend him on Facebook and check his personal site to see where he’s performing next!

Edited by:  Max Lemos

If he built it they will come, follow via Twitter @mklemos

P.S. The video in this story might have the most Diggs ever (2000 Diggs and counting). Keep an eye on it!

Using social media to increase your company’s touch and reach with each of your customers may be the most important reason to jump in to this game changing strategy. Social media can help bridge a long standing gap between customers and the companies they trust with their hard earned cash. There are many ways to use social media for this purpose, but the main thing to keep in mind is to make sure you are using the tools to listen and engage, while considering making changes to how your company operates based on the precious feedback you will certainly receive. That said, when a customer posts on Facebook that you should lower your prices by 50%, perhaps this is not something you should spend too much time on. However, if your customers don’t post anything at all, good or bad, perhaps your pricing is too high overall. There are many signs to look for when receiving candid feedback from your customers, here’s a few examples of things Make It Work customers say and what we are doing about it:

Customer (from a Delight Survey email): Why don’t you offer billing as an option, rather than require payment on demand at the end of the appointment?

MIW: We offer our pre-paid support option to satisfy this need. While it does require you to pay in advance, we provide a great deal of value for doing so and an anytime refund of the balance, no questions asked. We require payment in these two methods to ensure our ability to provide focus on responsive call center operations and extraordinary abilities from our technicians in the field, instead of building a accounts receivable department complete with collections and mounds of paperwork that deters us from what we do really well.

Customer: I absolutely love doing business with Make It Work, but why are you late sometimes?

MIW (Facebook message): Our business is like surgery, you just cannot predict to any certainty how long each appointment will last. That said, we have extra technicans (surgeons) standing by to overlap and take over appointments to alleviate this problem. More importantly, while you may sit in the hospital waiting room or the airport and have really no idea when your loved one will be out of harm’s way or your plane will truly arrive, at MIW we call you, often more than once, immediately and the conversation usually goes like, “…our technician is on the 405, traveling 11.5 mph and he is 12 minutes from your house. Can we stop and grab you a cup a coffee on the way?”

I could go on and on with stories like this, but this is the type of feedback that we have received over the years and while we must remain fiscally responsible, we always try to tweak our business to be more aligned with our customers needs.

Recently, I invited all of Make It Work’s customers (approx. 40,000) to join me on Facebook. My message to them was this:

A few months ago, I used social media to interact with In-N-Out Burger, one of the most loved restaurants in the West. I hunted for their Twitter handle and their Facebook page. I couldn’t find either, or at least one that appeared to be legitimate. So I switched to the old-school means of communication and emailed them asking for them. It took almost two days, but here’s the response I got:

Dear Mr. Eric Greenspan:

Thank you for your e-mail and interest in In-N-Out Burger®.  Our customers have made us the Company we are today, and we appreciate hearing from you!  In response to your inquiry, we do not have an official Facebook or Twitter.

Thanks again for your e-mail.

Sincerely,

Brian P
Customer Service Representative

I responded back immediately asking them why and to elaborate. Another 23 hours later, I got this:

Dear Mr. Eric Greenspan:

Thank you again for contacting us.

In response to your question, it is nothing we are currently participating in, but I will be happy to share your comments with our management team.  We appreciate your consideration.

Thank you again for your e-mail.

Sincerely,

Marianne S.
Customer Service Representative

Ok, I get it, they’re either not interested in discussing it, they truly have no interest or they simply haven’t figured it out yet. Whatever it is, I’m going to continue eating there (once a month at most, too fattening) but I can’t stop thinking about how a company that truly has “fans” wouldn’t be interested in a Fan page on Facebook.

Actual fan pictures of their In-N-Out Burgers

Now, suppose the number of people willing to eat a delicious but fattening cheeseburger is in decline due to awareness by Jamie Oliver and the rest of the die-hard healthy food proponents. These same people love In-N-Out, as I do, but simply can no longer eat a burger a week (yes, I’m referring to me) as they have realized the harm this can do to their health. A person thinking this way may seek a healthier alternative and if In-N-Out Burger is not aware of this shift in the paradigm, how will they keep growing? My point is they will learn about people’s perspective on this and other matters through their interaction on social networking sites like Facebook. I for one would eat at In-N-Out more often if they had a healthier alternative but they aren’t listening. Remember when this happened to McDonalds and they saw the first decline in sales growth in their existence? While In-N-Out is one of the best tasting, most well run, and cleanest restaurants I’ve ever experienced, they are not exempt from change in consumer sentiment.

Recently my son was Jackson Greenspan was born, as many of you already know by my repeated postings of his pics on Facebook. As a father of a newborn, I’m a diaper buyer now. Of course, my diaper of choice was the same they used in the hospital, Pampers Swaddlers. I liked the diaper and this new drymax technology was supposed to be the biggest breakthrough in diaper technology in the last decade. Great, except the technology is too good–apparently, parents are complaining about the brand “chemically burning the bums of babies” causing them to turn very red and sometimes even more severe symptoms. I noticed a red bum when using these diapers, but never thought much about it. Then, I visited the Pampers website to learn more about their products and see if they had a more bio-friendly version (very important to think green). I couldn’t find anything, so I used Google and eventually ended up on the Pampers Facebook page. There, I learned about the “burning problem” as one after another mom was posting frustrating comments about the product and demanding that the company fix the problem. The conversation was often one sided and Pampers really didn’t seem overly concerned. I asked a few questions on the site and I wasn’t happy with the responses, so I simply stopped buying their product, regardless if the claims were substantiated. I switched to Earth’s Best bio-friendly product and guess what happened next? The diapers fit him better, they were $.01/diaper cheaper and they had no dangerous chemicals to burn my baby’s bum. Thanks to Facebook, I’m reducing the risk to my baby, saving money and reducing the landfill. Social networking is powerful huh? If I were Pampers, I’d listen.

Our grandparents bought Jackson an Orbit Baby G2 stroller with infant car seat. First, I LOVE this product. It’s revolutionary, brilliant in its design, incredibly functional and takes everything into consideration possible. After test-driving and researching many brands, I bought an Orbit Baby G2 ultimately because my interaction with the company through social networking led me to believe they really cared about their customers, their products and the most important part, our children.

Recently, I posted a comment on the Orbit Baby Facebook page. I asked them for an accessory to attach the handles of the G2 to form a single bar for one-handed pushing. I assumed this would be better. Here’s their amazing response:

The best case for our relatively superior one-handed strolling is the fact that I routinely stroll two G2 Strollers (the few perks of being the founder) with one in each hand, which is the ultimate test of one-handed steering. There’s just no way a Bugaboo, or any other stroller really, could pull off this 2-at-once test as well. Of course, this is a relative standard, as I’m not saying our stroller strolls extremely easily with one hand, just that it performs better in this regard than our competitors.

The longer and more involved explanation: with loop handlebars like Bugaboo’s, it intuitively seems better because you can push with one hand along the center-line of the stroller; in reality though, since the stroller needs constant steering corrections in order to track straight, placing your hand in the center actually works less well. These constant, sometimes small and sometimes big, steering corrections result from weight imbalance, road irregularities, or just slight differences in the force used for pushing the stroller. The ‘uni-bar’ handles work less well because the only leverage you have to make the steering corrections is across your one hand. (They do, however, work great on jogging strollers with a fixed front wheel.)

By contrast, the key to why our stroller is designed to steer better with one hand is a combination of factors:

1. handlebars not too close to the center: again, in contrast to the ‘uni-bars’, our handlebars have enough distance from the center-line to give you adequate leverage for making steering corrections.

2. handlebars not too wide: unlike say a Maclaren though, our handlebars are not too wide such that pushing on only one would itself cause the stroller to not go where intended; the other key to this is that our handlebars are in-line with our in-board front steering wheels, and farther in than the rear wheels.

3. ergonomically shaped handlebars: the shape and angle of our handlebars allows steering corrections to be made more easily than the shape of uni-bar handlebars; loop handlebars are shaped entirely according to manufacturing limitations, I say this as a fact as tubes have minimum bend radii and such; by separating our handlebars out, we were much more free to design them fit a natural orientation that your hand would fall into.

Thanks for listening,

Joseph Hei (their CEO)

In hindsight, he was right and the fact that he took the time to respond to my comment on Facebook in this way…well, you get it.

After writing this blog post, I found this on Facebook. Another great example of the power of social media and customer service.

In conclusion, we can see the power of social media in action in our everyday lives. Never before has information about products and the sentiment of our customers been more accessible. The days of waiting on a customer service phone call are over. 24 hour email responses are ok, but losing steam too. What consumers want is instant, open feedback. Social media and social networking make this possible. While some companies may choose to avoid it, their competitors have an advantage. For me, if you don’t care enough to make yourself available to my questions in a truly timely manner, I will choose another. Or, if you choose to ignore my concerns…

]]> http://www.ericgreenspan.com/me/social-media-the-customer-service-spectator-or-superstar/feed/ 0 http://www.ericgreenspan.com/me/better-business-bureau-for-who/ http://www.ericgreenspan.com/me/better-business-bureau-for-who/#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:53:50 +0000 Eric Greenspan http://www.ericgreenspan.com/?p=780

How many BBB logos are there?

What is the Better Business Bureau? It’s not a government agency. It’s not policed by a government agency. It’s not even run like a top down corporation. It’s a franchise model, run by local “owners” or “President/CEOs.” It is a private institution run by local presidents that make their living on selling local merchants on becoming a member. Their tactic is to first incent a merchant by sharing data on how many hits their website gets from people inquiring about their particular type of business. They offer assurances that this will lead to more business. Then, they use the old fashioned scare tactic that if you don’t become a member, people will not be able to find you on their site and will become concerned about doing business with an unaccredited firm. To make matters more interesting, they then scare you into thinking that complaints will be filed against you and you will have no recourse if you do not become a member. Well, I caved and signed up. I had no choice. Here’s what happened since…

At first, we were listed with a B- (before we joined). How they knew anything about us is beyond me, but that is where we got started. I told them I’d be happy to sign up if that rating was increased to an A. In a matter of hours, we were an A- and we agreed to join. Since joining, we have received only a handful of complaints (9 complaints in four years, all resolved, out of ~150,000 appointments). Not too shabby IMHO! Even better, we resolved all of them to full satisfaction and refunded all monies requested. That’s how we do business at Make It Work.

I’ve remained a skeptic about the BBB and as a result of an email I received a couple of weeks ago from them, I have raised the skepticism threat level.

Here’s the email I received:

Eric,

My name is (removed as a courtesy) emailing from the Better Business Bureau.

Your BBB has formed a strategic alliance to help save you money in your everyday costs starting immediately. The savings is significant and guaranteed (check the attachment to learn more)!

Here’s the Attachment:

The BBB just changed credit card processors because of the 72% savings offered on our processing costs.  This amounts to more than $4000.00 per year.  First Data of Santa Barbara has offered to extend below market rates to current accredited businesses like yours – again, just like they did for your BBB.  Real quickly, most companies that offer credit card processing are a middle-man (most banks are middle-man).  But your BBB wants you to get processing directly from the largest processor in the world.  No Middleman means Big Savings!

I am sitting at the BBB right now!  I am not just some salesman from another middleman company offering you some illusion or miniscule amount of savings that isn’t worth your time.   I have been asked by your Better Business Bureau to help accredited businesses like you keep more of the money you earn.  This is my sole objective for January of 2010.

To get your free rate comparison to find out how much ________ of Santa Barbara can save your business, fax your last processing statement to the BBB secure fax line at (805) xxx-8557.

If you have any questions email me at theguysname@santabarbara.bbb.org or give me a call on the BBB member’s only line at (805) 965-xxxx or on my cell at (805) xxx-80xx to discuss these benefits.

Have a great day and thank you for supporting the BBB.

To Your Success,

_____________ / Regional Accounts Manager

cell: (805) ___-8001
fax: (805) ___-8557
theguysname@santabarbara.bbb.org
www._____data.com

________ of Santa Barbara
_____Coast Village Rd. 10-J
Santa Barbara, CA 93108

Notice that the email address “_______@santabarbara.bbb.org” is from the BBB itself. He even starts the email by saying “…from the Better Business Bureau.” I should trust that right? But this is a pseudo regulatory body, the official “complaint department,” at least that’s what I’ve always believed? Why would they solicit me on credit card processing? Anyhow, I replied and asked who pays who here and found that the processing company pays the emailer a commission for his sales. Shocking, right? I then called the president of the Santa Barbara BBB and asked him why they do this. He told me this was a service the BBB provided to its customers since they saved so much money on the same service. Great I said, but why use the BBB email address and pose as a BBB staff member if that’s the case? Anyhow, I won’t go into the details of the rest of the conversation as most of it was just bbb b.s.

Today, I received this email from the BBB:

We’re writing to let you know that during the past month the Reliability Report that we publish on Make It Work was accessed 6 times.  In most cases these viewings are done by potential customers who are checking on your company’s rating.

Our reporting system relies on an algorithm that takes into account a variety of business factors including complaint and other business information.  Based on those factors, it assigns ratings from “A+” down to “F.” The thousands of inquiries we get every day show that the public believes our reports are an important predictor of a company’s reliability.

We also want you to use and understand this valuable product so that you may attract and retain customers. One immediate step you can take to maximize your company’s rating is to ensure that all information we publish on your company is accurate and up to date.

Please click on the following link to view the report on your company:

http://www.santabarbara.bbb.org/BusinessReport.aspx?CompanyID=11000916

Remember that incomplete or inaccurate information can affect your company’s rating.  If any information in the report is inaccurate, or if you have other concerns or questions, please contact us at __________.

Being accredited by the Better Business Bureau places you with an elite group of companies whom the public trusts.  Again, thank you for your time and support!

BBB of Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties

So I clicked on the link as they suggested. When I got there, two complaints were showing, both from 2008. I was saddened to read them as we really are all about EXTREME Customer Service at Make It Work. On the first complaint, we had responded immediately and provided a “full refund.” However, the second complaint, had no response from us. I checked with our Director of Delight and she assured me we gave a full refund to both and that we formally responded to this within the required time, but the BBB website had a technical issue. I emailed the CEO:

I’m very concerned about two matters.

First, we remain an A-. Our history is practically impeccable. Please advise.

Also, at

http://www.santabarbara.bbb.org/PublicComplaints.aspx?CompanyID=11000916 we have been unable to resolve this issue due to technical issues on your site and yet this remains on our profile. The customer comment about us being a scam without our ability to rebut, is quite unfair and damaging to our brand.

Can you please advise how to remedy these issues.

They replied with:

The algorithm that we use takes into account a variety of factors in its calculation and one of them of course is complaint traffic but also such factors as your length of time in business.

We have tested the algorithm on millions of businesses over a span of almost six years now and feel that it produces a fairly accurate representation of a company’s reliability.  We regret that you feel the algorithm doesn’t accurately reflect your opinion of your company’s reliability but remember that if all factors remain fairly constant, as time goes by your rating will increase.

As to your inability to respond to a complaint filed and you were accused of “scamming” the consumer, you already have responded to the complaint.

However, we removed it from the complaint details page of our website.

Please let me know if there is anything else we can help you with.

“Removed it from the complaint details page of our website.” << REALLY? Now it gets good! Here’s what I got next…

Again, I regret the fact that you disagree with our algorithm.

Here are some stats

2006 Closed Complaints – 1
2007 Closed Complaints – 2
2008 Closed Complaints – 2
2009 Closed Complaints – 4

Let me ask you this, how many customers do you service in a month?  What is the dollar volume of business you do in a year?  I ask because you may qualify for a different algorithm

I don’t understand what you are referring to about a complaint where we removed your response.  We have not removed any responses from any complaints.  Can you let me know where on your report you get the impression that you didn’t respond to a complaint?

http://www.santabarbara.bbb.org/Business-Report/Make-It-Work-11000916

Moments later, both complaints were completely GONE from the site and our A- is now an A+.

To me, this BBB thing doesn’t seem to be what it’s cracked up to be. I’m thinking Yelp knows this.

UPDATE: After writing this post, I found this Tweet from the same BBB:

“Sick and tired of unwanted email ‘Spam’? Review our tips on how to ‘can’ that Spam at http://bit.ly/7bQ0so“

“Employees First, Customers Next” is my philosophy and how we roll at Make It Work. Let me elaborate…

It happens to me frequently on three separate occasions. During public speaking engangements, when I attend meetings, or when I encounter Make It Work customers. They all ask me the same exact question. How is it possible to ensure that every experience with your company is consistently great and where do you find these people?

Have you ever heard the term “The customer is ALWAYS right?” Well begin by eliminating that concept out of your mind. That type of thinking is dated, archaic, and doesn’t really address the root of how mind-blowing customer service is developed. In my opinion mind blowing customer service doesn’t start with the customer. It starts with you, and how you choose to define yourself through your organization. Through my life experience alone, if there is one thing I knew when starting my company is what types of experiences were spoilers and what types of experiences were enjoyable. Furthermore, being the detail oriented Virgo that I am, I felt that in each and every experience I could define in detail, on how to improve on each spoiler. A simple formula really; pay attention to the details, educate and appreciate the customer, and go the extra mile. Armed with this knowledge it was extremely easy for me to define what mind-blowing customer service was and how I would deliver it through Make It Work! The hard part? How was I going to get each and every future Make It Work employee to act like me?

Then another age old adage came to mind and it all made perfect sense to me. Treat others how you want to be treated. If I was to combine all the best qualities that I could deliver and convey them to my employees then wouldn’t they in turn approach each encounter with a customer that  same way? I know you may be shocked to hear it but the answer is yes. By simply creating an environment that is an extension of my best, my employees are extremely happy and so are my customers. Sure, this all may sound so simple and I could list a millions tips on ways to go that extra mile but really, why give the tricks of the trade when I can give you the framework for building something that is the genuine article?

Contributions by Marian Greenspan

To The Moon!

-Eric Greenspan

As promised, today’s blog entry will be about our culture at Make It Work…

Make It Work is a very unique company.  Employees first, customers next is one of concepts and I recently learned that Virgin America and Sir Richard Branson share this philosophy.  Nice to know.

Simply put, if your employees love their jobs, they will love your customers.  We offer back massages on Mondays, we have a “flip flop required” policy in the office which translates to comfortable clothes, great seating, bring your dog to work, enjoy lunch at your desk, Facebook, Twitter, email and whatever else floats your boat while you work.  Our employees work in an environment that is fun, lively and productive.  They all have wireless headsets and may often be found talking to a customer on the phone while bowling on a Wii.  Why not?  Do you honestly believe productivity is hampered by these activities?

While we can’t spend the entire day playing Rockband, we all need some fun in our day.  If coming to the office at Make It Work is fun, then you look forward to it, rather than dread it.  If the environment is warm, healthy, happy and positive, doesn’t this translate directly to productivity?  Yep!

Make It Work is all about DELIGHTING our customers.  We offer instant response, same day service, constant communication, real appointment times, no question refund policy–Virgin America-esque, Nordstrom-like, with an extra helping of In-N-Out Burger.  We’ve been imitated, but never duplicated.  We stick by these principles and we thrive as a result.  Richard Branson said at a recent conference when asked what he looks for when starting a new venture, “We look for dumb, lazy companies that offer a product or service that we believe we can deliver better.”  I couldn’t agree more!

We have over 32,000 cult-like customer testimonials at  Make It Work and now you know why!

To the moon!

-Eric Greenspan