What do you do when you receive bad service?

Maybe you’ll write an email to the company, or ask for a manager at the store. If you’re like me, maybe you’ve written a tweet before you even walk out the door. If you’re ticked off enough, a blog post may even be an outlet for you.

Whatever we do, one thing is guaranteed to happen when we receive poor service: We tell everybody who will listen. The saying that “a happy customer tells three friends, an unhappy customer tells ten” is no longer valid.

In today’s world of social media, an unhappy customer has already shared their experience with the world, sometimes before they’ve even left the store.

I’m handy… I’ll just install the car stereo myself

Earlier this week, I decided to purchase a new car stereo. Nothing too fancy, but after careful research, I picked the JVC KD-R810 because of its support for Bluetooth A2DP for wireless music streaming, a rear USB port and handsfree. Another plus is its support for Sirius/XM radio via add-on module.

As a handy guy, I like to try to do most things, especially when money’s involved. Besides, I knew the basics of how the installation would need to be done. I would later realize something I’ve learned many times before: the devil’s in the details.

It’s a bit of an over-dramatization to say that I found myself in over my head after I decided to install the stereo myself. It wasn’t that bad; I had removed the cover of my dashboard and disconnected the factory installed radio and everything seemed to be going fine. But then my newbie-ness began to show when I noticed the cable connecting my old radio didn’t want to fit in the new connector made for my car.

Thinking I was sold the wrong part, I got into my car, my dashboard guts stuffed back in as best I could and drove to Future Shop, hoping they would have the part I needed.

My experience with Future Shop’s car audio department

The hero of this story, Marco Di Cioccio (pictured below) was busily finishing up another customer’s installation when I arrived at the Scarborough West Future Shop at 8:30pm in the evening.

After a quick conversation and a look at the guts of my car’s dashboard, Marco told me that I did have the correct part, and if I followed the cable farther back, I would find an amp with the correct connector I needed.

I probably looked a little frustrated at this point and mumbled something like “I should have just had you guys install it for me.”

Marco didn’t hesitate when he offered to finish the install for me. He said he could get to it as soon as he finished the job he was on, which would take another ten minutes or so.

Surprised that it was even an option so late in the evening, I agreed to have Marco complete the installation of my radio for a very reasonable $75.

We talked about what I needed which involved wiring a microphone for handsfree, a cable hidden under the dashboard for my iPhone, installing a new housing since the radio is smaller than the old one and a few other minor details. Marco had all the answers to the little details that would have caused me stumble had I continued the install on my own.

The installation was finished about 45 minutes after the store had closed, but Marco didn’t seem to mind. He cheerfully answered all of my questions as I watched him finish the install and at some point during the conversation we began talking about other things I’d like him to install next time which includes a 2 way remote car starter and a decent security alarm that I hadn’t even considered purchasing before.

The effects of customer service

On my way home, the first call I made using my new Bluetooth handsfree stereo was to my neighbour Cliff who was looking for a radio for his new Jeep. Guess who I recommended? Yesterday at work, I told this story to my colleagues and expressed my surprise that a big box retailer like Future Shop offered such high end service. I’ve got dinner plans this weekend with friends, guess what will likely come up in conversation?

I could go on and on. And I probably will. Thank you again, Marco.

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The fullsize version of the strip can be found here.

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For the most part, for a good portion of users, their Twitter timeline updates every couple of minutes. This means that if you delete the tweet fast enough, you can catch it before anybody sees it (although if it’s using a hashtag it will still make it to the hashtagged conversation). In this case, no harm no foul (although it’s wise to keep an eye on this for those who may have seen it and have something to say).

Think about it… you’ve arrived at work with your dress shirt tucked into your underwear. Do you leave it, or fix it? There’s zero benefit to leaving your shirt tucked into your Hanes because somebody is going to talk about you later and will want to see your mistake firsthand.

There’s a tendency on the Internet, and within social media circles in particular, that any published content MUST remain on the Internet forever, regardless of the level of embarrassment, inaccuracy, or whatever. I don’t know where this “transparency or die” kind of attitude came from, but it’s not a rule that can’t be broken. There is a time and a place for it.

Although I can’t recall a time when I’ve published something embarrassing enough to remove, I have given advice to clients and friends that goes something like this:

If a tweet requires an explanation or an apology, you could say something like: “I regret that last tweet and I’m embarrassed for having published it. Please accept my apologies. It’s been deleted.” You can link to the deleted tweet if desired (not that it will show much).

Obviously, there’s a difference between a twitter user with 1,500 followers and somebody like Zuckerberg. In Zuck’s case, there were likely thousands of screenshots capturing the offensive tweet even before he even considered deleting it. He could still take the same approach I recommended, but his second task will be to deal with the fallout of everybody else re-publishing and discussing what he’s said elsewhere. This doesn’t make a case for non-deletion though… it makes a good case for knowing your audience.

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Now, I certainly wouldn’t expect you to create a carbon copy replica of my background on your twitter page, but I do hope that my PSD file offers some inspiration as you create your own background and determine which elements are important to be on your own background image.

I realize this post isn’t *really* a step-by-step how to document that explains precisely how you create a Twitter background, but if you’re already familiar with Photoshop, you’ll quickly understand the different elements and their placement.

A few things to keep in mind when creating a Twitter background image for yourself:

1. Backgrounds don’t scroll! So try to keep the maximum height of the content less than 700 pixels.
2. Try to fit any important text within 270 pixels from the left side of the page.
3. On the Twitter website, be sure to set matching colours form the design tab to compliment your new background image. In my case, I used black so that if a user with super large display visited my page, the black colour of my background would transition properly.

If I think of any more tips, I’ll come back and add them, but feel free to offer your suggestions too, I’d love to hear them! Hit me up in the comments, or find me on Twitter at @benlucier.

Without further adieu, here’s my Twitter background image in Adobe Photoshop CS4 format, I hope you find it helpful.

Happy creative twittering!

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Given the popularity of my “How Bell’s IPTV Service Works” and subsequent post detailing the Internet speed test performance results one can expect, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about the features I like, what I don’t like and what I’d like to see in upcoming software releases.

Reliability.

Given the underlying technology of the service (DSL), I didn’t have high hopes for a reliable service. In the end, the DSL portion of the service is less then a couple blocks away from my house. After that, the pedestal on the street is connected back to the Bell CO using fiber (that’s why they call it a fiber-based service, even though houses are connected via traditional copper).

Reliability is a big thing for me. If the service wasn’t reliable, nothing else would really matter. Despite the fact that the service has been in beta for the past year, I’ve been very impressed with the reliability and service from Bell’s support reps on the phone and their technicians in the field.

Television Service

In the past year, I suffered only one outage (that I noticed) and that was due to my PVR console suffering from a faulty hard drive. My two other TVs worked fine during this time, although I was unable to record any shows. I was very surprised when Bell scheduled a technician the very next day so I was back running almost immediately.

Internet Service

I have zero complaints abou the reliability of the Internet service delivered by Bell’s Entertainment service.

What I like about the Bell Entertainment Service.

Whole home PVR service.

Since the consoles are all networked together using Ethernet or Coax (using HPNA), shows recorded on the master console (aka the PVR, aka the Motorola VIP1216) are viewable from any console in the house. Want to watch a show you’ve recorded in the living room from your bedroom? No problem!

Great looking program guide.

I’ve used all of the consoles from the cablecos and the satellite providers. I also have a lot of experience with the FTA (free to air) consoles for satellites. None of them come close to the ease of use and clean display of the Motorola 1200 and 1216 consoles and PVR.

Simple to use.

For the first time, I find myself actually searching for content to watch and record. The input and realtime searching of shows is super easy and intuitive.

Resume show watching in another room.

All too often I’ll begin to watch recorded content in my living room and then wish I was in bed. With the Entertainment Service, all I have to do is pause the show and when I go up to bed and turn on the TV, it remembers my position in the show and I can resume from there.

Super fast Internet, especially useful for VPN.

I hear that Bell has been changing things, but at the time of installation, my Internet speed was 22Mb downstream x 9Mb upstream. A typical DSL service from most service providers is 6Mb x 800Kbps. Having 9Mbps upstream means that I can do a lot more when connected to my office VPN, where upstream speeds are important.

XBOX operating as a media console.

I haven’t heard whether or not Bell will be doing this, but AT&T’s uVerse service announced the Motorola consoles will support the XBOX 360 as a media extender. This means that in some cases, the XBOX can be used in place of a Motorola 1200 console.

What I don’t like about the Bell Entertainment Service.

Despite my overall satisfaction, there are some areas of improvement that I’d like to see addressed by Bell Canada and Motorola.

External USB connected hard disks for additional storage.

The internal hard disk that comes with the Motorola 1216 is 160GB. It’s ridiculous to think these consoles don’t have the USB ports enabled for additional storage capacity. I’d have a 1TB drive connected in a heartbeat. Bell already supports this function on some of their satellite PVRs so I’m not sure what their plans are to enable additional storage. If they don’t plan for this soon, I’m going to seriously consider modding my PVR (which I’d rather not do).

Pause live TV on all consoles.

Right now, you can only pause and rewind content on the master PVR (the one with the hard drive in it). This should be an easy one because I can already do this via a workaround. When we’re watching TV from a regular console, we tell it to record the show. Once the recording begins, we then go into recordings and watch the show from there. Tada! We now have full pause, rewind and fast forward capabilities. This should be a standard feature.

Audio occasionally cuts out when using HDMI cable.

Occasionally, the audio will cut out when using HDMI cables. This is a known problem. Bell places the blame on the HDMI spec itself which doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s not a huge deal since it doesn’t happen often and when it does it lasts for less than 15 seconds.

60GB monthly data transfer cap is too low for today’s Internet-connected families.

I don’t have a problem with data transfer caps in general. They’re designed to keep a certain kind of network user from monopolizing the resources of the network. That being said, 60GB is NOT a sufficient cap for an average home. This cap should be at least 80GB – 100GB. If you exceed the cap, Bell will charge you an additional fee per GB, up to a $30 maximum. Although Bell hasn’t officially billed me for my overages, you should expect that you’ll be paying at least an extra $30 per month if you’re an Internet-type person.

A feature for copying settings from one console to another.

I went through considerable effort to create a favourite channel lineup, remove channels I’m not subscribed to or that broadcast in a language I don’t understand. Why should we have to do this for each TV? All of the consoles are networked together anyway, so there should be an option that lets be copy over the channel guides and favourite channels.

No support for playing UPNP video content from networked storage.

I have a two DNS323 storage devices on my home network with about 4TB of video content. Today, I watch this content from a PC using XBMC connected to my TV, or from my PS3 (which supports UPNP video content). It would be great if future versions of the Motorola consoles supported playing UPNP video content from other storage devices.

Maximum of 4 consoles per household.

I only have 3, so this isn’t a big deal for me. But there will be households where this will be a problem.

Support for user profiles.

With networked consoles comes additional challenges (and opportunities). There are three people living in my house. I’d love to see user profile support. This way, I could see my own channel guide, shows that I’ve recorded, etc. Another reason for user profiles: recording quotas by user. This way, parents could assign a storage limit to their recording-happy teenagers.

Certain versions of Slingbox won’t work in conjunction with an HD-connected television

If you have a standard definition (ie non-HD) version of Sling Media’s Slingbox, you won’t be able to use it if you have the Slingbox connected to a Motorola console that’s connected to a TV via HDMI cable. When the Motorola console detects an HD output source, it stops sending video to the standard defintion SVideo and Composite output ports. This is a big downer for me since it means I can’t use my slingbox to watch my Entertainment Service on my laptop while sitting in my backyard, out on my porch, or in my home office.

There is a workaround: disconnect the HDMI cable from the Motorola console when you want to watch Slingbox… but this isn’t really a workaround in my opinion. I hope that Motorola addresses this shortcoming soon in a firmware update.

Summary

I had a conversation with a good friend of mine last week and he asked me what I thought about Bell’s service. I told him that I was very happy with it, but that I feel like we’re still just now starting to catch up with what digital technologies can do for us in the home. I really hope that Bell and Motorola are paying attention to what’s happening because the possibilities are endless in this area and I’m just now starting to get excited about the future. I hope they don’t let me down.

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The LinkedIn nerve that Chris struck prompted a useful discussion about how people connect on LinkedIn and it helped me clarify my own thoughts on how I use LinkedIn.

By the way, before I get too far into this, I’m a big Chris Brogan fan and have been thoroughly enjoying my time with his book Trust Agents, which he co-authored with Julien Smith. If you haven’t read it, go get it today.

On his Twitter stream last week, Chris invited the masses to connect with him on LinkedIn. Seeing this tweet from the author of a book on trust agents, I was a bit shocked. He explained to me that he gets more from LinkedIn by connecting to everyone, regardless if a professional connection exists in the real world or not.

I quickly responded telling Chris that LinkedIn’s own ‘rules’ say that you should only connect with people you know and have dealings with in real life, to which Chris responded: “Oh, I’d never tell you to break a rule.”

His response immediately reminded me of part in his book which talks about making your own game to get what you want and that’s exactly what he’s doing with LinkedIn. I realized that my argument was no longer with how Chris is ruining LinkedIn, but with the LinkedIn service itself.

Chris was simply doing was he does best: breaking the rules and making his own game. So what if LinkedIn says to only connect with people you know, right?

There are two kinds of people on LinkedIn

I realized last week, that LinkedIn has two kinds of users:

If I continue to be a trusted network builder on LinkedIn, and Chris continues down the path of an unknown network builder, a problem exists when we look at each other’s connections.

For starters, based on my usage of LinkedIn, my default would be to trust Chris’ connections. On the other hand, when Chris sees my connections, he’s missing valuable insight because he doesn’t know that my connections come with an implied trust already because I know and trust them in real life.

I can see why Chris’ “Accept All” approach works for him, but he also hasn’t persuaded me to ditch my trusted network builder tendency in his latest blog post either. I think we’ve both found something that works for each of us and the challenge now is for LinkedIn to step in and help us co-exist on the same platform. A reputation engine would be ideal as it would enable me to rate my connections for others, while Chris would probably opt to not rate (or rate them as ‘unknown’).

What do you think?

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Tech’s Most Influential Women Executives

	Susan Lyne CEO Gilt Group		Julie Lee SVP Vevo
	Sheryl Sandberg COO Facebook		Ursula Burns CEO Xerox
	Rebecca Parsons CTO Thoughtworks		Virginia Rometty SVP IBM
	Ann Livermore VP HP		Carol Bartz CEO Yahoo
	Teresa Carlson VP Microsoft		Genevieve Bell Director of User Experience Intel
	Marissa Mayer VP Google @marissamayer		Judy McGrath CEO MTV

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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An hour later, the airline announces that pre-boarding for your flight has begun.

A short while after that, all the high falootin’ first class travellers are invited to board the craft and, after they’ve had a chance to settle in, the airline calls on the remaining passengers.

You board the plane in groups, starting with the back of the airplane, since this ensures a minimal amount of chaos on-board as travellers can stow their baggage and grab their assigned seats in an orderly fashion.

Now, here’s where I want you to pay close attention: remember that everybody on the plane has an assigned seat, including you. Even if you chose to enjoy the paper and your coffee a little while longer and let everybody else board first, your seat will still be there waiting for you.

Your seat isn’t going anywhere. Trust me on this.

While holding your ground, let the flight attendant board every single passenger onto the plane. Do not board the plane while you can still see passengers in line. It’s tough to fight that reflex, I know.

After all the passengers have boarded, the attendant will announce a final boarding call. This is your cue to act.

Show the nice lady (or man) your boarding pass and do your happy dance toward the plane. Ok, the dance isn’t required, but I find it helps.

As you board you’ll notice everybody is already packed neatly into their sardine can seats. Everybody except the passengers in first class, that is. No matter: you will soon have the seat of your dreams, without the first class expense.

With first class behind you, survey your surroundings.

What do you see? Your seat, number 15B (the middle one) is empty (just like I promised). A and C (the window and the aisle seat) are occupied. Kevin Smith has the window seat and Rosie O’Donnell has the aisle seat.

“Oh no!” you say to yourself!

Sure, you’re a HUGE Kevin Smith fan and you’d love nothing more than to engage in a chat with him all night long about his influences, behind the scenes anecdotes and more… but in a bar, drinking beer and munching peanuts — not on a crowded airplane! Don’t even get me started about loud mouth Rosie!

Before you go off the deep end, at your seat assignment tell me, what else do you see?

Well, since this flight wasn’t overbooked, you see a number of empty seats! And guess what? Because you waited for everybody else to board, NOBODY ELSE IS COMING!

At this point, every empty seat you see is fair game.

Go ahead, take that window seat right next to the empty middle seat that happens to be in the emergency exit row. Can you handle the responsibility of being in the exit in the event of an emergency? HELL YEAH you can handle it!

So there you have it… a secret traveling tip from me to you. Well, I guess it won’t be a secret after the world reads this post. There are only a couple of situations where this doesn’t work:

• Your flight is overbooked and every passenger has arrived.
• The airline doesn’t have assigned seating.

I do feel a little bad about using Mr. Smith in my example above. But since he’s a reader of my blog (right Kevin?) maybe I just helped him score a two-seater on his next flight with these guys!

Happy travels!

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The headset isn’t available at Best Buy, Future Shop, or other electronic retail outlets and I think that’s a shame since I don’t think a comparable headset exists in this price range. In fact, I’ve used more expensive headsets that I don’t feel adequately compare to the reasonably priced Everyman.

The lack of general availability of the headset is one of the reasons I wrote this post. There are two more reasons why I felt compelled to do a write-up about the FREETALK Everyman headset:

First, the crystal clear super wide-band sound quality gives the impression the person your chatting with on Skype is sitting right next to you.

Second, $29.99CDN is very reasonable price point for a headset with these remarkable audio characteristics.

Overall, the headset is very comfortable to wear, it collapses flat for travelling (pictured left) and the sound quality is excellent. I highly recommend picking up a pair, but if you’d like to do some more research first, I’ve included some other comprehensive reviews and included them below.

If you’re in the Toronto area and would like to demo a pair, give me a shout and I’ll loan you mine, provided I get them back in time for my next webinar!

Additional resources

• FREETALK Everyman Headset (USB) | The Skype Store.
• Everyman Headset for Skype: Killer audio, sweet price | Techcraver.com
• FREETALK Everyman Skype Headset Review | TMCNet
• Skype’s FREETALK Everyman Headset | Graves on SOHO VoIP
• FREETALK Everyman for Skype: Not just another headset | Voice on the Web

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Some of the great people I was able to meet up with include Zarah Langford and Venkatesh Rao from XEROX Research (check out their cool Trail Meme WordPress plugin), Jim Courtney (Voice on the Web and In Store Solutions), Angie Lim (Microsoft), Richard Mitchell (Georgetown University), Mathieu Yuill and Melissa Feeney (WordCamp 2010 organizers), Justin Popovic from Ignite Personal Development, Anthony Montalbano, Jennifer Johnston and Chris Luckhardt (Coquette International).

Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend all of the sessions, but here’s a list of my favourites from the weekend:

• Jeremy Wright: Blogging and Social Media
• Brad Gosse: SEO for WordPress and off-page optimization
• Mark Evans: Writing for Multiple Blogs
• Emma Brooks: The Great Write-Off 2009: How I Learned to Stop Thinking and Write the Blog

If you missed the event, the Twitter conversation can be found at #WCTo2010 and Flickr is already showing lots of great photos indexed under the WCTo2010 keyword.

Since my employer was a sponsor of the event, it was great to see this level of participation in the Toronto WordPress community and the awesome mix of newbies and veterans. The different skill sets meant there was a lot of helpful advice going around that could be immediately applied by the beginning bloggers of the group.

I have two hopes for next year that I’ve already discussed with the organizers: sessions for more advanced WordPress users and a venue with more capacity that’s closer to the downtown core.

I’d like to extend a very special thank you to Mathieu and Melissa for a job well done at this year’s WordCamp Toronto 2010. I’m already looking forward to next year!

Recent blog posts about the event:

• Mark Evens Tech: Next Up: A Bigger WordCamp Toronto
• Dandelion Web Design: WordCamp Day 1 – Nice to Actually Meet you!
• Jamas.net: WordCamp Toronto 2010 Review

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