Business and Financial News

Todd Razor, our intrepid editor here at IowaBiz, knows that I push the envelope for completing my articles on time.  But he also knows my track record for doing so, and he no longer panics with e-mails or phone calls the evening before a post is due.

This is one time we may have had an exception to that rule.

At 9:35 p.m., I sat down to write my post on project management for Iowabiz.  I was thinking something nice and green in honor of Earth Day 2010.  Oops… need to check on something in the basement.  Hey, what’s this wet spot?  And this one?  And this one?  We’ve NEVER had water in our basement.  I called my wife down.  She went into bloodhound mode (she’s really good that that) and was able to isolate the growing puddle to our hot water heater.  Our 14-year-old-now-rusted-out-on-the-bottom water heater.

We were in hot water.  Literally.

We scrambled to pick up some of the critical items, which generally don’t play nice with a growing circle of wetness (stacks of my books, for one), and got things to higher ground.  We called our neighbor, a handyman-extraordinaire, who was able to give us some good names of plumbers. He said he

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This guest post is part of our ongoing Small Business Experts series, and is written by Shakira Brown, co-founder of Best Business Mastery in New Jersey.

It was the tweet heard around the nation. Movie Director Kevin Smith tweeted that he had been booted off a Southwest Airlines flight. He was mad because flight personnel said he was too fat to fly. He tweeted during the ordeal and posted pictures of himself. It happened faster than any news crew could have reacted without being on the flight poised for the story. Twitter is a PR liability to be reckoned with.

Was Smith really too fat to fly? Allegedly, Smith’s girth expanded into the seat next to him, which of course was not convenient for the other passenger. Southwest officials said as a safety measure, Smith needed to purchase another seat to handle his alleged extra poundage which was not available. So airline personnel asked him to deplane in order to accommodate him on a flight where he could have more space. N

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Spin.

It’s what we expect in the political world. Statistics are thrown around with little or no heed to the context or the source. As a friend of mine once told me, “83 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.” [cue rim shot]

But, of late I’ve been noticing how companies spin their claims of superior customer service. I’ve long held that many companies measure quality by making up a number on a report. I’ve had the opportunity to analyze really poor customer experience in the contact centers of companies who hype their customer satisfaction awards in the media. Statistical claims of superior service can be equally deceiving.

Take Sears product pick-up, for example. I’ve recently found myself going back to Sears to make some major purchases. They are doing a lot of things right, and I’ve been impressed with their employees both in the store and on the phone. I can tell that Sears is making an effort at delivering a great customer experience.

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