I love that D.C. sends alerts to my phone and e-mail account. I just wish they didn’t seem like they were written by someone without any education. From today:
DDOT reports at 295 Southbound there’s a two vehicle accident with injuries all lanes are block at this time and all on coming traffic is Being rerouted on to East Capitol St.
If I were grading this in English class, I’d mark seven problems with this short message. Can you find them?
I just received your “open letter” about oil prices. I’ll tell you what: when you start providing accountable customer service again, stop gouging for basic flight benefits like baggage and snacks, and start demonstrating in even the slightest way that you care about your customers’ comfort and satisfaction…then and only then will I give a crap about how this short-term turn in fuel prices has contributed to your long-term inability to manage your corporate budget.
Parking is at a premium in D.C.’s busy Georgetown shopping district, so the local Chevy Chase Bank posts clear and reasonable restrictions on the parking available for its customers. Oh…the car parked behind the sign? That’s an official vehicle from the Parking Enforcement division of the District of Columbia’s Department of Public Works. It’s parked there. And the bank was closed at the time this picture was taken, so…it seems unlikely that the parking enforcement officer was “banking at Chevy Chase Bank.” It seems more likely that the parking enforcement officer was violating Chevy Chase’s parking policy by using this private lot rather than seeking out oh-so-hard-to-find legal street parking in Georgetown. Precious, isn’t it?
I thought I should share with you why I just canceled my classmates.com membership. I’ve been using classmates.com since 2002–long before social networking, as it were, really took off. Between now and then, many other online services have launched that offer similar or better services. Most of these, like Plaxo and LinkedIn, facilitate networking without requiring paid membership to access key features, and they do it without the indiscriminate splattering of offensive advertising throughout their site.
Today, a page I visited in classmates.com launched a window that impersonated a system message, prompting me to install “security” software. I couldn’t close the window without being redirected to the advertiser’s own site, and they implemented this in a way that made navigating back to classmates.com nearly impossible. If you’re going to treat your members with this kind of disregard, I’m not interested. Thanks for helping me get in touch with some of my old friends over the years; now it’s time for me to leave.
After finally giving up on the Sheraton Stamford, I strayed from my Starwood roots to stay at Marriott’s Courtyard Stamford Downtown earlier this week. I was surprised and delighted to find the room appointed with many perks, including an LG high definition LCD TV, and a desktop interface with power, communication, and media connections galore!
Check out the options here:
The A/V connectors all feed into the widescreen LCD TV, which auto-detects and selects the connected source. Of course, if you want to go wireless, you can do that, too. The hotel provides wired and wireless Internet access in the rooms at no cost. The only negative: the hotel’s television and video service offers just standard definition programming and content.
Overall, what did you like best about your stay with us?
There is coffee in the room and the tub is clean (which was not true last time)
How could we improve your overall stay?
I’m a Gold member of [the Starwood Preferred Guest program]. Treat me like one. Let me know what benefits I’m getting. Apologize if (like tonight) you can’t put me in a preferred room.
Did our employees take care of you in a friendly, efficient and responsive manner?
No. Since there’s no ice bucket in the room, I called for one. It took 30 minutes to get here. Every time I’m here there are problems. Every time.
Please let us know the names of any employees with whom you had a particularly memorable interaction.
Are you a member of the Starwood Preferred Guest program?
Yes. But sometimes I have to ask, “what’s the point?” I have to say that the practical application of preferred benefits is, at best, inconsistent.
Date of stay: 3/5/08
Room number: 4062
Additional feedback written on back of comment card:
I am enormously disappointed to see Netflix abandon its HD DVD customers in favor of supporting just the Blu-ray format. Clearly Blu-ray looks like the inevitable winner in the wake of confusion left by this unfortunate format war. However, many consumers invested in HD DVD hardware over the past year or so [I’m included in that lot]. This decision by Netflix to stop stocking discs in the HD DVD format leaves these people with few options. Also, there are likely to be upcoming HD DVD titles that are unavailable in the Blu-ray format for a while. Netflix, you’re simply going to deny your customers of these titles in HD altogether? Even with Blockbuster switching [who really cares, right?] and retailers now clearly favoring Blu-ray, many consumers took comfort in the fact that some major studios still support the HD DVD format and that, all the while, Netflix has provided unwavering support for both formats. Until today. Until now.
I understand the need to gain economies. I understand the costs associated with distributed fulfillment. So here’s my plea, Netflix: Continue to offer titles in the HD DVD format as they’re released and as long as demand exists, but centralize the distribution. This allows for a smaller inventory while continuing to serve customers with the latest in high-def content. When customers select movies in the HD DVD format, they’ll do so knowing that the distribution process may take a little longer. That’s OK. I’m willing to wait a little longer for a title in a high definition format that I can use.
Eventually, one format will prevail, but that day hasn’t truly arrived yet. That day won’t arrive until all the major studios abandon support for and discontinue the release of titles in the other format. That day may be tomorrow, but from what I see, it’s at least five months—if not a full year or so—from now.
Respectfully,
Richard
Long-time Netflix customer and HD DVD adopter (doh!)
After months of liquidation, CompUSA’s operations will cease this Friday. Analysts are debating the cause of the company’s demise, but there’s really no mystery here. CompUSA failed for two main reasons:
(1) Their customer service sucked. I can’t tell you how many times I wrote to or spoke with CompUSA’s unapologetic management about the poor customer service in their stores. Staff were often unavailable, uninformed, and unhelpful. Advertised specials were often unavailable. Clerks were clearly more interested in selling computers than helping customers with the bulk of the store’s merchandise.
(2) They lost their focus by trying to sell home video electronics. Most CompUSA stores reconfigured their space to sell TVs, DVD players, DVRs, and other home electronics. Put aside the question of why they believed they could attract TV-buying consumers. Or maybe you shouldn’t. In fact, because they couldn’t move this merchandise, most of their home video inventory was woefully outdated.
OK, so let’s quickly review my Macworld predictions and see how I did….
Hmmm…considering I posted these over a week before the big event, I’d say I did pretty well! As an added bonus, today’s Apple TV announcements addressed 3 out of 4 of my earlier product feature wishes for that device.
Related posts:
PowerCast demonstrated wireless power at this year’s CES, showing how up to a watt of energy can be “broadcast” and received by various devices. While this isn’t an entirely new concept, this company seems to be best positioned to do something useful with it. This is nothing like the induction charging you may have seen on razors and toothbrushes. PowerCast’s technology harnesses energy from an RF field. Their initial research is focused on delivering consumer and military applications. The first consumer application could be trickle-charge solutions for portable devices: lay your phone or personal media player on your desk or hotel night-stand, for example, and it would start charging automatically!
The World According to Richard 
