Posted by Ted Hopton on January 7, 2008
Back in high school, I spent some time one summer as a volunteer in New Hampshire. The group I lived and worked with was small and highly earthy-crunchy (first time I ate a vegetarian diet for an extended period of time), and it was the first time in my life I grew a full beard, but all of that is another story. The point here was that we had very limited musical options available besides the radio: an 8-track tape player. Yeah, those were the days!
Anyway, we only had a handful of tapes to play and one of them was The Pousette-Dart Bard, which I had never heard of before. After weeks of hearing that tape over and over, I grew quite fond of the music. Check them out if you like. Nice mix of upbeat pop songs with some serious ones thrown in now and then. Jon Pousette-Dart is still performing and I think I should go see him play one day.
Well, the most poetic song on that tape was called “Yaicha” and it’s just beautiful. It spoke to me then, and it still does today. It’s very short, and you can listen to the whole song on Jon Pousette-Dart’s website.
And there’s more to “Yaicha” that gives it personal meaning for me. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Nostalgia | Tagged: Music, Nostalgia | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 3, 2007
It’s hard to find good news in the press about call centers. But I did read a glowing report in the New York Times about a call center providing terrific service. It’s Crutchfield, catalog and online sellers of audio and video gear, and the coverage was in David Pogue’s newsletter/blog on technology.
Pogue’s account lines up perfectly with what we all should know by now: when you provide great customer service, people spread the word and more business flows to you. No less than 25 people wrote in to Pogue to suggest Crutchfield as the place to turn for a car stereo. And when he took their suggestion, he was blown away by the customer service experience they provided, too. Since he happens to be a NYT columnist, Crutchfield just reaped a wonderful public relations windfall.
Except it’s not really a “windfall,” because they earned their just rewards by providing consistently outstanding customer service year after year. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, Customer Sat, Customer Service, ICMI, ICMI Membership, Media, Nostalgia | Tagged: call center, Customer Sat, Customer Service, ICMI | No Comments »
