Yesterday someone graciously pointed out to me that both of my tail lights were out. Fearing there was some more major electrical problem going on (especially because it's a brand new car and I already had my A/C overhauled a month ago because it wouldn't turn on), I took the earliest service appointment they could give me. I brought my car to the dealer this morning and had the following conversation with the service manager...

Me: My tail lights mysteriously stopped working, and I'm concerned it's an electrical issue - especially because of the A/C problem I also recently had. It's a new car.

SM (service manager): I doubt it's an electrical issue because your middle brake lamp still works. Your tail lamps probably burned out.

Me: Both of them at the same time? That seems pretty odd.

SM: No, not really. I see this about a hundred times a week.

Me: A hundred times a week? Wow, that seems like a pretty major issue!

SM: Not really, it's a pretty common problem.

So, what did we learn today folks? Apparently, common problems aren't problems at all! Granted, I'm sure the "hundred time per week" was a little exaggerated, but even if it was only ten times per week I'd hope the repetition of the issue was being reported back to the manufacturer. Seems like a silly problem to ignore when "a hundred people per week" seem to be having it.

I usually have no issue with how people spend their money, but there's something about the notion of conspicuous consumption that is totally baffling to me. Case in point: Louis Vuitton sweatbands and towels.

If there's one place where it certainly doesn't matter who you are, it's the gym. Everyone is there for the same reason, and there's something nice about a place that levels life's playing field. I can't imagine why someone would find it necessary to spend that kind of money on something your body is just going to make disgusting, much less feel the need to quietly convey your "status" in a place where no one cares anyway.

If I was in charge of product development for Louis Vuitton, I'd see how far I could push it. If people are willing to drop large sums of money on "high class" versions of everyday items, I'd take it all the way and add items like cotton swabs, tampons and toilet paper to next season's line! At the very least, my customers would have the metaphorical experience of seeing where their money is going.

UPDATE: Apparently the product developers at Louis Vuitton read my blog!

Tom passed me this great article about asymmetrical competition, written by Umair Haque. The focus was on Obama, but he was kind enough to mention Threadless in his examples.

So where do we see asymmetrical competition happening in the corporate world? The real question is – where don’t we see it happening. Here’s a short list of asymmetrical competitors: Tata, Embraer, Ryanair, American Apparel, Whole Foods, Cipla – and, of course, players like Google, Apple Craigslist, Wikipedia, and Threadless. (emphasis mine)

Jen and I spent the last few days in Colorado. This trip was the first time that I noticed Boulder starting to feel like home. I now know my way around (sorta, heh), and we're starting to hit up the same restaurants and shops for the second, third, fourth time, and we met a few really nice people. One of the purposes of this trip was to meet with our architect and contractor to see their ideas and pick a direction to move forward with on our house. It was a strange feeling knowing you own something that has absolutely none of your personality in it, so now that we have the direction for the remodel set, it doesn't feel like a stranger's house anymore. It's becoming so much harder to leave Colorado now when our trips come to and end. It's like being on a vacation where you know you'll be able to stay forever, only not quite yet. Each time we return home, I feel more anxious to plan our next trip back. I do love Chicago and all the people and experiences that have come with it, but I'm ready for our permanent vacation.

This has started to make it's rounds online, so I'm feeling pretty comfortable posting this on my blog. Taking myself out of this equation (even though I think it's pretty cool to be on the cover!), I'm so proud of what Threadless has become. We truly have the best team out there. Check out the article here

I really don't feel like writing too much about this, as I'm still formulating my opinion on how it works, but I've started using Twitter. The most recent in my feed is displayed to your left.

Note: I got rid of the blog I posted about this and am replacing it with the article I wrote for Vitamin. It's just a re-written version.

April 30th was my birthday and I took the day off. It was supposed to be a relaxing day. It began by making pancakes with my wife, then playing video games for a while. Soon after I went to get a massage followed by some lunch. Lunch threw my day off. We went to a new-to-the-neighborhood, upscale, sit-down sandwich place called Jerry’s. Their menu is gigantic. I figured that deciding what to eat would be the biggest problem I’d have there. I was wrong.

After we ordered, we noticed three new tables of people seated at various times. We also noticed that about 20 minutes had passed without food. Again, we’re talking sandwiches, not exactly the type of food you’d expect to wait a long time for. A little more time passes and our waiter comes out to tell us that he’s sorry, but our order was “stuck behind a giant take-out order”. This changed my mood from anxious to frustrated …

… and now a tangent on how my mind works:

If someone walks into a sandwich shop to place a giant take-out order, they can safely assume they’ll be waiting a for awhile. If my wife and I sit down in a sandwich shop and order two sandwiches, we assume it won’t take very long. If the kitchen would have understood these common assumptions, they would have realized that the length of time added for the person waiting for the take-out order by having two additional sandwiches made (ours), would have been minimal compared to their overall wait time for their “giant order”. In reality, the take-out customer would likely not even notice the extra time. Instead, the restaurant left two different sets of customers waiting for the same amount of time for two drastically different-sized orders.

My point? Scientific thinking in the kitchen doesn’t always have to yield foam and/or crunchy, flavored air — it can lead to a better experience for the customer.

Back to the story. To make matters worse, after waiting for almost 45 minutes, the three other tables that were seated after us got their food before we did! Once our food finally did arrive, something interesting happened: my sandwich was so good that the frustration I felt for having to wait 45 minutes for it was calmed significantly. Significantly, but not completely … hence this article. If the food wouldn’t have been worth the wait, then this would be an entirely different story. At the very least, their food was great, and that’s a start. However, like in many businesses, the product is only part of the experience.

Before I continue, I’d like to point out that I’m well aware that this restaurant may not have any ongoing problems with their customer service. Our bad experience could easily be, and most likely should be chalked up to “sometimes, shit happens”. I’m an eternal benefit-of-the-doubt giver, but the experience did get me thinking about how this relates to the type of business I’m in.

Remember our server who apologized for the tremendous wait? He didn’t make sure the customers waiting the longest got their food first. The lesson here is to back up your apologies with actions; don’t just apologize to your customers because you think you should, or worse … to make yourself feel better.

In his book “The Last Lecture”, Randy Pausch points out that “a good apology has three parts: ‘1. I’m sorry’; 2. ‘It was my fault’ and 3. ‘How do I make it right’. The last part tells about your sincerity.” Consolation is a vastly overlooked area of customer service, which is essentially Randy’s third part of a good apology.

At Threadless, if something goes wrong that’s our fault, you’ll get a coupon code for money off your next purchase. It’s a great way to say to your customer, “We’re human and we’re sorry but sometimes these things happen. So, here’s something we hope will help soften the blow”.

Consolation could be your only chance at a do over with a customer. Take that chance.

What else could anyone who handles a product-driven, customer-service-related company learn from my experience? First, know that simply having good products won’t retain your customers (but it does certainly help). At Threadless, we’re well aware that the impression between product and customer is fleeting, while the impression between company and customer is long-lasting.

Next, recognizing an issue or problem on the approach is almost always better than reacting to it at the intersection. At the point of intersection, the damage has already been done and the only thing left to do is play damage control. In most businesses, it’s usually two different teams of people who handle the “approach” (strategy/planning) and the “intersection” (customer service). A huge part of being on the “approach” team is understanding, and more importantly — caring, that every approach you miss, the “intersection” team has to clean up for you.

So, as a customer, does this mean that I’ll go back to Jerry’s? Sure I will. Their “product” is great. Only next time, I’ll probably just get it to go.

Last night I was roaming around online looking for places to get a large sectional couch for our new house. To not leave out any options, I headed over to the La-Z-Boy site to see what they have to offer. I assumed that if anyone knows how to make a gigantic, all-about-comfort, family-style sectional, it'd be them. That may be true, but what I found is that La-Z-Boy has no idea how to sell their couches online.

You go to their site, and you click couches. Then you click sectionals. What you'll get next, I thought was an error. 64px by 64px. That's the size of the images you're given to try to find a style you like. No options to make images larger. 4,096 total pixels. Take it or leave it. 100 pixels are equivalent to 1 inch in real life. What they're doing is the equivalent of printing a catalog where the images are just shy of 3/4" by 3/4". Are they trying to convince you to shop elsewhere? This is the brick-and-mortal equivalent of forcing their customers to look at furniture through the wrong end of a telescope.

It's amazing to me that when a company's sole purpose is to sell furniture, they can be so incredibly bad at doing it online and still stay in business.

According to this article on BBC news...

Online auction site eBay has said it plans to overhaul its feedback system and will ban sellers from leaving negative comments about buyers.

EBay said problems were occurring, and slowing down trade, when buyers left negative comments about sellers who then retaliated with their own views.

There's no question that I'm a community-minded dude, but I can't see how Ebay would consider their actions as a good idea. Did anyone think this through? Because a few sellers were giving retaliatory negative transaction ratings to buyers, all sellers can no longer warn other sellers of a potential bad transaction? True, you could argue that a seller could be wary of a buyer with minimal positive feedback, but that now puts pressure on a seller to give someone positive feedback. What happens if the buyer doesn't deserve positive or negative feedback? Without a completely balanced and open way of rating a transaction, the lack of response can (and will, I assure you) be misinterpreted as a negative experience.

It concerns me that either Ebay doesn't know or doesn't care that by tipping the scales in favor of buyers, they're poisoning the well of data, thereby potentially nullifying the purpose of ratings altogether. If it was me, I'd simply associate each transaction rating with the corresponding rating from the other party - whether it be positive, negative, or non-existent. I'd also publish the date and time of the rating, so a buyer or seller could assess for themselves what ratings are genuine and what ratings are revenge. But like I said: I'm a community-minded dude. I'd rather give my users the best data possible to make as informed of a decision as possible, and not let a few bad apples spoil the bunch.

The lines to get to the observatory at the Empire State Building are pretty long. This is what I learned from my first trip to the Renegade Handmade store in Chicago, the consignment shop spin-off of the Renegade Craft Fair. I learned this, because this is what the woman who sat at the counter was talking about on the phone while she ignored the four of us. We were walking around the area scoping out spots for our new Kids' store, and wanted to drop into Renegade Handmade not only to inquire about the area - but to buy stuff. The conversation that she should have been having was with the customer who was trying to get her attention to see what she could do to keep the six prints he wanted to buy from getting wet in the rain. And yes, that customer was me. One of us did buy something, and he managed to get a question in during checkout. The cashier didn't bother to put the phone down. Nice.

Mostly, I feel bad for the artists who trust Renegade Handmade to be an outlet to sell their goods. I hope they're not putting all their hand-painted eggs in one hand-woven basket.