inside chon

The Firefighter

I have been in the technology consulting business for about 7 years now. If you count high school, a bit longer but I'm talking serving customers professionally and helping people solve their computer problems to put money in the bank. Over the last year I've grown and added an associate to help me with the volume, and even had an assistant for some time handling the phone calls and scheduling.

The hardest thing about this business is delivering a consistent service level and getting customers to understand that service level. We offer onsite service that can be same day depending on volumes, but our pickup and deliver service is usually a 3-5 day return time (not including the time it takes to receive parts). We typically return sooner than this but its always best to give a worst case scenario to set expectations. The reason we set these return times is because of volume. We may have 5 machines waiting to be serviced and the machine that gets dropped off on Thursday might not get touched until Tuesday (3 business days). I'm contemplating having an up-charge for customers that want to pay to move to the front of the line.

As a consumer, I'm a huge fan of these fees. When I have to pay these fees I love it because typically I'm realizing tremendous value. If I have to pay to overnight a book from Amazon becucase I want to start reading it tomorrow, I feel great. If I have to pay to stay at a hotel onsite at Unviersal because in doing that I'm able to skip the lines all day long at the park I feel like a million bucks. I love instant gradification.

Our pricing structure is going to be modified, I'm sure of that. Most likely with increases as well as higher fees for same day, evening, and weekend appointments and to have your machine "bumped" to the front of the repair queue. If we have to re-arrange our typical operating procedures, we have to charge a premium. That way we aren't always rushing around to put out fires.

My time with the Curve

I've had the Blackberry Curve for about a month now, and switched my service to AT&T. It's probably the best phone that I've ever used. I did venture away from good old RIM for awhile to test the waters with Windows Mobile but I decided to come back to old faithful and get the Curve.

While Windows Mobile is pretty sharp and the out of the box over-the-air synchronization with Exchange is really sweet, the WinMo platform is just too laggy. I'm sending at least 20-30 emails a day from the device that I use and when I can out type the device it gets frustrating. The Blackberry is built from the ground up to send and recieve email and it handles that task with excellence.

There seems to be a larger following among developers since I last had a Blackberry (about a year now, which is ages in tech time). Flickr, Typepad, and Facebook all have native apps for the Blackberry.

The Blackberry Curve combined with Phonetag is mobile bliss.

That is, until the Bold comes out.

This is why I love Moblogic.

Moblogic is the best thing on the web right now. Their production value and talent is just incredible.

Simulscribe/Phonetag is killer

When it comes to technology I like to think of myself as bleeding edge. The reason I adopt new technology so quickly is in a constant effort to drive efficiencies in my life and work.

Every so often a service or product comes out that you know is game changing. For me a few of those have been : myspace, facebook, the blackberry (with a bes), and getting your voice mails emailed to you. I recently switched from a Windows Mobile device back to a Blackberry. Mostly because I haven't been able to find a Windows Mobile device that is an acceptable form factor and can keep up with my typing. Also any other smart phone I have used aside from the BB always seems to hang or have all of these issues that are a huge issue for someone that relies on their phone as heavily as I do.

Aside from being back to a device that can keep up with me I found a service that is going to save me a ton of time : PhoneTag (formerly simulscribe). Its a one stop shop for all of your voicemail needs. When I don't answer my phones (office or cell) it forwards callers to one voicemail box on phonetag's system that prompts them to leave a message. Where the service becomes valuable is that it transcribes the voicemail and gives me a slick interface on my Blackberry that allows me to handle that message. I can call the person back, shoot them a text, or send them an email.

You may not see the value quickly but imagine all the long winded voicemails you can skip listening to. Imagine all the voicemails you get that can quickly be responded to with a text or an email (eliminating a call back). In my business it will save me time calling people back and checking voicemail.

Its a great service - check it out.

Las Vegas doormen making 500k a year?

I'm in the wrong business.

Article.

growing pains

What a roller coaster the past few days have been! I haven't been writing nearly as much as I'd like to mostly because of time constraints but over the last few months I've experienced incredible growth in my business and learned some lessons along the way too.

The first thing is that almost two months ago I hired an Admin Assistant for Digital Aspire and she has been a phenomenal. If I could go back in time I would have done it years ago. It's an ideal situation for both of us right now. She works from her house answer phone calls and keeping the schedule which allows me to focus on things that drive revenue to the company. Having someone that delivers a professional first impression to customers is key in my mind, and she has been a great asset to the company.

Secondly, I've added a second technician to the company. He has been handling a great deal of the residential service calls that has brought my company along this far. While we are making a real push this year for commercial business I have been looking for a top notch person to help on the residential side and I have definitely found him.

I was scheduled to go to NYC on Wednesday for a course on Microsoft CRM (Customer Relationship Management) but they decided to cancel the course today. So now a trip that was supposed to be business and pleasure is turning into strictly pleasure. I'm sure that I will find a way to work business into it somehow though ;)

thanks

I just wrote a thank you card to a customer that referred someone to me. I used to thank all my customers.

I'd send a thank you note after every service call to thank them for their business. If they said that one of my existing customers referred them, I'd sent that person a note to thank them. I'm not sure what it did but it made me feel good to say thanks.

I'm going to start saying it more often.

Relax, I have blonde highlights.

If you know me, you know that I provide companies and people with technology solutions. I segment my customers as best I can because a different customer type will experience different problems which in turn require different solutions. A business customer of mine that does over 10 million dollars a year in revenue has different problems than your neighbor who wants to turn on the TV and watch a DVD with one remote.

After doing this for many many years I've found out that this business isn't so much about the services you deliver but the experience the customer receives from the second they pick the telephone up to call you. They can call anyone for their technology problems from a friend in the neighborhood to The Geek Squad at Best Buy. Why do they choose my company? Do they see my ad more than the competition? Do they trust a smaller operation more? My marketing is intentionally simple for the residential market. Its a picture of me when I was 15 years old and little else. People laugh and frequently tell me that I need to change my picture (I have high lites in my hair) but I laugh it off and run it again the next month. I'm all for being consistent.

Moving forward I'm going to try to make the experience that I deliver to people different. We will focus on communicating better and more frequently with our customer base. On following up with them after the issue is resolved to make sure that it stays resolved and they aren't having issues.

What are some pain points that you think people experience when they use the services of a technology company?

 

My technology

When it comes to technology I'm usually first on the block to get a new device. So I thought I'd take some time to tell you what technology I use on a daily basis:

• Dell D420 Notebook - This model is Dell's flagship lightweight business notebook. I have to say that it really is the best notebook I have owned. Sure, it could use some spicing up (hello, Mac Book Pro) but overall this thing is durable, has great battery life, and is extremely light weight. It lacks an optical drive but when I'm out and about I rarely use one anyways.
  
  Combine this with my Sprint Aircard and I'm working anywhere, anytime.

• Blackberry 8703/e - This probably gets the most use out of any piece of technology that I have. It keeps me in touch 24/7 with my email, and links me to our Network Operations Center that monitors all of our business customers. We use Exchange internally so the second a new email comes in its automatically sent  to the device, and if I delete an email on the handheld its not in my Inbox when I get back to the office. I have been thinking about swapping this out for a Windows Mobile device since I really like the idea of being able to edit Word and Excel documents on the go but I haven't been too impressed with any devices lately.

• 60 GB Video iPod - This is with me all the time in the car. I sync it every morning when I wake up so that it has the latest news and programming on it. I've listened to Audiobooks and music of course but where this has really come in handy is Podcasts. I update it everyday with Public Radio programming (I'm a nerd I know) like This American Life and Radiolab. There is also some really nerdy video podcasts that I watch like Wallstrip and Diggnation.

• Custom built Desktop with Dual 20 inch LCD's - When I built my latest desktop machine I knew that I wanted alot of screen real estate. Let me just say that once you have 2 monitors you will never go back to having just 1. It's so nice to be able to work with that much more screen real estate. Imagine having your email open on one monitor while you are IM'ing a customer or browsing the web on another monitor. Awesome.

planes are disgusting

Last Friday I took a flight to West Palm Beach to visit a customer. My flight was of course delayed coming home, and once I did get in the air it was incredibly bumpy. I take planes quite a bit so I can handle the flying part fine, but one thing that continues to bother me is how disgusting the planes are.

Am I the only one who looks in the cracks between where the seats are bolted down? What is the gunk that lives in that spot? Does anyone really use the pillows that have been stored in the overhead bin? On the way home from Puerto Rico someone puked in the barf bag and left it in the seat behind me.