inside chon

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.