Archive for "Reviews"
The Effortless Experience
Posted on May 17, 2014 by Ching under Reviews, Videos.
Here’s my key take away from the 2014 ICMI Contact Center Expo & Conference.
Matthew Dixon was one of our keynote speakers at the ICMI Contact Center Expo & Conference. The video above is nearly identical to his keynote speech witout the Bill Rancic jokes. The speech covers the key ideas of their book, The Effortless Experience: Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty
It is by far the best book I’ve read this year. Seriously. It articulates a lot of the things that I’ve been feeling but haven’t been able to articulate. I always tell my friend Darcy that I have all of these opinions and gut feelings but have no way to prove them. I’ll usually make some kind of statement or claim. Sometimes Darcy agrees or disagrees but, since she’s the keeper of our call center statistics, she’s the one who actually crunches the data to either prove or disprove my claim. Besides that, Darcy is really good at running reports and gathering information. But I digress… The authors and their colleagues have actually done the research and their research proves what we have all probably known for a long time: a strategy of delight doesn’t pay, customer satisfaction is not a predictor of loyalty, customer service interactions tend to drive disloyalty (no matter what you do), and the key to mitigating customer disloyalty is by reducing customer effort.
Customer service providers just need to accept that customers don’t want to have to deal with us. They want to take care of their business as quickly and as effortless as possible and be on their merry way.
The book talks about the concept of next issue avoidance, which is something that I’ve been working on for a few years now. Ever since we started collecting data on our repeat calls, this has been a topic of interest for me. I’m so glad that here’s a school of thought now that focuses on next issue avoidance because it’s actually easier for me to wrap my head around that than first contact resolution.
For years I’ve been trying to get at first contact resolution and can’t quite seem to get a metric that makes sense so I started attacking it from the repeat calls perspective. After reading this book I feel somewhat validated. LOL.
Anyway, if you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it. It’s an easy read. I read most of it on the flight home from San Diego. The examples provided are timely and relevant, and it’s just an enjoyable read over all. Kudos to the authors and their colleagues who helped with the research and contributed to the book. I haven’t been this excited about learning something new in a long time. Thank you.
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Metro Grill II
Posted on January 11, 2014 by Ching under Food and Drink, Reviews.
I’d been wanting to try Metro Grill II since they opened the restaurant but we hadn’t gotten around to it until recently. Brian and I hadn’t been eating out for one and, secondly, when we do eat out we end up using convenience as a key deciding factor. So we end up eating where we work, play, or are going to be rather than going out of our way for a restaurant. Don’t get me wrong. We have done that, but that’s not what usually happens.
Anyway, we fully intended to make something to eat at home yesterday but the stars just lined up for us to try Metro Grill. When we went to see grandma yesterday at Victoria Falls, we drove by the restaurant. It’s located just North of Kellogg in one of the commercial strips along Andover Road. So that’s where they’re located!
At that very moment it seemed as though a lightbulb materialized out of thin air over my head. “Why don’t we just have dinner there tonight?” I asked Brian. “I’d been wanting to try it.”
We arrive a little bit before six o’clock and there were no other customers yet. I think we were their first diners of the evening.
Here are some pictures that I took of their dessert display.
Even though the desserts looked fantastic, I was worried at first. “How good can this place be if there’s no one here at dinner service?” I wondered. However, three people showed up as we were mulling over the menu and other groups of diners trickled in as we were waiting for our food and while we were eating. We were just early I guess, but we are a couple of old farts and we prefer to eat dinner before seven. LOL.
By the time we left they actually had a decent dinner crowd. We didn’t linger. We just stayed long enough to eat our meals and then we bounced because we still had to move furniture around for my World Party Party and then we had to head over to the Candle Club to watch The Fabulous Fleshtones perform.
Here are some pictures of our dinner.
Brian had the Cuban, which he said is good but not as good as other Cuban sandwiches he’s had. He said they use dill pickles instead of sweet pickles, which gives the sandwich a slightly different flavor. Another thing that’s different about the Cuban at Metro Grill is the shoestring potatoes that you see sprinkled on top of the sandwich. Those are also inside.
I had the fontina chicken with mushrooms and asparagus. All of that served on top of white rice. I’m a rice eater (lover?) so that helped me decide what to have for dinner. They have a wide selection of menu items and when I checked FourSquare for recommendations it seemed like everything was good. If it weren’t for rice, I’d probably still be trying to decide what to have. LOL.
The flavors were delicious but the presentation of this dish was a little lacking. Everything seemed like it was just piled on top of one another. The plate they used to serve the dish is also quite small. After the pile of food and the bread on the side there’s barely any room to maneuver. I would recommend serving this dish on a bigger plate. I would probably leave the bread off too because I usually eat bread or I eat rice. It’s either or and not both. For me, anyways. Other people probably feel differently and it’s good to have options, I guess.
I’d been craving fruit salad since I ate the last of what was left of mom’s fruit salad so I ordered their fruit salad for dessert. It was good but it just seemed like a bunch of fruit mixed together. And, again, the presentation was blah. There really isn’t much there. With the beautiful desserts that were on display, I really hoped that this would come out prettier. You can’t even see the coconut shreds, which they put at the bottom of the bowl. I would have sprinkled that on top of the fruit salad.
I’m not sure how much thought went into deciding what fruits to use but, even though it looked like a bunch of fruit mixed together with no rhyme or reason, they were able to create a good cornucopia of flavors in my mouth. I specially liked that it had bits of mango. I mean, who doesn’t like mango?
Despite my critique of the presentation, I did eat every bit of the fruit salad. Brian didn’t want anything to do with it, and I thought it tasted good. I still prefer my mom’s fruit salad though.
The verdict? Metro Grill II is not bad. Definitely worth checking out if you’ve never been. I have mixed feelings about the value, though. I thought my dinner was priced appropriately, but I thought Brian’s sandwich was on the expensive side because it didn’t even come with any kind of side dish. They could have put a few leaves next to it to increase the perceived value. Brian probably wouldn’t have eaten it, but it would have appeared more complete.
The quality of the food you get for the price is decent, but the place isn’t exactly a “cheap” place to eat dinner. It’s kind of in between fast food and nice. So perfect if you want somewhere casual to eat but want something better than fast food.
Oh, and one last thing, though I’m not even sure if it’s worth mentioning because it’s kind of a given for any restaurant with an open kitchen. Don’t be surprised if you smell like your dinner when you leave.
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The Depot Renaissance
Posted on September 21, 2013 by Ching under Reviews, Travel.
I stayed at the Depot Renaissance while I was attending the MEA Customer Relations Roundtable in Minneapolis. I was thrilled to find out that the Depot is a Marriott property because it meant that I’d receive the great service that I’m used to and also earn some rewards points.
The room itself is small but tastefully decorated. And, I had an excellent view of the parking lot across the street (our recent stay at the Peabody Orlando has ruined me for life). LOL.
There’s a little desk which is perfect for doing some work.
The bathroom area is tiny but it’s sufficient for a solo traveler. The space wouldn’t be enough for Brian and I to get ready together if he were traveling with me. Since I was alone, it worked out okay.
When I returned to my room the first night following the networking reception I was surprised to find the message light on my room phone lit up. I figured it was Brian checking on me because I sent him my room number. It turned out to be one of our long time blog followers who lived in the area. It was a little creepy but then I realized that I made the mistake of announcing my arrival to the world by checking into FourSquare so I wasn’t really that hard to track down.
Brian and I always chat at night whenever one of us is away from home so I told Brian what happened. He totally freaked out. It wasn’t enough that I called the front desk to instruct them not to give my room number to anyone and not to accept any more messages; Brian actually called down there himself to give them the low down and to ensure that my safety was a priority for the hotel. The person in charge at the concierge desk must have sensed Brian’s concern because she assured Brian that security would check my floor a couple of times more than normal each night.
I was extremely impressed with the way the hotel handled the situation. Although they had blocked all calls going to my room, each night that I would call for my 4 AM wake up call the next day, Brandon would give me an update. He’d be like, “You received another call again today. Would you like to move to another room?” The first night I had already unpacked all of my stuff (that’s the first thing I do as soon as I get to my room after checking in) and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of packing and unpacking again. Besides, he didn’t know which room I was in so it didn’t really matter. The next night it was more of the same but I told Brandon that I was checking out the next morning so it mattered even less. Nonetheless, I appreciated that they remembered Brian’s instructions. It wasn’t like they remembered the first night and promptly forgot about it. They continued to respect and protect my privacy throughout my stay. Seriously. Not only did they block all external calls, they blocked all calls going to my room. So when I had problems with my breakfast order not getting picked up from the previous night and I had to call down to check on my room service order a couple of times they totally acted like I didn’t exist. LOL.
The lady who brought my breakfast apologized for bringing orange juice instead of pineapple juice as I had requested. She said they were out and she tried to call my room to ask if orange juice would be okay but that the call would not go through. That’s actually when I realized that ALL calls were being blocked. Even the ones initiated by hotel staff.
I was a little cranky about the problems with my breakfast door hanger not getting picked up not once but twice but I couldn’t really stay mad because of the extreme care and professionalism with which the staff handled my delicate situation. It seemed to me that they had some prior experience with this sort of thing. Brian did tell me later that the lady he spoke with reassured him that they’ve dealt with situations like this before. I’m sure this happens a lot when celebrities stay somewhere because their fans would be calling and making their room phones ring incessantly and maybe even trying to track them down in their hotel rooms, but I doubt that those instances involved regular people like me. I felt kind of bad that they had to go through all that trouble to protect me when I wasn’t really all that concerned or fearful. Brian was more freaked out than I was, to be honest.
Anyway, I bet the hotel staff was relieved when I finally checked out because then they didn’t have to go through all the crazy call blocking, extra security, and stuff because I think they finally resorted to saying that they didn’t have any guests staying there by my name any time that anyone would call or ask for me. I’m sure it was quite challenging to serve an invisible guest so, in the end, I really couldn’t blame them for the problems I experienced with breakfast. I’m sure it had to do with no one being in my room or me not existing. LOL.
Huge thanks to the Depot Renaissance staff for a wonderful stay and for making me feel like a celebrity. Even just for a few days.
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The Pub Orlando
Posted on September 1, 2013 by Brian under Food and Drink, Reviews.
While Ching was in one of her classes I decided to go roam around outside the hotel and see if I could find a good place for lunch. I was really wanting to find some Cuban restaurant but there weren’t any close. I ended up going to a place called “The Pub”. I looked it up on Urbanspoon and it had high ratings so I figured why not.
Once I got in there it ended up being a really nice place. The bartender was really nice and helped me choose a really good beer. Luckily they bottle it and I can get it here in Wichita. Unlike the Sam Adams Brick Red that I really like that you can only get on tap and only in Boston Bars.
I decided on a ham sandwich that was on a pretzel bun. It ended up being really good. the fries were also really good. I love think cut fries.
The beer the bartender suggested was really good. The only down side was I had not eaten in few hours and the Beer went right to my head. Luckily the food balanced me out for the walk back to the hotel.
I wish there was a Pub here in Wichita. I think it would make places like Fox and Hound step up their game.
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B-Line Diner
Posted on August 25, 2013 by Ching under Food and Drink, Reviews.
Brian and I ended up eating at B-Line Diner on our first night in Orlando because it rained. I had my heart set on taking the trolley to Oceanaire Seafood Room at Pointe Orlando but we didn’t want to walk outside because of the torrential downpour. It rained while we were getting some supplies at Walgreens and, by the time we arrived back at our hotel, we were both drenched.
Anyway, B-Line is conveniently located on the first floor of our hotel so we wouldn’t have to go outside. It was a no brainer. We put some dry clothes on and off we went.
Brian and I both love hummus so we decided to start with that. It was topped with some sort of kalamata olives tapenade, which made it really salty. I like salty stuff so it appealed to me. Brian didn’t care much for it. He would have much rather preferred a tub of Sabra. LOL.
For dinner we just split a chicken sandwich. We didn’t want any leftovers as our room wasn’t equipped with a microwave. You could request one from housekeeping, but the Peabody charges $20 extra per day for use of the microwave so it wasn’t worth it. Anyway, back to the sandwich. It had all the fixins including apple slices and a huge chunk of avocado. It was actually pretty good.
Splitting the chicken sandwich was actually a good move on our part because we wanted to save room for dessert. The B-Line has an extensive dessert selection. However, since Brian and I were sharing dessert, we couldn’t go too crazy. We ordered a slice of their Oreo chocolate mousse cake.
It was just okay. It tasted like something that you could get anywhere. There really wasn’t anything special about it. The dessert was probably my least favorite part of the meal.
The food at B-Line is actually pretty good. The location is extremely convenient, specially if you are staying at the Peabody or have a conference nearby at the Orange County Convention Center. The diner is also open 24 hours a day, which is a huge plus. The only downside is that the prices are quite high. Then again, that’s typical of everything in this area of Orlando so, after considering all of the other options, B-Line is probably a bargain. I wouldn’t mind eating there again next time we’re at the Peabody.
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