Everybody likes to focus on the initial costs of the build it or buy it decision with business software. For mission critical applications, I lean towards build it. As a software developer myself, I am probably a bit biased, but here is what I often see after implementation time.
Custom Software
1. Discover problem
2. Find the person that wrote the code
3. Have a discussion with that person about how the code behaves and decide on solution
4. Implement solution

Enterprise Software
1. Discover problem
2. Find functional person responsible for maintaining that module of the software
3. Have a discussion with funcional person about how the software behaves
4. Functional person has a discussion with developer about possible solutions
5. Developer researches problem and gives a quote (see how this works here)
6. Functional person enters issue in system along with absurd quote given by developer
7. At the weekly team meeting, a committee decides whether to do the project
8. If project is approved (not likely), the team gets busy working on the solution
9. After unit and integration testing, the solution is implemented (6 months after problem was discovered)

Life is too short for enterprise software.

I report the good, bad and the ugly of companies listening to customers. Luckily, after the Cingular post, I found some more good. Here are three companies that are actively soliciting customer feedback.

Netflix - after recieving a movie from me, they sometimes send me an email to ask when I sent it - cool

Linens and Things - upon checking out a few days ago, my wife was asked “Did someone say hello to you and ask if you needed any help?” - now nice, L&T

Walmart - Upon checking out, my wife paid with a credit card and a question came up on the credit card reader: Was the store clean? Yes/No - even Walmart is getting into the customer feedback game.

These aren’t Earth shagttering events, but it is nice to see a few more positives in a world of companies that ignore customer feedback.

Wow, this continues to blow me away. I mentioned this type of behavior a few months ago, and it still kills me when companies make these kinds of anti-customer decisions. Here is the short of it - a message posted on a shopping site:

Unfortunately, we can no longer take phone orders. Customers forget to tell us something and after the order is placed and processed they claim we wrote down incorrect information. By placing an order online we have a record of exactly what you want, especially for custom-designed items, leaving no room for error.

Obviously, the person taking this kind of view of customers will not be in business for long.

In a blatant act of stupidity, Cingular has decided to rid itself of some unprofitable customers. It seems that the “contract” contains fine print making it a contract for consumers, but not for Cingular. Even their corporate values proclaim the following:

Vision

To be the most highly regarded wireless company in the world, with a driving focus around best-in-class sales and service.

Values

Customers: We value our customers and treat them with respect, providing friendly, courteous, knowledgeable and prompt service at all touch points. We seek and are driven by our customers’ feedback.

What a sad state of affairs this market has turned into. Customer loyalty in this business is terrible. Why? I have a few ideas, but I’d be interested in hearing your ideas. Are you loyal to your wireless carrier?

Stuart Rutledge recently wrote Don’t trash broken stuff; send it back and it is definitely worth your time. Here is the summary:

1. Stuart’s stuff wears out or breaks.
2. Stuart mails it back to them with a nice letter asking for a new version.
3. Company mails new version - free of charge.
4. Stuart writes blog entry and gives companies credit.

This is a perfect example of how companies get great word of mouth advertising. Think about how many people Stuart has told about these incidents. How much publicity have these companies received because they gave something away for free when someone took the time to write them a letter.

When companies resond to these letters with a coupon, they are basically sending an insult back to the person writing a letter. When companies send out free stuff in response to these letters, they get a customer for life, plus some great word of mouth. This is a great bang for the buck.

Have you ever written an unsolicited letter to a company?  It could have been a complaint or a thank-you or even just a question.  Recently, I talked with a person that handled customer inquiries for a canned food company.  Her job was this:

1. read each letter
2. log a summary of the letter into a database
3. send a coupon

I believe this food company just doesn’t get it.  They are missing a golden opportunity to interact with their customers.  Of course, not all customers want to talk with the canned food company, but those customers who have taken the time to send in letters have segmented themselves into a new category - a category which desires an interaction.

If the canned food company played its cards right, it could turn these people into a voluntary free sales force - customer evangelists.  I know of a few people who wrote companies and got extraordinary results.  I know this because the people told me about it - without me asking!  A friend sent some worn jeans to Levi’s and received a new pair in the mail.  How many people did he tell about this?  He told a lot of people, including me, and I am telling you.  How many people are you going to tell?  Levi’s gets it.

When people mail in a complaint, they do not want a coupon.  They can get a coupon from the Sunday paper.  Here is what they want:

1. An apology
2. An admission that they are right and the company is wrong
3. Assurance that it won’t happen again

A simple phone call or letter (not a form letter) will be perfect.

Customers don’t want a form letter, and they don’t want coupons.  They want to feel that the company cares about their feedback, and will take action based upon their input.  A free pair of jeans never hurts, but that isn’t the most important thing.  Companies should stop being cheap, and take these opportunities to engage their customers.  This is how you grow a brand.  Stop wasting money on TV commercials, and start interacting with people who have reached out to you.  Have a conversation.  Listen.  Be genuine.  This will get you a customer for life.  What is that worth?

Well, what do you know? It is “Customers First Month” over at Fast Company. I can’t fault them for trying, but shouldn’t every month be Customers First Month?

The register printed this article about a guy invoicing Bill Gates. It appears that this guy left his unsaved work open on his computer and went to bed. When he awoke, his computer had been rebooted in order to install security updates. The kicker is that he specifically set Windows Update to always ask permission before rebooting. Microsoft apparently felt that it was ok to override these settings and reboot the computer.

I can see both sides of the argument, however, I believe Microsoft has got to find a better way to handle this. You cannot give your customers the power to make decisions, and then ignore their decisions. Kind of reminds me of some stories I heard about how some politicians got elected many years ago.

Anyway, it appears that Microsoft believed that it was more important to install the security patches than abide by the wishes of their customers. It sounds like a terrible thing, but we don’t exactly know what they are protecting us from. Perhaps there was a real security threat that would have wiped out his computer completely, and the security update is the only thing that saved it, I don’t know.

Regardless, Microsoft must respect the wishes of their customers. If you are going to reboot my computer without asking, don’t give me the option to block you from doing this. It only creates a false sense of security. This problem could be avoided if If this guy would have been told something like this:

“A serious security threat requires an update and a reboot. This is a mandatory action. Please press OK to start this process. Afterwards, you have 5 minutes to save your work before the installation process begins and your computer is rebooted.”

Clearly this is wordy and can be improved upon, but it is definitely a better choice than trying to sneak in reboots in the middle of the night. That kind of stuff can make me change operating systems…

Today, I asked my four-year-old daughter if she knew what a customer was. She replied:
They are the people who wait.

That is the honest truth. This speaks volumes about our experience as customers. It seems we are always waiting. Everyone values time differently, but depending on your industry, your customers may place a higher value on time than you think. Instead of the “Time Value of Money”, think about the “Money Value of Time”.

Business decision makers in particular are very busy people. These aren’t the type of people I want to keep waiting. In fact, Fast Company magazine has widely proclaimed that Time is the new currency.

Don’t let your customers fall into the “people who wait” category.

A classic battle exists between software developers and managers. The two are at odds, always haggling over a deadline. It is a game of wits and skill. Who can outmaneuver the other?

It goes down like this: Managers give developers a spec and ask for a time estimate. Developer knows manager is going to reduce his estimate, so he takes a pre-emptive strike: He doubles his actual estimate of 40 hours to a nice round 80 hours. Now manager receives the 80 hour quote and knows developer padded the hours, so he insists that “we don’t have that long” and we must get it done in half the quoted time - 40 hours.

It appears that everything worked out. All is well in manager/developer relations. Except one thing. This software could really be done a lot faster. You see developers have a special “out” that exists because only they know what it is going to take to get the program written. Only they know their actual progress at any given time. They aren’t building houses that managers can walk through and estimate the percent complete.

One day they are working away, the same as the day before, and the next day they are “done”. We all know that the code is never done when the software developer says it is “done” (that is just the first level of “done”), but that is another topic for another day. The fact is that software developers are usually incented enough to work just hard enough to keep their jobs. Why should they get things done faster than they estimated? The manager will expect the same work next time, and we all know that sometimes “blips” happen that throw the time estimate out the window, and in cases like that, the developer is glad they padded their hours so much.

Managers hate it when software developers miss their dates. This causes the padding and date negotiation discussed above. Wouldn’t it be great if developers could give a “most likely date” that they were expected to miss 50% of the time? That is what the PERT project management methodology teaches us. Developers and managers alike seem to insist on a date which gives “100% certainty” that the project will be completed. They both forget the fact that the goal of business should not be to hit your date. The goal should be to be as productive as possible and kick ass. If you are hitting all your dates, you are padding your estimates too much and wasting a lot of time.