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May 08, 2014
The Great Customer Service Ruse: What If Consumers Got Up Off Their Knees?
Is it just me?
Year after year, the cult of customer/client service "trends" stridently in books, trade journals, company meetings and on the internet. Service gurus are multiplying. Everyone is writing, gushing and testifying about the importance of service, often implying that service is no problem to establish and maintain. Businesses in every industry are proclaiming in giddy, self-congratulatory tones that service is, and has been for the last fifty or so years, a "core value" and "touchstone" of their success. And yet every year, the service that each of us experience on a daily basis in our own lives is getting worse and worse.
The culprits? Just about anyone who sells anything. Retail, especially. Retail banking, insurers, phone companies, utilities and the scads of outside "tech" guys charged with keeping your computers running are the worst. Two notable exceptions: Trader Joe's. GEICO. And that's about it. So let's start getting feisty at stores, coffee shops, on the phone with customer care reps, at doctors' offices, everywhere you pay for something. Remind them all you have options and choices. You're a customer, consumer, client or patient? Get off your knees. Demand things. Make them earn or keep your business.
Pay attention. Jay and Silent Bob want to buy something.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
May 07, 2014
Pittsburgh's Fracking War Part 2: No joy in much of Steelville.
Hardly a mandate. Approved by 9 to 5 vote early this morning was the controversial lease for drilling of natural gas under Pittsburgh parkland using hydraulic fracturing--or fracking. See the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Deer Lakes Park drilling plan approved by Allegheny County Council, 9-5".
Posted by JD Hull at 03:51 AM | Comments (0)
May 06, 2014
Pittsburgh's Fracking War: The Allegheny County Council's Big Night.
In a challenge to fracking that's made national news, anti-fracking groups in Pittsburgh have been a constant thorn in the side of the Allegheny County Council on a proposal for a relatively small fracking lease to drill under public lands. Before the 15-member council tonight is a proposal that calls for the county to enter into a lease with Texas-based Range Resources and Huntley & Huntley, a local driller, to drill for natural gas beneath the Deer Lakes Park.
Under the proposed lease, there would be no drilling on the surface of the 1,180 acre park. Instead, drilling would be on private property in the townships of Frazer and West Deer. Proponents point out that the lease would generate about $8 million dollars to the county (including monies for park improvements) plus 18 percent in royalties, and create needed jobs.
Environmental groups and a diverse galaxy of private citizens are arguing that fracking is known to harm water, air, land and human health, that drilling based on current fracking technologies has proved risky in almost all parts of the world where it has been practiced, and that the proposal is in reality a slick stalking horse for future drilling throughout the Pittsburgh area.
After months of public hearings and informational meetings about the lease proposal, it goes before the council for a final vote.
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The Council in action.
Posted by JD Hull at 08:07 PM | Comments (0)