OK, the Eclipses are over, but the influence is not. It’s like dealing with aftershocks. And these can go on for the next 3 months. Whatever you’ve been coping with may have finally ended, but you’ll still be dealing with it for a while. Ultimately, my best suggestion is to NOT hide anything, be 100% completely honest and above board – especially if you’ve made some mistakes. I also suggest completely letting go of any expectations or ideas of how you might think things should be – that is a sure fire recipe for pain during this cycle.
A good illustration of this is the issue of customer service. It is the ONE thing that sets stellar companies apart from those that, well, just plain suck. We saw what happened with a Real Estate system that didn’t care about people this year, and now we are all paying the price for it. It all boils down to bad customer service. The RE/Mortgage industry didn’t care about people, they only cared about $ and committed fraud to get it. This amounts to REALLY BAD customer service. I don’t know how long an industry can expect it’s clients to stick around when they literally sell them to the sharks.
My own worst customer service nightmare involved a Compaq computer, Microsoft and Best Buy (please notice that Best Buy is now un-coincidentally OUT of business altogether). I was so excited when I brought the shiny new device home and installed it on my desk. Like everyone else who uses a computer for business I put all of my important documents on it, saved all my customer and personal contact information on it and basically proceeded to use it as my surrogate brain.
What a mistake.
Over the course of the next 4 months that computer had no less than 10 things go wrong with it! And every time I took it in to those guys at Best Buy I got the run around, indifference and bored, slack jawed looks from slow moving customer service reps. Nobody cared. And I was out of business for days or weeks at a time when they ‘fixed’ the problem. Allegedly. Not really.
But they wouldn’t take the heap of garbagio back. Oh no, it would have been too easy for them to make me happy and give me a machine that actually worked. Instead they enjoyed prolonging the pain.
Finally, I caught on that there are Lemon laws that protect customers from things like this. So I started collecting receipts for the problems and when the same problem arose 4+ times I left the heap of digital dumpster trash on their counter and took them to small claims court to get my money back (and a better computer from a different store.)
The judge gave me my refund plus many additional unrequested cash pluses for all the software that I lost on the computer. He really felt my pain.
After that I went out and bought an Apple. I have never looked back and you’d have to pay me HUGE $$ to get me to ever depend on a PC again as long as I live. The experience was THAT bad. But as much as I despise the Microsoft System, I love and adore my Mac. Talk about GREAT customer service. The whole Mac experience turned me into a raving fan, and I don’t become a fan of anything EVER!! Sheesh, you’d think I was getting commission from Apple for this, but no, I just love the system, the store, the service and the style. I don’t care if I have to pay more. I know that the machine will last me at least 5 times as long – and since I am a practical (and essentially cheap) person, that looks like a bargain to me. Especially when you factor in the FRUSTRATION of my past experience. No, I never want to do that again. It’s Mac all the way for me.
There are a few other companies that I’ve had horrible experiences with, and wouldn’t ever go back to again, like BofA, some Internet Marketers and about a dozen Guru’s. Oh, and Hollywood. In Hollywood, you either have to enjoy being stabbed in the back by friends, ripped off, ignored, insulted and slandered, or just get out. But that should be obvious. It’s not a good idea to be deep in a shallow pond. Kind of like beaching a whale. In this story, the whale is me – or at least that’s what they kept telling me. No, they do not like size 6 girls in Hollywood. Size 6 is obese.
BTW – I DO look overweight in the video on the front page of my Blog, that’s because I was 3 months pregnant when this was filmed – another cardinal sin in Hollywood – unless of course you are a pop-star who runs around flashing the paparazzi with no underwear ;-0 !!
Anyway, I am on a rant because one of my favorite online writers, John Carlton wrote a great post this week about ‘How to Lose Customers and Persuade People to Hate You’. He gives solid actionable business advice with an eye towards providing great value to the customer – which is the only way that I have ever done business, and bad customer service is probably the real reason for our economic candle wax meltdown experience. I love this guy’s writing, because he always makes me laugh at the sheer humanity of it all, and somehow that eases those little aches and pains that life likes to throw at us.
And it struck me that YOU might like the benefit of some of my very painful experience in the world of online business building. SO, I am putting together a little comparison guide for anyone who wants to get the real scoop on all the online hype. And no, I won’t be charging for it. To be sure you get a Completely FREE copy, go ahead and sign up for my Weekly Horoscope Newsletter right now.
