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Friday morning and it’s a Bunker Day for me – working ON the business during my last UK working day before I leave for Australia on Sunday evening.
Here are a few things that excite and fascinate me this morning:
A Ticket To Win – an amazing opportunity
FiveGoForth begins on 8th September (yikes – 5 weeks), when we start our 960-mile journey, cycling from Lands End to John O’Groats to raise funds for Cancer Research, Bridge2Aid and BrushUpUK.
How would you like a full day of training/consultancy for your practice – for just £100 (and support three good causes in the process)?
Myself, Simon Tucker, Les Jones and Sheila Scott are offering one day’s coaching or training and Ashley Latter is offering one place on any of his 2 day Ethical Sales courses.
All you have to do is donate £100 or more to our Virgin Money Giving page – CLICK HERE for one chance to win a day with one of the riders.
Leave your name in the comments section when you donate, as well as the name of the rider coach/trainer whose draw you would like to be entered into, and we will contact you with confirmation of your entry.
(just make sure at least one of us has your email address or other contact point!)
Full details are on our website CLICK HERE.
1 There will be five separate draws; one each for a day with one rider, exact details to be discussed and agreed after winning;
2 You can make multiple entries before midnight on 7th September 2018, and look out for videos of each draw during our ride, posted on our Facebook page;
3 Let me remind you that 100% of your contributions will go to the good causes;
4 Any individual who has previously donated £100+ will be entered.
“We don’t make the rules”
My Flybe flights to Southampton and back yesterday were predictably stressful, the morning queues at Manchester Airport were captured on a Facebook Live broadcast currently viewed 2,000 times (not quite the 3.5 million of the previous week). The delay coming home was irritating but not the end of the world.
There was one moment, however, that did make me think.
On boarding a busy morning flight, one of the passengers changed his seat, resulting in the stewardess rushing over to tell him that he couldn’t do that because the aircraft hadn’t been trimmed.
He made some comment (in fairness, I couldn’t hear the exact words but I could sense that they were spoken in a polite way) and she responded with “we don’t make the rules”.
As we took off I pondered on that comment as a customer service experience.
How would it make you feel if somebody said that to you?
Here’s my interpretation:
the fact that you are an individual human customer with a personality is of no consequence to me;
I’m just here to follow the rules, I’m not here to show any initiative;
I don’t see it as part of my remit to engage with you personally and in a polite way;
I haven’t figured out yet that either you or anyone around you listening is digitally connected to the world and perfectly capable of relating their experience to others;
It may well be a very good rule from a safety perspective but I don’t have the time or inclination to explain that to you.
I could go on – but you get my point.
Listening to a radio interview with David Walliams a few days ago, it was fascinating to hear him say that the phrase people use most often when they recognise him is “computer says no” – that has become embedded in our society as the epitome of poor service.
Flybe and readers, please note.
Building the trillion dollar business
We hear this morning that Apple are a shade off the trillion dollar market capitalisation – the first company in history to do so.
Many years ago, Michael Gerber said that the objective of a business was to make a profit and the purpose of a business was to solve somebody else’s problem.
Whether or not you like their gadgets or their style, Apple have consistently focused on solving the problem of how we communicate and, in so doing (reference yesterday’s Ofcom report on “mobile phone” usage in the UK) have been primarily responsible for changing the way we live.
Clearly, enough of us did like it.
You will find more infographics at Statista