By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jul 10, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET The calculus of bad customer relations.
Company A estimates if they make it maddeningly difficult to get through to a customer service representative and have a nearly incomprehensible policy for refunds when a failure occurs … it will take approximately 3 hours of waiting and wading through annoying delays, hold times, and numerous representatives saying, “I understand your situation, John, and if it were up to me I would refund your money, but it is out of my hands and the rules require me to…..” —-Company A estimates that after 3 hours a rational customer will give up. And they are correct.
Giving up is a “rational decision” because 3 hours of anyone’s time is worth a lot to them. Probably more than the money in question, even if it is a several hundred dollars. Just do the math. Would you let someone have 3 hours of your life if it required you getting increasingly frustrated in return for the “chance” of getting $200? Probably not.
Plus, to persist for longer than 3 hours with multiple different customer service representatives trained to say “no” 258 ways in the same language as they wear you down to demoralizing defeat requires one to be, well, a certifiable ass. A jerk. And that’s very hard –in fact, almost impossible– for some people.
But we never get too old that we can’t occasionally surprise ourselves.
And sometimes that can include surprising ourselves in unusual ways. Like the fact that despite repeated past failures at successfully being an ass, finding out that deep-down inside us there is an “inner ass” just waiting to come out.
And further surprising ourselves that sometimes, in a few select and rare situations, making an irrational decision about our time and money is actually the right thing to do. And feels better than the “rational decision” of giving up.
And no, it’s not the “principle of the matter.”
It’s the value of reminding ourselves–and others on remote calls with customer service operators from parts unknown–that we can if we really, really, really want to— still stand up for ourselves. And sometimes that we will, despite logic to the contrary, do just that.
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 Business 101 lessons aren’t typically fun to be reminded of or interesting to re-learn and rarely ever are profound. They do, however, tend to be essential to business success.
Like this fairly uncomplicated rule of thumb.
Nothing in business relationships is more upsetting and disappointing than poor customer service.
Nothing in business relationships is more appreciated and valuable than good customer service.
No product or service is easier or cheaper to provide than good customer service. (The only requirement is the organization treat customer satisfaction as the top priority)
No product or service is more costly to skimp on or more difficult to remedy than poor customer service. (The only requirement is the organization not value customer satisfaction)
I suspect that no business miscalculation has caused more organizations to fail than skimping on giving time and priority to customer satisfaction.
The “soft stuff” truly is “the hard stuff.” And at the core of every business relationship isn’t an inanimate piece of technology or clever algorithm or new system or decision tool. But rather a human being who is free to take his or her business elsewhere at anytime for any reason. And will.
By Artur Davis, on Wed Jul 10, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET Continuing to pick over the remains of the Supreme Court’s news-making week, there is one other piece that should be examined. As my last posting argued, the Court’s decision to avoid the merits of Prop 8, Hollingsworth v. Perry, is hard to defend as a work of judicial analysis, given the anti-democratic veto power it puts in the hands of a Governor and Attorney General who disagree with laws their own constituents voted into existence. But I would argue that there is a real chance that taking Prop 8 on the merits might have ended disastrously for social conservatives, and that we have just gotten a good look at what the next super-showdown on the subject will look like.
The basis for all of that: a not well remembered Supreme Court decision from the mid nineties, Romer v. Evans. The case involved a Colorado constitutional amendment that sought to preempt a series of grassroots campaigns around the state geared toward winning more local protections for homosexuals. Under the amendment, which voters approved statewide, local jurisdictions were precluded from passing any form of initiatives that had the effect of making sexual orientation a “protected class”, analogous to race or gender. In a majority opinion by Anthony Kennedy, the Colorado amendment was struck down on the ground that it blocked one class of the state’s citizens, its gay community, from exercising the ability to win favorable results in the political process, and that even under the lowest level of equal protection review, rational basis, there was no valid justification for such a limitation. One of the informal legal advisors for the litigants challenging the amendment: a rising Republican appellate whiz who had just missed being confirmed for a federal judgeship a few earlier, named John Roberts.
 Romer did turn heads in 1996 because it was the first instance of the Supreme Court invalidating a law that was aimed at gays. But the reasoning, that a law couldn’t survive constitutionally if it simply reflected disapproval of homosexuality, seemed light years beyond the political culture at the time, which included a near unanimous passage of the Defense of Marriage Act, signed into law by a Democratic president. And for all practical purposes, Romer seemed to have almost nothing to do with DOMA, didn’t discourage it or generate any real challenge to it, and is not lauded in liberal legal circles in the same manner as Lawrence v. Texas’ 2003 overturning of local sodomy laws.
That was then. This week, Romer is cited heavily in and was one of the linchpins of the ruling ending DOMA, and had the Court chosen to decide whether Prop 8 violates the equal protection clause, it could not have avoided Romer’s potentially broad reach. Does a state referenda limiting marriage to its traditional definition somehow preclude gays from petitioning California’s legislature or judges to change that definition? Would the five justices who discarded DOMA have bought any rationale that there was a reason for Prop 8 other than moral apprehensions about homosexuality?
Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: The Gay Marriage Case That Will Really Matter
By Jason Atkinson, on Wed Jul 10, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET Save The Great South Bay, a non-profit organization founded in August 2012, is a local grassroots organization dedicated to the revitalization of the bay.
We want future generations to fish, clam and swim in these waters as we had. We want to restore marine and shoreline habitats so that the South Shore and beach communities that ring the bay can become sustainable for this century.
At present, we are at a moment of crisis. The water quality on Long Island is such that due to septic tank seepage, pesticides, storm runoff, and lawn and agricultural fertilizer, we may not have water to drink, bathe in and cook with before long. As our polluted ground water seeps into our aquifer, it also seeps into our rivers, bays and ponds, and it is killing our bodies of water at an accelerating pace, and the costs of over-development and poor infrastructure mount.
Science has both the diagnosis here and the cure. Save the Great South Bay relies greatly on the collective expertise of researchers from a variety of institutions, many of them in The Long Island Clean Water Coalition, a group formed to address this urgent problem of ground water pollution before it is literally too late.
By Artur Davis, on Tue Jul 9, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET At the risk of upsetting a popular narrative, that the Supreme Court just dealt a crippling blow to the interests of black voters while handing a decisive win to gays on the future of marriage, I offer a few contrarian points. In random order,
(1) It’s a cheap misread to construe the Court’s rulings on Section 5 and the Defense of Marriage Act as some subversive proof that the Court, or more accurately Anthony Kennedy, the deciding vote in both cases, is more sensitive toward the aspirations of gays than blacks. Whatever you think of Kennedy’s analysis, it is at its core a judgment about the scope of federal v. state authority: put simply, Justice Kennedy’s view is that states should have more leeway to regulate their election practices, as opposed to Washington, and that states ought to determine what is or isn’t a marriage, as opposed to Congress doing so. Those are serious, entirely consistent positions that shouldn’t be dismissed by fixating on the politics or matching the gloom on the face of blacks outside the Court yesterday with the zeal of gays today.
(2) The Court’s complex holding on Prop 8 has a clean result-an explosion of gay weddings in California in the next month-but its winding procedural course had little to do with sweeping claims of autonomy or dignity. To the contrary, a rare coalition of conservative and liberal justices clung to some fairly basic rules of legal standing: You don’t get to file a lawsuit simply because you are rooting for one outcome or another. You have to be an injured party who is contending that either enforcing or violating said law injures you in some way. I am in the camp that thinks that the Court got it wrong here: by denying standing to the plaintiffs, the Supremes effectively let the Governor and Attorney General of California over-turn a majority of their voters by refusing to enforce or even defend Prop 8, their constitutional oaths of fidelity to California’s laws notwithstanding. But resolving Prop 8 with an ordinary technical legal point hardly suggests that the Court is poised to take on North Carolina’s referendum against same sex marriage last year, or any statute in any of the other 37 states that don’t recognize gay marriages.
(3) Combined with the decision to decide another day on affirmative action, this was a week of a cautious court (or again, two cautious jurists in Kennedy and John Roberts) that took pains to minimize the upset to the social and political landscape. Politicians who have linked the Voting Rights Act to the Obama presidency can certainly do so in a thematic, inspirational way, but they should remember that with the exception of Virginia, not one VRA covered state was part of President Obama’s winning coalition in 2012. In not one of these states will a black congressman’s job be imperiled, given that the Republicans who control the legislatures in these states are perfectly happy with heavily racially gerrymandered districts and the free ride they give Republicans in the rest of the state. (It is telling that every single southern redistricting plan in 2011, all but one drawn by a Republican legislature, was pre-cleared by the Holder Justice Department). To be sure, voter ID laws in the VRA states will pass more frequently and with less scrutiny, but in states that are already red and that haven’t been contested at the presidential level since Bill Clinton seemed momentarily capable of winning everything in October 1996. (I will allow for the possibility that Texas is the one state where a rollback of Section 5 confers an edge to Republicans, given the vagaries of drawing districts there and the tension between a heavily Republican legislative majority and a rising minority base that is not as geographically concentrated as in the South).
Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: Of Voting Rights and Gay Rights
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jul 8, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET How smart were our Founding Fathers really?
Were they just good with “big ideas” about freedom, liberty and all that. Or did they have practical intelligence too?
One way to find out is to look back on the original July 4th in 1787. If it was set on a Thursday like this year’s allowing for not only a great national political event (“big idea” part) but also picking a date that allowed for everyone to enjoy a long weekend and have an extra day to recover from over-indulging on food and drink the night before, I think we can confidently conclude the Founders had both high theoretical and practical intelligence.
But if they set our big celebration day on, say, a Tuesday, we can confidently conclude they were more like a bunch of absent minded professors. Brilliant with complex and philosophical ideas….but could not be trusted with practical matters like party planning.
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I remember hazily a rainy 4th of July with our family about 20 years ago. My half sis Pamela was having fun holding sparklers (and trying not to let sparks touch her arm) and laughing as we tried to light fireworks on the front porch in the damp and dank evening light.
I remember looking down at a disappointing and spent firecracker that had settled amid a sea of matches that it took to finally light it.
But tonight Pamela seemed to have a slightly brighter and more memorable 4th.
She was the CNN reporter covering the re-opening of the Statue of Liberty.
And avoided burning her arm with a sparkler.
And it didn’t rain. One of the blessings of liberty is freedom of speech….and that is especially valuable since we love the power of story.
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Here is a powerful scene from a powerful story exemplifying the modern essence of what we as a young nation carved out for ourselves in an early defining moment on this day 226 years ago.
Happy 4th of July.
For all the original reasons for this nationally sacred holiday. For all the reasons that have developed over the years for celebrating this holiday. And for the fireworks, cookouts, friendship and fellowship too.
As we live freely in each of our individual communities tonight together as Americans.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jul 5, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Idiom-speak can leave you tongue-tied.
It’s depressing when things that are supposed to “wax and wane” end up merely “waning and waning” And then waning once more —and in a big way, as waning goes—when you least expect it and when you really, really needed a major league waxing period to begin.
At some point waning (without waxing) is just a trend that you have to accept and just deal with …it for what it is and stop telling yourself it will stop soon and start waxing. It may not. It may never wax again.
In fact, it may wane and ebb!
And that is some serious stuff when that starts to happen. And you better be ready.
You can’t be standing idly by wearing rose-colored glasses telling yourself a flowing or waxing period is just around the corner when it’s obvious to everyone else around you there is only more waning and more ebbing ahead. Maybe a lot more.
And that your “glass,” so to speak, is definitely half empty and not half full. And really more like only a third full (or, I should say, two-thirds empty).
Don’t be the last one in the room to realize you are waning and ebbing and already–and maybe permanently —half empty, glass-wise.
Put it this way: When that happens, and you see a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s best to run the other way. And to leave all those pesky idioms, maxims and metaphors behind.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jul 4, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET Happy 4th of July.
And some personal reflections on a firecracker of a political race that just transformed from a cheap sparkler barely worth lighting into an expensive battle between a couple of souped up Roman Candles, so to speak, in the fireworks department.
Here’s my unsolicited and completely ignored advice to the two major candidates for Kentucky’s US Senate seat.
To challenger and current Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes:
You are getting an overflowing of detailed advice from every corner of the state and nation.
My advice to you would be to ignore all the advice you are receiving and trust your instincts. Your instincts have served you well to date and I think you should play to your strengths. When in doubt, dig down and go with your gut.
I don’t mean you should blithely and arrogantly ignore the advice and commentary about the race and your campaign. Listen. But don’t be transfixed by it and certainly don’t be transformed by other’s opinions of what they say you should say and do.
Alison, you should embrace that you are the endearing and energetic youthful candidate who is very bright and knowledgeable— but also unpredictable. It’s not your youth or political party or campaign style that distinguishes you most for Senator McConnell. It’s the fact that Sen McConnell is the most prepared, disciplined, and predictable politician on the political scene today. And Alison Lundergan Grimes is just the opposite—and will daily be a stark contrast on a visceral level to Kentucky voters of both the benefits and shortcomings of being the kind of ultra-methodical political personality Senator McConnell is.
Watching Mitch’s campaign will be like sitting through a long strategic low scoring baseball game controlled by good pitching.
Watching Alison’s campaign will be like watching a pick-up street basketball game, by comparison. You are drawn to watch the street basketball game not because you admire a well coached , managed and disciplined team strategy but rather you watch because of the chance that something amazing may happen….even if unintended. You feel young again and want more passion and conviction that you can believe in from your US Senator. Or at least you think you do.
As for Senator McConnell, on the other hand, I would suggest running a disciplined tight ship and not taking a day or even several hours for granted. Be light and funny not exasperated and bored with your younger opponent. You must show respect and you must show manners reflective of the sexes in the South. Real Men, as it were, needn’t go for the jugular and would be better off going for the funny bone. You can still be tough on Alison but not viciously or gratuitously. Southern gentlemen and ladies will be watching. Humor will serve you better than detailed side-by-side hard hitting comparisons.
Sen McConnell, you have to adeptly balance the perception of not taking Secretary Grimes seriously enough while simultaneously being careful not being viewed as taking her too seriously. You want to be confident but not cocky. Constructive but not reactive. Like you are going through a necessary exercise you cheerfully have agreed to that requires concentration– but not perspiration.
 Be the well oiled, disciplined and well-managed machine you know best how to be—and chip away methodically and relentlessly. Try to engage more and show your personality but only if natural and genuine. Don’t ever appear to be trying to out-Alison, Alison. Make her play your game on your playing field in your way without letting her be aware there are other options available to her.
Senator, unlike Alison, I would recommend taking my advice. But I realize that you are probably already 4 or 5 steps ahead of needing or wanting advice from a constituent from the other party explaining his suggestions to your US Senate campaign, which you’ve won now 5 times in a row. But approaching your campaign in the way I’ve described is playing to your strengths and you should, I believe, repeat the approaches from past campaign successes —but never count out your opponent’s intangible qualities or unpredictable style.
As a candidate, Alison has more potential than experience; more pluck than planning; and more personal appeal than detailed campaign strategy. Whether Alison is the underdog or not, she will be cheered as the strong and decisive lady who cut through all the political chatter and said “Yes” more as a matter of the heart than the head—- as contrasted with the seasoned and senior US Senator who is best recognized for saying “No” to new ideas with calculated élan and impunity
Sen. McConnell, your greatest strength, in gambling terms, is that you are essentially the House in this political gambit. Over time you may grind out your endearing and energetic opponent but will never be as appealing as she is in the process. The House never is. You play the odds and are a master tactician. But you’ll never be able to completely ground out your opponent. Alison will always be waiting in the wings and never seem to be winded while coming back to bat not with a long term strategy but willingness to swing for the fences time and time again
At the end of this race—returning to our earlier analogy— Team Mitch will be viewed as the solid and reliable master relief pitcher who is trying to close out a win in a game they have been ahead all 9 innings.
But Alison Lundergan Grimes will be walking, working and talking fast, frenetic and furiously just a few feet behind.
To borrow an analogy from another sport popular in Kentucky, boxing, Senator McConnell, if this political match is decided on points, you win. But if it’s decided by knockout, Alison is the likely winner.
This race will be decided largely, in my view, by voter mood during the final few months of the campaign. Voters–come next fall —may be in the mood for a masterful tactician relief pitcher to successfully take the field and close out another win. Or they may be a bit more restless and willing for change. And go with the up-and-comer just called up from the minors but taking the majors by storm. Only time and political, social and economic winds will tell.
The race won’t be about “Hope” or “Staying the course” or a dozen other political cliches. It will likely instead be about something more basic: To stick with what we know (sticking with the status quo) or trying something new (“rolling the dice,” so to speak). And how fitting it is that the race takes place in a state with a deep gambling tradition but today is ambivalent about expanding gaming.
And if both candidates completely and wisely ignore my unsolicited and free advice, we can expect to be witness to one of the smartest and dynamic; substantive and engaging political campaigns in the nation—and one that will be as difficult to predict as it will be reflective of emerging national trends. A bellwether, as they say up North. A doozy as we say down South.
And it will all happen right here in ‘lil ole Kentucky’s race for US Senate. The political race next year with something–in style and substance and symbolism—for everyone. And profound political meaning for our country.
Pull up a seat. And make sure you’re are registered. The nation is watching.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jul 4, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Initial Reaction to Blue Lights Behind You (Phases over our lifetime):
16-35 : Panic because you immediately think of three things from your past that you could be pulled over for.
36-50: Irritation because you can think of four things it could be for and you don’t have time to get ticketed for any of them.
51-69: Indifference because you know you probably did something wrong (you just don’t know what) and ypu don’t have anything to do until Wednesday’s dentist appointment appointment anyway.
70 and up: A sense of enchantment at the pretty blue whirling lights and a feeling of affirmation that you still matter– and hope that the officer is someone’s son or daughter you know and will feel like talking for a while.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Jul 3, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Travel tips for visiting NYC.
If you are meeting three male friends who are highly educated and they ask you to meet at MOMA at 5:30pm, you may have troubles if you assume too much.
I assumed that since it was 5:30 they wanted to eat dinner, albeit a bit early.
I further assumed, rather excitedly, that my friends had suggested an Italian restaurant. Pronounced MO-MA. Like Italian, I assumed, for MAMA.
I imagined big homemade meatballs from an Italian family recipe.
Then there is the problem of asking cab drivers to take you, please, to “Moma’s restaurant.” The first taxi driver pulled away without letting me in. I assumed he thought it was only a few blocks away and wanted a bigger fare.
Finally, when my exasperated taxi driver gave up on finding a Moma’s restaurant, he dropped me off at The 21 Club. I asked the kind doorman if there was a “Moma’s restaurant” nearby and apologized for not going to 21 Club. He politely told me one block over. Finally!!
And there I saw my three friends…although running a little late and by this time quite hungry. We were outside MOMA’s–which seemed to be more than just a restaurant (in fact it was big and long and seemed to include works of art as well). “Nice!” I thought to myself.
I asked someone working beside the entrance where the restaurant was. He laughed and said, “Restaurant?! This is the Museum of Modern Art! There’s no restaurant!!” And laughed again.
I alerted my friends they had mistakenly chosen an art museum that lacked a restaurant.
The friend who suggested MOMA’s said, “Oh, I’m not hungry.”
And it was about this time that I put two and two—really more like one and one–together.
We weren’t going to an Italian restaurant with homemade meatballs like I told my wife. We were going to the Museum of Modern Art. Which didn’t even have a concession stand.
By Jason Atkinson, on Wed Jul 3, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
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