Short recommendation on a different kind of delivery than I’ve been posting lately · 4:42pm Feb 18th, 2016
MythrilMoth has written a wonderful little story on the value of customer service when dealing with irritable transformed equines. It reminded me of Dave Carroll and his struggle with United Airlines Customer (dis)Service, which he immortalized in song with over 15 million views. (Seriously, go watch *all* of the Sons of Maxwell videos.)
(The tagged story is back from my old, old days of writing. I've traveled so far since then.)
From Dave's website:
In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn't deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss.
So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United Breaks Guitars is the first of those songs.
I dunno, I was put off by the very "shit on the little guy" vibe in the description. :/
3762641 It's wish fulfillment. It's the thought that goes through our minds everytime we see a chuck of expensive computer equipment wrapped up in padding and cardboard to the point it should be able to survive minor nuclear detonations...and open it up to find a handful of loose parts rattling around in the box and a significant dent.
I think the most significant case I had was at work where we took deliver of a shipment of tube monitors (it's been a while) that the shipping company managed to put a forklift through. Yep, right through the glass. That and the $4k rack that came off the truck bottom-corner first, looking a little like an accordion when it landed. (empty, thankfully) Once they get to the users, all bets are off. Had somebody back over their laptop in the dark once. That's not covered under warranty. Had one hit by lighting so bad the network cable going inside was melted a little. No warranty on that either.
It's funny, really. I work on the opposite side of this (an Amazon warehouse, specifically). For one, it's kinda surprising how much stuff comes into the building already in tiny pieces. But more than that, you see why shit gets so beat up, and the policies that result in that, even with companies that are very customer oriented. (No matter what else I might say about Amazon, they seem to be genuinely dedicated to getting customer's their shit. It's their employee relations that could be better.)
Honestly, I think a lot of the problem is employee relations. It's hard for your workers to really care about something expensive some stranger bought when you yourself are poorly paid and/or mistreated by your employer. It's not a good reason to go breaking things, but when your employees don't care, then they aren't liable to be very helpful in fixing a problem.
>MithrilMoth
>"wonderful little story"