The view from my dashboard – 4 widgets I love
It’s been a good month for proselytising. I convinced my brother – Mac skeptic – to make the switch. And he’s never going back.
I didn’t realise I was evangelising – just little squeals here and there as I fell more and more in love with my Macbook.
We’d sit like duelling geeks at a coffee shop – he on his Toshiba, me on my Mac.
He’d swear under his breath at a naughty machine – a refrain common to Windows users…. Opposite, I’d hum, whistle or sway deliriously – I was in looooove.
I guess one day he realised it didn’t have to be like that. He just about floored me after announcing, “I’m joining your club. Meet my new baby.” Oh, it was shiny.
It was a good lesson in sales pitching – I couldn’t convert the unconvertible. Wasted breath. But my sustained enthusiasm – a kid with an annual pass to Disneyland – was evangelical gold.
To welcome my baby brother to the club – I’d like to present my apple Dashboard – and 4 widgets I love.
World Clock – with customised cities
Seems obvious….and yet! It’s oh-so-clever.
Using Mac OS X Hints’ instructions, you’re able to customise any of your numerous world clock widgets – in-built with OS X.
Fancy spelunking in your Mac?
A few troubleshooting bits that I (not techie) ran into while following their advice:
- Finding the java script files…. they’re under your hard drive’s library – not your home folder library.
- If you want your list to be alphabetical once finished, paste your duplicated line into the appropriate spot.
Now all my ducks are absolutely in their rows.
Wikity Widget – to do or to don’t?
I searched everywhere for an improvement on the in-built Stickies widget. A desktop bar napkin to cover all of my scattered A.D.D thoughts. Stickies are suckies.
Enter Wikity Widget.
Fully searchable and delightfully intuitive – it’s a Wikipedia for my head.
Ideal for to-do lists or brilliant ideas you’re not quite sure what to do with, it remains open to the wiki page you used last.
FrameUp!
A picture frame widget that can be resized, customised and DOESN’T RESIZE ITSELF AFTER TURNING OFF THE COMPUTER. So simple – so rare – so putting an embarrassing photo of my brother in it.
WebCams – Framed
Pick a webcam of your choosing – though how you could better Vancouver’s katkam, I can’t fathom.
In Safari, click ‘File’, then ‘Open in Dashboard’. Select the area you want and then – in Dashboard – add a frame.
It updates in real time so I never miss a sunset – even when travelling.
Bon weekend mes petits-choux.
Your site’s lost tourists and why they won’t ask for help
Flickr: Jen SFO-BCN
Ever sat and watched hopelessly lost tourists? Those so far wrong they might never return? With noses in maps they’ll fight and tussle, much later conceding defeat to ask a local. Maybe.
With no way of gauging the stupidity of their question, they’d rather not ask at all.
People don’t like to look stupid.
My scientific test.
The other day I walked slowly, deliberately, past 4 groups of lost tourists.
- I was smiling.
- I wasn’t walking a pit bull.
- I didn’t have on headphones.
- I wasn’t in a hurry.
- No tattoos.
Short of wearing an “Ask Me, You Bloody Idiot” badge, there was no better option. Nope. They all preferred to suffer. Each group in my little test stood, bewildered, for ages before heading off in (3 times out of 4) the wrong direction. Hey, they had their chance.
People never ask.
Online, such reticence is, in part, user laziness. Yet where most questions burn unasked – you’ve got confused and lost prospects simply afraid of looking stupid.
- The subject matter is too large or too new for them.
- They can’t gauge how much they don’t know.
- They assume the answer (or Vancouver’s Sun Yat Sen Garden) can’t be far off – they’ll find it one way or the other. (Ha!)
- They don’t want to interrupt you or waste your time.
- You seem busy… and kind of mean.
- They’ll work it out themselves.
Where do you come in?
If I’d walked up to these 4 groups and asked them, “Can I help you?” they likely would have been thrilled. But that’s not my job. Online, we’d better make it so. I’ve already written about how Freshbooks does exactly this and approaches their lost tourists directly. Yet most of us don’t maintain relationships with registered account holders – we just want to come off as best we can to our nameless, faceless traffic – visiting unannounced.
- Do you have a Google search feature?
- Do you have easy to find FAQs?
- Do you have ‘contact us’ options for the visitor too impatient to read your FAQs?
- Are your FAQs categorised and linked within an inch of their life?
- Do you have different FAQs for different types of customers?
- Do you have ‘self-help’ guides or easily understood PDFs for the stubborn DIY crowd?
- What do you tell visitors to do if their question isn’t answered?
- Does it include a contact form?
Hold the phone. Hold the bloody phone.
Your contact form.
The vile contact form is the online equivalent of the city centre help desk that’s closed. Why bother waiting?
- I’ll just get a robot response.
- My email will get lost in the ether.
- They’ll take 2-3 business days to respond and I need the answer now.
- I can’t be bothered to fill in all that info – it’s just a simple question.
- Oh well, never mind.
Here we have a visitor willing to possibly look stupid, weighing the added price of sticking out her neck to receive no answer at all. Why should I trust your shoddy form? I just want a few seconds of someone’s time. A person with a name and a smile.
Call to mind a time you were lost, out of your depth and didn’t speak a word. You didn’t want to trek across the city to find a help desk that may or may not have helped. You wanted the smiling face of someone who seemed trustworthy, who spoke your language, now.
What does your contact page say?
- Do you reassure there are no stupid questions?
- That you’ve got the time and are happy to help?
It should be inferred, right? It’s not. Many of you have companies or service departments small enough that you can provide a name and maybe even a photo. (Stand up to the firing squad if you think for a second we’re going to fall for a stock photo of some insipid ‘90s girl in a bad suit and headset, manning her telephone. No, no, no).
Dial down the crap and insert a human face.
“Questions? Of course you have. Call us now to speak to a person – if you have to sit on hold for more than a few minutes, we’ll buy you a piece of pie. If you’d rather email us, don’t forget to let us know your X, Y and Z requirements. Your query will arrive at Henry’s desk – he’ll know exactly what to do with it and how best to answer you. He checks his email every 2 hours so put your feet up and let us work out the rest. Thanks and speak soon.”
Any sized brand can take steps towards this – to laying out a welcome mat and removing the ‘beware of dog’ sign.
You’ve been warned.
If you don’t minimise the hurt, the potential for embarrassment and go out of your way to hand visitors their answers on a plate, they’re going to end up lost (or in the neighbourhood with the highest per capita heroin usage in North America). They won’t come back.
What’s better than the last day of school?
Flickr: SuperFantastic
5-4-3-2-1. Bell rings. Books forgotten. You’re free. FREEEEE!!!! It was the best day of your life.
Fact. It’s summer and people want to be outside.
They’d rather be on a boat, up a mountain, under a sprinkler – anywhere but in an office. Help their daydreams and enable their escape.
We’re talking content – lots of it – and goodies, too.
Whether you market to the public or to other businesses, take action this month to help your clients out. I’ll use travel as an example here but, whether you’re in the travel trade or not – eliminate your clients’ need to research. Do it all for them so they can stay longer at the pool. Pile on the helpful, the content, the PDFs, the pre-arrival guides – and put them on a silver plate.
What info can you provide now that your customers will love?
Start with this rule: summer means you can have more fun.
What if you were the business to provide an anti-whining kit for family travel sanity? Make a PDF activity kit specific to your destination. Parents everywhere will love you.
What if you were the service that took all the guess-work out of landing in a new city?
- Heathrow for first-timers?
- Your first day in Toronto: What you’ll need
- (Blah blah blah extrapolate as it applies to your business)
I don’t mean take on Lonely Planet, I mean that people will spend hours online this summer anyway (while stuck inside wishing that they weren’t). They’re dreaming of their vacation in your destination, learning how to have more fun and probably how to save more money.
Go ahead, be that guy.
Be the business that does better than the chronically disappointing rack of brochures that suck.
Hand out something better to guests or (please-oh-please), email it to them when they make their booking. It’s free.
Here’s where I get all genius and excited. Involve your staff. Poll them.
- ‘Our staff’s top 25 packing tips for a perfect San Diego holiday’
- ‘The 10 places in Seattle we think you should watch the sunset’
Excitement level: 100
If we’re really talking knock-your-socks-off good, create a series of emails to send to guests as their arrival date approaches.
Even if your working life exists in a more corporate, sensible sphere – out of town visitors and colleagues from distant offices will always appreciate similar strokes.
All summer, your customers will rest easy. They’re in good hands. They’ve got great material to read at work, edging them a few minutes closer to their perfect holiday.
So take a moment from Tweeting and dream up a few downloads.
Remember, there’s sucking up…and then there’s just plain awesome.
I wrote this for my May newsletter – going out to the hot little hands of important people everywhere.
Want the June edition for yourself? Sign up now – you don’t even have to say please!
Why you should fear stupid socks
Do you ever wear those little ankle socks? You know, the kind you wear with running shoes when you want people to see how shiny your shins are and how sculpted your calves? I love and hate these socks.
They would comprise about 50% of my freelance footwear, except for a minor inconvenience. They don’t stay on your feet. Ever. 6 minutes into running (walking? waddling?), they’re somewhere up by your toes in an uncomfortable, irretrievable ball. Laces you’ve spent ages tying just so have to be undone as you wiggle to get your shoes off, one then the other, on a busy road as drivers honk and idiots leer. (Foot fetishists, I presume?)
Suddenly, shiny shins and sculpted calves don’t seem much of a benefit. The features suck.
My point.
The product’s not defective. If the socks arrived with holes, you’d complain. Yet it’s silly to return them – whether to store or manufacturer – explaining,
“These fall off my feet.”
Who could do that with a straight face? So I’m stuck with a cache of stupid socks. The supply will never know of the demand’s dissastisfaction.
My point for real.
Do you give your clients and customers a way to give you every kind of feedback? Even the broad stroke “your socks are stupid” kind? I know these socks will fall off and I buy them anyway. Embittered, begrudging customers – I’m guessing – aren’t who you’re after.
FreshBooks, god bless them, makes interaction easier than any business I know. You can’t avoid it – they come to you. Every time you log out, there’s the question. “How are we doing? Got something to say?” No need to find an email. No guilt for feeling like a whinger. You’re not complaining, they’re asking. It’s a huge difference.
If FreshBooks made socks, I wouldn’t feel stupid for begging MORE ELASTIC!
Comment cards are everywhere – banks, hotels, car rental agencies. I suspect people are hanging back with things to say – things you need to know. Put the card in their hands. Tell them who reads it and what action will follow. Make it clear who’s doing who the favour.
Be a FreshBooks, whose customers love you because you so obviously get it.
***
P.S. My May newsletter went out today, full of sunshine. Want a copy? Subscribe now.
What else has been written about socks?
These are my socks. Sparkly white. Now please knock them off.
Is your customer service this good?
Not just a storage locker
I move a lot. It’s the textbook result of an expat childhood. When required, my various things are sent on their holidays to the storage facility nearby.
My recent call to book a storage locker – for the first time in 18 months – went like this:
“Hi, I need to book one of your lockers, please.”
“Sure!” He took down the starting date and we agreed on the size I’d need.
“Can I take your name?” I told him. It’s not an unusual name.
“Oh, hi! You’ve rented from us before!”
His reaction was instant. There is no way, no bloody way, he had time to type my name into a customer database. A remarkable memory a year and a half later.
It’s exactly why I love the ‘mom and pop’ experience. My call didn’t need to be monitored to ensure quality. It was quality.
Moving can be so tedious and awful and stressful. Storage facilities seem the unlikeliest place for kind-hearted interaction. Watching this company’s level of service more carefully when I arrived with my boxes, it was clear that’s exactly what they provide.
Consider why someone might need a storage locker: a lost job requiring a downsize, a death and unwanted inheritance, a new separation or divorce…. Any number of sad circumstances. Perhaps the storage company is exactly the place where a little bit of humanity goes most noticed.
It’s good to realise that the smallest detail of a service, the part that comes for free, is always the most appreciated. And, apparently, it doesn’t need to happen in person.
Could you remember customers of years past with only a name cue? The bar has been raised.
(Need storage in Vancouver? Call these guys.)
A winner: Lonely Planet love
The last time I won a prize I could play with, I was eight and apparently one hell of a colourer. Dozens of other kids shot me death stares as I carted off a trunk full of Lego – triumphant. Goddess of crayons.
So it rather made my day earlier this week to find an email from Lonely Planet:
“You’ve won a Nintendo Wii!” they said.
“Oh sweet little jelly beans!” I thought.
I’m amongst the winners of their Write a Review and Win competition; a round up of worldwide restaurant reviews. Read them here.
Until I find a colouring competition with an adult division, I’ll remain very grateful to Lonely Planet for running a writing contest with fun and light-heartedness at its core. An important diversion indeed.
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
George Bernard Shaw
Your ideal raving fan
Last time, I covered my distinct disappointment with greedy mobile phone companies (well, one in particular). In a happier turn, I’d like to toast their opposite: Skype. (Cue ticker tape parade).
Compare and contrast:
Mobile phone company… “wants my every last penny. Might eat me alive.”
Skype…”wants to make my life easier. And much, much, happier!”
-
- Skype offers something (something pretty amazing) – for free.
- Their paid services come with no strings attached. Cancel at any time – you’re the customer, it’s your prerogative. What a concept!
- They use technology to connect people; not as a very thick, convenient curtain to hide behind (Witness emails ignored and phone calls unanswered).
Skype’s relaxed, happy, helpful brand tells me “they’re here to help.” Approaching customers as such, rather than going first for their wallets, must be commended. In this week alone I’ve brought up how much I love Skype with at least five people. That’s some marketing power.
Mobile phone company = pit bull
Skype = golden retriever
…I know which I’d rather have at my side.