Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations – SM Fundraising on Prezi
I had so much fun!
Author: Amy Stark
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Verizon FAIL
Miss Thing (My 15 yr old daughter) got a new phone yesterday and wanted to transfer her pictures from the old to the new. According to the first Verizon customer support person we spoke to we needed to re-format the smart card to a version that the new phone would accept. This required hooking up the old phone to the PC and connecting with LG directly to get the update. I spent an hour trying install the recommended driver to no avail. PLUS I had to do it with Miss Thing looking over my shoulder pointing out what I was doing wrong.
We were told that if the download didn’t work to go to a Verizon store and they could do the transfer for us. So today at 4:30 Miss Thing and I went to the Verizon Store next to the Super Target in Fishers. We were told by the receptionist @ Dr. Patrick Craig’s office that the employees at that location were particularly helpful and friendly – and they were – but they were unable to complete the transfer. They were so nice that they LOANED me an adapter and Miss Thing and I felt like we were making real progress.
A brief glimmer of success taunted us as we were able to download the pics to the computer – thanks to the adapter card LOANED to us by the friendly and helpful peeps at the Verizon Store next to the Super Target in Fishers – BUT we were unable to reload the pics on the new phone. Let’s see… that’s a half hour at the Fisher’s store, plus fifteen minute drive home, plus another 45 minutes computer time extracting the pictures, plus a lot more frustration at the time already wasted on what seemed to be a simple task.
So we called Verizon customer support AGAIN – 20 mins – and were told the store at Greyhound Pass in Carmel could resolve our issues. He told us he would contact that location and instruct them how to accomplish the transfer. The customer support guy also told us he was going to make sure we were NOT charged for the transfer because of everything that had transpired up to this point. We were instructed to get to the store by 8:30 and everything would be swell.
We arrived at 8:07 pm and the door was locked. There were still customers in the store and as one customer left, I explained to the employee -who unlocked the door – that we were told by a VERIZON customer support person that the store was open until 8:30. I also shared a brief synopsis of the ongoing saga hoping she would realize that simply doing the transfer would be the best option.
After a brief congenial exchange of words, the only thing I accomplished was to embarrass my daughter by saying, “Wow I can’t believe you will not accommodate us. I am definitely going to tweet about this.” The Verizon store employee’s tone turned more even more congenial after I mentioned twitter, but from that moment on it was apparent that everything she said came straight from a script. It was a bit eerie.
Total time spent – 3 hours and 20 minutes. And the saga continues, because the photos still have not been transferred to the new phone and now Miss Thing isn’t speaking to me. VERIZON FAIL
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Social Media Best Practice #3
Be human in the very first exchange and set an expectation of involvement.
Case Story:
August 29. 2010 @mrnoobie posts: chachas-incorrect-answers-continue-to-disappoint
The following is the first comment:
#1 August 30, 2010 at 9:41 am Jacob Elsts — You’re right. Even a simple answer now has tons of ads and I’ve had to reword questions multiple tines to get the right answer. I even asked the same question without changing the wording at all and got what I was looking for after asking 3 times. Also their iPhone app is extremely complicated for a simple FAQ service.
I’ve also given up on ChaCha- it’s faster to just call my dad lol.
An official response was received from Cha Cha well over 24hrs after the original post which allowed the post to fester unnecessarily.
Comment #9 August 31, 2010 at 9:15 am Shawn Schwegman
My name is Shawn Schwegman, and I’m the VP of Web Products at ChaCha. I just wanted to chime in to apologize for any bad experience you might have had recently. We are very focused on improving the quality of our service, and I’ve forwarded your comments to folks inside of ChaCha so we can address the issues you’ve found. We have many planned improvements in the works for our service over the coming months that should greatly enhance our quality. We also have big plans for our website as well as our iPhone application.
So, thank you very much for giving us a try. Thank you for your comments. Know that we are listening and we greatly appreciate your feedback.
Humbly submitted,
Shawn
I personally knew nothing about the conversation until I read a tweet from Robby Slaughter:
Invitation to a debate I’ve known Robby Slaughter well enough to know that if he invites me to a debate, it’s going to be fun and challenging. So I scanned Patric’s blog post then I posted the following comment:
#27 August 31, 2010 at 2:15 pm Amy Stark
Hello Shawn Schwegman— tap tap tap…. is this thing on?—Are You Listening? One canned response 5 hours ago is not sufficient Social Media attention to this discussion, it’s already spread to other platforms. I’m just sayin’
I then tweeted:
I received an email from Shawn later that day. I consider her email content as confidential, but my response to her email was:
Hey Shawn,
I first learned about the discussion because Robby Slaughter tweeted about it and welcomed other people to join in on the conversation <= from Mr. Noobie’s blog to twitter. I’m not sure if anything about it popped up on Facebook or Smaller Indiana, but things that touch twitter have a tendency to trickle down to several other platforms, because everyone on twitter is a member of at least ONE other social media platform.The response at 9:15 – whether it was spontaneously written or not – sounded very polished, canned and safe. Then there was nothing for several hours, which allowed it to fester. You might have added something like, “I’m jam packed all day and won’t be online to see any of your responses until much later in the day, so be patient with me as I sort through these issues and I’ll check back after 5pm.”
Social media calls for the type of response you left at 8:05 which is more in line with the mores of the online culture.
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#44 August 31, 2010 at 8:06 pm Shawn Schwegman
All,
I know you are frustrated, and I really want to help. I hate to be all Jerry Maguire, but I’d be in your debt if you could help me help you… 😉 What are the exact questions that are being asked that get a wrong answer? That would arm me with data I need to replicate the problems you are experiencing so that I can help to fix the root of the problem. If you don’t want to provide that information, I understand, but it sure would help me isolate and resolve the issues at hand.
Thanks again,
Shawn
This was heartfelt and sincere. If this had been your first response, I think the situation would have been ameliorated right away and it never would have spread to twitter or any other platform.
I hope that cleared up the reasoning behind my response. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Best Regards,
Amy Stark… -
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Click. Connect. Discover.
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It’s a Welsh Assembly Government programme which is delivered by five partner organisations – the Wales Co-operative Centre, the Novas Scarman Group, Pembrokeshire Association of Voluntary Services, Carmarthenshire County Council and the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling at the University of Glamorgan.
Much of the funding for Communities 2.0 has come from the European Regional Development Fund.
The goal for this co-operative in Wales aligns closely with my goal I set when I launched The Great #Indiana Initiative of Aught Nine in January 2009.
To my newly discovered friends at Click. Connect. Discover. BRAVO! on this video, it’s beautiful on so many levels.
Click Connect Discover from Communities 2.0 on Vimeo.
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Social Media Matures
As I reviewed the latest PEW data for how Americans use the Internet, I had renewed hope for the evolution of our species.
Not only did social networking use in adults 65 plus DOUBLE in one year, but twitter/status update use of 50-64 yr old adults increased by 120%. The Implications section found in The Pew Internet and American Project offers three possible reasons for this dramatic increase in social media usage in older Americans — social media in general and twitter specifically.
REASON 1: To connect with long lost friends. I was not personally keen on reconnecting with some High School alums. Although I must admit I had some sense of satisfaction clicking the IGNORE button when I received an invitation from a jock who publicly humiliated me in 9th grade geography.
REASON 2: To connect with health care providers surrounding chronic illness issues. Hospitals from every sector (for-profit, non-profit, and government) must pay attention to this reason closely:
“… older adults are more likely to be living with a chronic disease, and those living with these diseases are more likely to reach out for support online”
Health-care providers must be prepared for an ever increasing demand to connect digitally. Houses of worship must pay close attention to REASON 2 as well. This trend means there will be an increase in the number of your members who will seek spiritual support online — in addition to hospital clergy visits — when dealing with chronic illnesses.
REASON 3: Four Words: Bridging Social Capital Group
“Bridging social capital … refers to the building of connections between heterogeneous groups; these are likely to be more fragile, but more likely also to foster social inclusion.” (Schuller, Baron, & Field, 2000)
“Refers to cooperative connections with people from different walks of life, more valuable than ‘bonding social capital’.” (Edwards)
Under reason three the Pew report states:
social media bridges generational gaps. While the results can sometimes be messy, these social spaces pool together users from very different parts of people’s lives and provide the opportunity to share skills across generational divides.
This is the MOST important reason of the three listed because it will have the greatest impact on the evolution of our species. Social media platforms — generally and twitter specifically — not only bridge generational divides, but ALL geographic and socio-economic divides, too. The magnitude of REASON 3 becomes apparent with a little use of deductive reasoning and a syllogism.
Syllogism: A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.
Premise 1: The more diverse a bridging social capital group becomes, the better equipped they will be to solve problems. (Supporting documents: Groups of Diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers, Diverse Backgrounds and Personalities Can Strengthen Groups, The logic of diversity )
Premise 2: There has NEVER been a more diverse bridging social capital group than twitter in the recorded history of our species. In the same digital space you will find NASA astronauts, World Leaders, celebrities, #Indiana Geeks, Baseball greats and early technology adapters from all over the world mingling together In Real Time. The diversity of this platform will only increase in scope because at its core twitter is a text based platform that can be accessed over basic cell phones. This means there are Four Billion twitter ready devices in use at this moment in time.
Conclusion: Better solutions will arise and innovation will be super-charged as more people enter twitter’s digital space and hopefully work together to solve problems.