Losing Your Hunger

The airlines could be the poster children for faking a smile while you screw over the customer.

We're allowed 8 bags, each 50 pounds. Instead we have 5 bags totaling around 280. Our total weight is way under the limit but our weight per bag is over the limit a few pounds here and there. So I wrote the airline -- are you guys going to cut me some slack on a few pounds here and there or make me pack another bag? (Which wouldn't fit into the rental car. We'd have to throw it away)

In return I got a 8-paragraph form letter, complete with citations to the appropriate policies. The guy could have just said "no", but he was obviously enjoying his officious role as describer of their poor service. One imagines he spends most of his time enjoying this role as supercilious jerk.

American cell phone companies are so bad a recent issue of a national magazine was titled "we know you hate your cell phone company" (Try googling "hate your cell phone company" for an bunch of interesting reads.)

Interestingly enough, one of the better experiences I had recently was with our insurance company. We had a leak in a pipe in the house and had to have repairs. Within a couple of hours, the adjuster was there reviewing the damage, explaining what our options were, and writing a check. That morning we had a disaster. That afternoon we had people working to repair the problem and somebody to call if we had any questions.

If you're a writer or an actor and just starting out, they say you're "hungry" -- you want that next role and are willing to do anything to get it. You'll study late, put in extra hours, walk ten miles in a blizzard -- whatever it takes to reach your destination.

Later on as you start making money and getting roles, you lose your hunger -- you stop going that much out of your way. You take the things that mean a lot to you and not the things that mean a lot to other people. You lose your hunger.

When you have a small business or a startup, you can be described as hungry -- or not. Are you fanatical about customer service? Do you go the extra mile to make the customer's expectation of your service match with what you are delivering?

When I finally canceled our arrangement with the local SCUBA instructor and asked for our paperwork to be returned, he sent a nice, sarcastic letter. He said he was sorry that the death of the instructor's aunt had caused us any inconvenience. I could picture the guy, gripping the pencil with white knuckles, madder than hell at his frustration. In his mind he was blameless: it was those damn customers that are so hard to get along with!

Likewise in the web application world many times we blame the users for our own problems. I remember commenting about how a popular site should have an option to enter in important information about a story. Many other users agreed. But the programmers felt that by making the UI more complicated it would turn off readers.

Now I know that a complicated UI does turn off readers -- but I also know that when you serve the public on the net you balance things. UIs can be simple for new users, and moderately complex for those who have moved into a power user status. New users rule -- never make your UI any more complicated than absolutely necessary. But that doesn't mean that power users must suffer through a UI that doesn't meet their needs.

But I know what the programmers are thinking -- so what? Power users want stuff. Lots of people want stuff. Better to keep the new users coming in. The power users will stick with us no matter what.

You lose your hunger.