Profession+Purpose=Passion

In my opinion being passionate about what you do for a living is critical to achieving professional happiness. Esotericism? Not hardly. The old saying "Work to live..." not the reverse rings true and is becoming an even more prominent mantra for emerging generations. But let's face it, sometimes work is work and you do what you have to do to continue to put food on the table. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. In fact, it can be quite a noble cause if you are taking care of your family, etc. Sometimes though everything lines up perfectly so that work and passion coexist. This could happen on multiple occasions since people typically are passionate about multiple causes. When this does happen you should dive in deep and nurture the opportunity to truly love what you are doing. Live in the moment. I have recently had multiple opportunities to engage in activities that are in line with my passions. What fun! To be able to do exactly what it is that you love to do. It doesn't get any better. Now keep trying to do that same stuff more often...

What are you passionate about and how can you conjoin that with what you do for a living? You might be amazed at just how simple a process this can be and what a positive impact it can have on your productivity not to mention your life. Esotericism? Maybe...

Emergence of the Daily Deal

The emergence of the online daily deal space has been rapid and fun to watch. I remember looking up Groupon on Compete.com last year and was amazed month after month at how quickly their traffic, as well as Living Social's traffic, seems to have no ceiling. Personally I enjoy the art of saving a dollar here and there, so I jumped at the chance to register with both services in my home market and those to which I frequently travel. From getting the chance to ride in a race car at close to 200 miles per hour, saving at local restaurants or jumping in on the nation-wide Gap deal, I have really enjoyed the opportunity to save while having fun.

There have been many "deal" sites jumping into the space. The emergence of competitors will lead to a healthier market for both the merchants offering their services and the consumers looking to save. While the larger "deal" sites have gained a trusted position, it has yet to be seen if other emerging competitors can reach similar status on either a national, regional or local level. In my opinion, local newspapers are in a great position to capture this market giving their long-standing relationships with local merchants. Given the number of software companies offering "deal" software, I would think that local newspapers could enter this space fairly easily and be competitive.

I believe that there is still a significant upside to this emerging industry. We at Dominion Enterprises will soon be launching a new business in the "deal" space called Sold.com. We hope that you will afford us the chance to earn your business and provide you with another fun opportunity to save. We are having a blast putting this business together and promise to do our best to improve upon what we have learned via our own experiences thus far by being on both the consumer and merchant side of this industry. A special thanks to the talented folks on the Sold.com team who are working diligently on constructing this exciting new venture!

Obviously the aforementioned race car experience was my "outside of the box" daily deal experience. What has been yours? Also, I am curious about what kind of "deals" you are most likely to buy?

You Win, I'll Buy Again...

I was personally reminded yesterday of just how important providing award-winning levels of customer service can be in keeping existing customers. I am sharing this experience because I feel that the way I was dealt with is a shining example of a company getting it right. All too often I read or hear about how a customer is lost due to poor levels of service. I am happy to say that this is not one of those stories. Read the following, give some thought on how your organizatin is dealing with customers, and then see if your service organization would live up to this real example.

I recently ordered clothing off of an online retail site that promotes itself as a high-end distressed inventory clearing house. When my order arrived, I had received the incorrect merchandise. I had originally ordered two dresses for my daughters and received two t-shirts. Nice t-shirts, but clearly not the merchandise that I had originally ordered. This was the first time I had ordered anything from this portal. This was a fatal error on the part of this business. As far as I was concerned I was done and would never order anything form this business again.

The next day I called their customer service department. I shared my story with their representative. As we spoke a credit was issued for the charges. I had yet to request any action to be taken. It was though the customer service rep anticipated what could be the best possible outcome for me (the customer) and proceeded to take care of my needs proactively without me having to exhaust the energy to rectify the issue.

Moments after taking my call my credit card had been credited for the original charges, the correct merchandise was placed in my shopping cart for me, and a credit for shipping was added to my order. As a bonus they even let me keep the t-shirts for my daughters. This was due to the return shipping/restocking costing the business more than simply allowing us to keep the merchandise, but even that was impressive. What I mean by that is here I was dealing with a customer service representative who knows that the cost of returning merchandise under a certain dollar threshold would actually cost the business more than the value of the merchandise itself and was empowered to make that decision. Very compelling.

I was transformed from a disenchanted customer who was now hanging up the phone just blown away with what had just transpired. Not only did they take care of my situation in an award-winning fashion, but they have earned my future business and will now have me advocating their business to my friends and family. Yes, they messed up my order, but in a way I am glad that it happened. I now have a great customer service story to tell and have been reminded at how fast you can lose a customer if you do not empower the right people to make critical customer-facing decisions.

Who do you have on the front lines of customer interaction in your business? Are they empowered to make decisions on how your business will react to certain types of customer-facing situations? Even if this is predetermined based on situational information, it could prove to earn, keep or retain your business customers and even turn frustrated customers into advocates, which is what happened in my case.