Email Wars
The purpose of email is to send communications and information to other people. If you send bulk email you must ensure that people have the option of easily unsubscribing from your list, otherwise you’re spamming them. However, that’s not what this little rant is about. It’s about something else. Email is a poor medium for conducting a dispute with someone. Here’s why: 1. It feels easier to lambaste someone in writing. You’re less likely to do so verbally in real time. That’s just how people are. So...
read moreYou Can Reverse Poor Customer Ratings
When we’re in a good mood, life is great. Good things seem to happen. Problems just seem to work themselves out. People are nice to us. We’re nice back. That’s when it’s easy to give friendly, efficient customer service to the people we serve. Life is, unfortunately, not that easy. Stuff happens. People miss deadlines, flights and appointments. They get stressed. There’s traffic, bad weather, war. Equipment malfunctions, gets dropped, becomes old and starts breaking down. People forget, break promises. In short,...
read moreIt’s A Set-Up!
No matter how well you’ve prepared your presentation, there is a point at which your time has run out. When the minutes start counting down and you have just an hour before you’re due to go live, where exactly will you be? You can be in a relaxed state, well prepared, having just parked outside the presentation venue. You’re at the right place – early. You’ve got your back up drive, you’ve packed all your cables. you have cue cards just in case you go blank, but you won’t – because you’re...
read moreCommon Decency: 10 Useful Tips
We are to a very large extent a product of our conditioning as children. We all like to think we have been raised well and that our role models have passed on the right stuff to us. This conditioning may be adjusted by events and lessons that impact us as we grow up, guiding our daily behavior. Some of these behaviors, which result in habits serve us well, others do not. If you have had occasion to entertain someone at substantial trouble and expense you may expect a “thank you” afterwards, because that will be what you learned to...
read moreMirroring
If you regard yourself as “people” person then your initial response to interaction is to engage, rather than ignore. And when we engage, we attempt to connect on a mental level with that person. That’s an important interpersonal skill. Some of us can do it automatically, others need to be deliberate. If you are prepared to engage you’re going to get one of two types of responses: If it’s a positive friendly one, then it’s all systems go. But if you receive a negative response, you can get caught up in the...
read more