It's been almost two years since I hung my hat here. I have since moved on to another gig. All my podcasts have been moved to my new site at stardustglobalventures.com/

Thanks so much for the support and I look forward to seeing you over there!

~ Sheryl

        

How Bad customer service can lose YOU a customer for life. Enterprise Car Rental: A Case Study

We just returned from a trip to Raleigh for business. We talked about it before so it's no surprise. We spent 2 days there without a car of our own because we both had business that didn't require driving much. Thursday we decided since there was a business meeting in Durham, friends to connect with, and personal sight seeing we wanted to do, we would get a car to take care of our needs. We stayed at the Raleigh Hilton on Wake Forest Road, and they directed us to Enterprise, the closest car rental to the hotel.

We got the car and proceeded with our plans of meeting with colleagues for dinner, returning to our hotel until the following morning.

Next day business was concluded around 12, and we decided to take a drive to the Atlantic ocean, Wilmington, Carolina Beach, Kure Beach, about 2 1/2 hours of driving one way. Neither one of us had been there so thought it was worth our time and out we went.

Along the way we made a quick stop where we determined it was too hot and we were regretful to have not brought shorts or something cooler to wear. We quickly decided to make a little jaunt off the main freeway to Dunn, a little town just down the road a few miles.

After making our purchases we hopped back in the car, heading back to the freeway to complete our journey. About 10 miles down the road we got a low tire warning. We pulled over and checked the tires. Sure enough, a tire was flat.

We changed the tire but as it was one of those little donut tires, knew we couldn't go traveling a long way. Sheryl started calling the number on the rental agreement, got a busy signal for about an hour, so then called the 800 number listed for after hour calls. They told her to take the car to a Firestone or Goodyear dealer where they have contracts. We found a gas station along the road and stopped. The attendants at the gas station helped locate a dealer and we took off back to Dunn, the town we had made our purchases in.

Upon arrival at the Goodyear dealer, Perry Brothers, they took the car right in, even though it was only 15 minutes until closing for them. About 5:30 they came back and told us they had been unable to contact Enterprise where we had rented the car. They had the same trouble we had with the line being perpetually busy. The tire dealership had, by now, been officially closed for a half hour.

Here's where it gets sticky.

Enterprise only authorizes replacement of tires with used tires in the original agreement. In order to get a new tire, they have to speak to the dealer who rented the car. That wasn't possible because they were inaccessible. That left us with the option of a used tire, but they didn't have an exact fit in a used tire. What were we to do?

Ken gave the tire dealer the 800 number and she called it. That customer service rep refused to authorize the replacement. Now we were going to be stuck with a car that was undriveable on the freeway, and the tire dealers were closed. We were about 40 miles from our hotel.

We were both pretty annoyed. We had wasted all this time for something that should have been a simple fix. Not only had we had to change a tire, we were now stuck in a little town, incapable of doing what we rented the car to do, and Enterprise was refusing to budge.

Back to the phone. Ken call the 800 number again, and told them we were furious. He explained to them why we weren't contacting the dealer who rented the car and what the situation was. Finally, after a lot more wasted time, Enterprise agreed to authorize the tire change. The tire dealer in Dunn, and their customer service woman, Tabitha, was outstanding. They had kept the shop open waiting for the go ahead, where in record time the tire was replaced and we were then able to get on our way. Big kudos to them and all their patience and help.

Not so Enterprise. We have agreed, at no time have either of us had so horrible a renting experience. It is one we would not like to repeat anytime soon.

We would like to make a suggestion to Enterprise. Change your policy to allow for authorization of tire changes particularly when the originating dealership is unavailable! Some things are just no brainers. You don't rent a car to people and then leave them stranded in the middle of nowhere to fend for themselves. The only options should not be used or nothing. That simply doesn't make sense and your criteria needs to be changed.

We are suggesting all our connections choose another company to rent from. We will not be renting from Enterprise in the foreseeable future.

        

Ken and I will be leaving on Tuesday, Sept. 9th for Raleigh NC. We're both really excited, but know there's a lot of work involved. Our return flight leaves at 6 on Saturday, Sept. 13th. (David's birthday!)

We are hopeful to connect with a few business acquaintances as well as reconnecting with friends. (Yes Aaron, that means you)

If you're in the Raleigh/Durham area, or somewhere close, and are interested in a meet up, please feel free to message either Ken or me. My email is listed here, and both of ours are listed on our Stardust Global Ventures website.

We look forward to see you!

~Sheryl

        

Last week Ken and I received a request for Professional Opinion in email. Many times we quickly scan the mail and delete the requests. We get a ton of emails. Unless we know the PR company or know the actual person sending it, we can't spend that much time going through so many emails.

This was different because it was clear from the opening paragraph, this was a company truly seeking ways to help their client be responsible, not forgetting the need to still be fiscally responsible, but making sure they send the right message so people know they are serious about doing the right thing. How refreshing!

I think we all feel at times, the world is a 'me society' where 'you' really don't count, not to businesses, and certainly not to the big corporations. They would be wise to take a page from Toshiba's book. In a world where a click of a button or mouse brings you to the next company's site, where you feel a little less taken advantage of, if a company is NOT taking steps to ensure their good standing in the eyes of the public, they won't have a business that is nearly as lucrative as it might be.

Check out Laptop Experts and then go read what Ken had to say. Join the conversation!

An excerpt from Ken's post:

Toshiba, has recently launched a laptop help forum called “Answers from Laptop Experts” which has been seeking out technology experts to help answer questions from laptop owners regardless of make, model, and manufacturer. They even try to answer questions about Apple computers.

The question posed to us was “Do you think this is a good move for their brand, to open up to an entire industry vertical instead of just their own customer-base?”

As always, Ken's writing is fabulous!

I can only say I think Nico at M80 is doing justice to Toshiba, and more than likely the other companies they have as clients. I only wish other PR people could learn from him.

        

While checking my email this morning I found an interesting letter from our good friend Andy Abramson.

As always, Andy's thoughts gave me pause because one of the things I think we all forget is how valuable our own personal experiences are. We forget that all ideas, all new and exciting things, start with someone who doesn't know what will happen, trying something.

It's a lesson we can take to heart when we are hesitant due to lack of experience or knowledge. I would do well to heed my own advice.

Here is an excerpt from the letter he sent this morning.

As requested, and deserved! Happy traveling, Andy!

        

Our Services:

At Stardust Global Ventures, one of our primary goals is to help others. While we don’t engage in what’s commonly called personal coaching, we do offer personal coaching for your business with our unique involvement and ideas. Just as we reach for our stars and realize our dreams together, we can help you reach your dreams and succeed in new ways.

        

I learned some interesting things this morning while sitting in on a conference call where I actually had some thoughts and opinions. It wasn’t a very nice observation, but a valuable lesson, nonetheless.

I was on a call with a variety of men, up to 17 different men at various times. As the lone female voice I learned how difficult it is to be heard when mens voices are louder. I learned how easy it is to be overlooked by a group of intelligent men who are larger than life, used to scrapping and vying for center stage. I learned that even when I tried to say something, frequently my points were not taken seriously or merely overlooked. Why?

Why is maybe not as simple to conclude as it might seem. It could be because I am a female and not as used to asserting myself. It could be lack of experience. it could be so many things but my thoughts are a little less clear. I really suspect it’s because of something very simple, something we learn at a much younger age and pay little attention to.

When we’re kids we gravitate to our same sex. We learn to interact with our ‘own kind’, before we learn to interact with the opposite sex. When we do start interacting with the opposite sex we do it in very different ways. Men pay attention to women in the initial for how they look, or how they move. Women do much the same. By the time we start hearing each other, we’ve already established ourselves as interesting, not because we had anything at all to say, but because we are attracted on some other level. Which means, ultimately, we don’t have to really hear the other person at all. With same sex relationships, it is far more important to have something to say and we learn much younger how to speak to that group and be heard.

This morning Ken and I were sitting on a call that initially was discussing the iPhone versus a variety of Nokia devices. I caught a few comments and forced my way into the conversation, quickly making a point and backing out.

After that topic wore itself out we moved on to game piracy, a topic I actually know something about and have interest in. However on that particular topic I tried and tried to get involved in the conversation and couldn’t make any headway at all.

I could say it was because I’m a woman. Maybe it was. I could say it was because the men were all so passionate about it, and maybe that is true as well. What I think, honestly, I wasn’t loud enough. I don’t speak to a GROUP of men in a way that they can hear. My points, while maybe of value, couldn’t be seen or heard because the men had become more raucous and energized. I wasn’t dynamic or forceful enough.

I realized with this how difficult it is for women to be seen as important in the world of VoIP and technology. Oh, certainly many of them are eye candy, but how many are taken seriously? How many are truly viewed as players in this world dominated by men? I’m not talking about the many PR women. Those women are accepted, but they aren’t seen as needing to have anything to say in the industry. They are viewed as eye candy and that is frequently why they are young and gorgeous.

Ken knew I was disturbed and suggested I offer myself as a guest host once a month. He did that having received a letter from our host about how he wanted to diversify and get other people to occasionally share in hosting of his show. I had a couple of thoughts, neither made me happy and are probably just sour grapes in all honesty.

First, I wasn’t sent the letter requesting friends to offer their services as host, and yet, of the two of us, I am the one in attendance on these calls most frequently. Over looked? Maybe. Non existent? Who knows.

Second, I realized after this mornings call, I don’t have the pull needed to gain an audience or enough female friends to really give credence to why women are actually valuable in this male dominated industry. That annoyed me, but I can’t change it overnight. That requires time and something I may not actually see in my life online anytime soon.

In summary, I guess this is rather muddled and not succinct enough to make a statement anyone of any importance will read. Now…I am making a judgment and it may not be valid because who am I to say that someone reading my post is less valuable than someone I want to read it? Still, I think we have a long way to go before women truly have a foothold in the VoIP industry and tech sector in any real way, other than as booth babes, or figure heads. It’s not a very nice sentiment, but it is my opinion. I’m probably far too new to this world to be viewed as anything other than Ken’s woman, someone who will be tolerated, and when the arguments are calm, and numbers low, allowed to be a part of things. And who am I to say they should do anything else? What recommends me as someone of any value in this industry? I’m just a woman seriously interested in learning something that a year ago I knew less about than I do today.

Vive la Différence!

        

Todays Podcast with R.G. Ryan was a deviation of sorts. While I have interviewed authors before, never one as diverse in his art or abilities.

R.G.'s bio on his various blogsites sums him up quite nicely I think.

The name is Ron, but you may address me by my Aristocratic title, "Lord Ronald the Mellifluous of Giggleswick under Table."

I like to think of myself as being six feet tall, but I know I'm closer to five-eleven. I write novels, screenplays and music; I am a record producer as well as a recording artist.

At present I am living with my first wife in Las Vegas, Nevada. We have two kids whom we like quite a lot, most of the time, and two grandkids whom we like all the time. 

I am a proponent of sentence fragments, truncation and non sequiturs and practice the abominations whenever possible so as to confound and frustrate grammar freaks.

Hearts In Atlantis may be the best book ever written and Casablanca is, without question the best screenplay ever written. Every good story should have a beginning, a middle and an ending, but not necessarily in that order. Where are my glasses?

Download | Duration: 00:28:05

        

Ken Camp and I write a blog on Stardust Global Ventures, our joint business venture. Today I happened on an article discussing Unified Communications, something Ken is quite familiar with and in fact has written about for quite a long time. Ken is probably the best authority on how to actually define Unified Communications that exists today.

Below is a re-post of his article and a link to what I think should be a really exciting discussion on Talkshoe by a number of leaders in the Unified Communications Arena.

I hope you will join us as we open up the topic for an informative discussion. What is Unified Communications anyway?

Unified Communications - Dispelling the Myths

Sheryl, my partner and fiance, called my attention to an interesting question this morning. It's not the first time recently I've seen this question raised in conversationbut the question seems to take many forms. My friend Jon Arnold asked just a week ago Is VoIP Really Happening?

Here's a snip from the Information week story that got me started on this thread.

Is Anyone Actually Implementing UC?
Posted by Eric Krapf, Jul 17, 2008 09:51 AM

A debate has been going on over at No Jitter about whether enterprises are actually adopting Unified Communications (see here, here, here, here, and here). I tend toward the skeptical end of any conversation about how widely a hot new technology is actually being adopted, but I do see a few signs that enterprises are at least paying attention and, where possible, looking for an opportunity to get their feet wet.

I was chatting with a consultant yesterday who told me that in his last three engagements, he'd put Unified Communications into the specifications as an option for the companies to include in their RFPs, and in all three cases, the companies jumped at it. The reason? Business differentiation, i.e., the hope that UC could provide a new competitive advantage. This, by the way, supports a theory that Chris Thompson of Cisco (NSDQ: CSCO) expounded to me at VoiceCon Orlando, that during difficult economic times, it's actually easier for enterprises to make investments in "aspirational" technology than that which is "perspirational".

To me, that says the UC message is getting through to enterprises. There's no guarantee that every company will ultimately make the ROI, in whatever way the individual user company calculates that ROI. Maybe the bids will come back and the business case just won't be there.

[Read the whole story here]

I've been following VoIP from the beginnng and unified communications since before the term came into popular use, and I feel like I have a distinctly different viewpoint.

We write and provide an eJournal series, Unified Communications
in Realtime, here at the Realtime Unified Communications Community that gets added to our Digital Library each month. It's also distributed through other channels.

In the three-part series for next month we've been working on a set of brief articles about the intersection between unified communications and social media. As part of that, I tried to explain what unified communications is to set a foundation for the discussion. Here's an excerpt from the soon-to-be-published piece -

Unified Communications - A Broad Definition
Unified communications is an interesting phrase that's come into widespread use in the past year or two. Many companies have made efforts to brand it as their own, but it's really a mindset tied to the journey of network convergence.

When we're connected effectively, we're more productive. Many working professionals are also more creative. With easy access to the tools we use to perform, our work is simpler. We're able to focus on the work they need to do. We perform at a higher level. Just as companies focus on their core competencies, we as people perform better when we put all of our energy into our primary work objectives

One of the biggest drivers of this increased productivity in the past ten years has been what we call convergence. Convergence is another one of those vague buzzwords that means many things to many people, but there have been some clear and distinct phases

Phase 1 - Voice and Data Converge on the Wire
Convergence really took hold as a concept in the late 1990's. IP became the most widely accepted transport technology for data traffic. Around the same time Voice over IP (VoIP) came on the scene as potentially disruptive technology for telecommunications.

Prior to this, most large companies often managed multiple networks - one for voice and another for data. In many cases, these networks were supported by different administrative and operations groups.

Integration of voice and data onto a single wired circuit infrastructure helped many companies reduce costs and improve the bottom line. The convergence of network technologies brought efficiency gains in many different business areas.

Phase 2 - IP Takes Center Stage as the Convergence Protocol
The convergence of the physical network onto a single circuit was the start of something that's still in motion. Voice over IP (VoIP) provided yet another catalyst for change. It was ballyhooed as the end of telecommunications as we knew it and the signal that the legacy telephone companies would be out of business.

VoIP hasn't matured in the way those wild prognostications foretold but it has become the stable foundation for telecommunications infrastructure. VoIP proved to be an enabling technology that has changed our way of thinking about voice. VoIP pointed the way to voice as simply another service of the network.

Phase 3 - Unified Communications
This convergence of voice and data networks has continued around the globe for the past several years. Today there are many networks that still haven't fully converged. The process continues, and for many companies, the end of the road is nowhere in sight.

Convergence became the term used to describe the integration of data, voice and video onto one unified network. These network services used to all use separate networks. Today they share the resources of the corporate network and the Internet.

In the past two years, the word convergence has given way to the phrase unified communications. For most people, unified communications simply means the fully converged network, supporting data, voice and video.

That's unified communications of today, but the journey doesn't end there. There are mission-critical business applications that will integrate more tightly through Communications Enhanced business Processes (CEBP). These include:

• Enterprise Resource Management (ERP)
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Supply Chain Management (SCM)
• Sales Force Automation (SFA)
• Human Resource Management (HRM)

There will always be room to further integrate for efficiency. One key added area that's seeing a lot of current improvement is integrating people with voice recognition technology. The user interface will always be a key component of how we enhance the way people use computerized resources.

In the Information Week piece, Krapf asks is anyone actually implementing UC? I'd rephrase it differently - Is there anyone who isn't implementing UC?

Unified communications is a buzz phrase like convergence. It means different things to different people. In today's business environment, VoIP is prevalent. Jon asked is it really happening, but I'm often hard pressed to find places where it isn't happening.

Unified Communitations is everywhere. Think about it. Voice services, video services and voice mail have converged onto a single unified platform - an IP network and our computers or other devices. Without unified communications, you have no social media - no Facebook, no Twitter, no comprehensive integration. Without unified communications, the web as we know it is a pipe dream. It had email and static web pages.

Web 2.0, the phrase we've all heard a million times is unified communications. Without UC, there could have been no Web 2.0. Unified communications, like VoIP, isn't a product you write a check for and buy. It's not a single product you implement and move on. It's not as complex as vendors make it sound.

Unified communications in a foundation mindset of a single, integrated platform for doing business. Simple.

Sheryl and I are in the process of augmenting our work at Stardust Global Ventures. Our GeekSpeekTV has been very popular, but with the hectic moving process we've had to endure lately, it's been difficult to produce our regular shows. We're now in the process of incorporating Stardust Radio into our portfolio.

Stardust Radio

        

We're moving...again. Are you surprised?

Our life has been a real whirlwind the past few months. We just moved two weeks ago into a home we really like. We've been picturing the summer here walking around the small lake and getting to know our new neighbors. There's a pool and clubhouse that are really nice. We took lots of pictures, but only posted a few to Flickr.

Old New House

Life is a series of surprises, twists and turns. Ken was in the process of transitioning day jobs in his work with the state when he got an offer that we both felt we just couldn't pass up. So three weeks after moving into what we thought would be our home, we're moving again. This time, we're leaving Olympia and moving to Spokane.

We won't actually live in Spokane proper, but the Spokane Valley. Ken's new employer is in Liberty Lake. We'll be moving over into corporate housing on the Memorial Day weekend. That will give us a long weekend to find our way around the area and get a sense of where we are. Ken goes to work in his new role on the 27th.

If moving isn't enough to keep life interesting, we've been working with our good friend Jeff Pulver to coordinate the upcoming Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and friends) in Seattle . Not only is it a chance to see Jeff again, we're going to be doing some video as we track A Day in the Life of Jeff for our GeekSpeakTV. To make things a little more interesting, Robert Scoble will be joining Jeff, so this breakfast is with with Jeff and Robert.

Sometime later in the day we'll kidnap Jeff, and the three of us will be driving to Vancouver after breakfast for Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and friends) in Vancouver the next day. After more video and networking with another great group of people, we'll hit the road back to Spokane. We're looking forward to some time alone with Jeff to hear about his new ventures and just spend some time with one of the neatest people we know.

But wait, there's more. On July 4th we fly to northern BC. Many of Sheryl's things are still in storage up there. We're going to load them up, pick up David, and the three of us will then drive back to Spokane.

Life is going to continue to be busy and exciting for us. We're still pursuing all our dreams together. Our daily routine will change and we'll adapt as we go. We'll find a way for a little downtime for ourselves along the way. Together. We're doing everything together. That's where the real strength lies for us. We have a powerful, magical bond that we're protecting forever as we journey through life, hand in hand and side by side. Hyperconnected and in love!