Procrastinating

Procrastinating

or

Suddenly, I have 9000 other things to do

Last Sunday, my dad sent me home with a very simple request and two digital picture frames.  My job: to load them with pictures.  Simple, right?

This puts a project I have been avoiding since I left ATC in the forefront of my “things I do other than parenting.”  See, I was like the first person in the family to have a digital camera.  I actually have three on my desk at this very moment.  I have not been so lucky with computers – it seems like I get all the pics burned to disc or moved to a portable drive right before something really freaky happens to the computer.  It never kills the PC outright – it just turns everything in the memory banks into gobbledy-gook.

Fast forward through 7 or so different computers, and I have all the photos on a portable 500G MyBook, backed up onto another drive.  It’s just every folder has a name like “laptop photos” and is 7G big.  It’s a filing nightmare – and now that people actually want to see those photos – it’s a photo editing nightmare.

My project is to organize these photos, delete the duplicates, and then optimize each image.  I also have scanned photos I need to separate, file, and optimize.  My excuse for the scanned photos is that my scanner doesn’t like talking to my home network and will only work if you send it a request from the computer – instead of hitting the “scan” button on the scanner.

Last Sunday, my dad sent me home with a simple request.

This Sunday, I still have not gotten the frames out of the back of my car.  I’ve added some lace to a glasses case, then removed it because the glue looked funny behind the mesh part of the lace.  I’ve painted a paintbrush hot pink.  I’ve reorganized the shelves that hold my BookMooch inventory.  I’ve read Catherine Coulter’s new novel Knock Out.  I’ve played about 1000 levels of Bookworm on Shockwave.com. I’ve watched Season 3 and Season 4 of House twice each.  I’ve dreamed about my next tattoo and changed the blog settings on this blog.  I’ve thought about doing freelance analyst work.  Am I at 9000 yet?

I did download the photos off the Nikon camera, so hey, not a total loss!  I really like Nikon’s transfer software – it creates subfolders by date, so that if you haven’t downloaded in a month, it separates Easter from LJ’s birthday party.  It’s nifty stuff.

Now, I’m going to take a nap.  All this not doing what I’m supposed to is making me sleepy.

Credit Card Collection Calls – a customer service review

Credit Card Collection Calls – a customer service review

or

A Business Analyst Turned Stay At Home Mom offers Free Consultation to Random Businesses

I seem to have these odd urges to give out business advice to businesses I don’t work for but have to interact with.  Today during nap time, I had some thoughts on a recent trend in this economic SNAFU: the credit card collection calls.  I love the alliteration, but that’s about the only thing they have going for them.

Here are some tips to you credit card companies on how to deal with your customers and end users.

1.  Have a real, live person make the call.

I picked up the phone last week and said “Hello?”  Nothing.  “HELLO?”

A mechanical female voice said “please hold for the next available customer service rep.”

Click.  I hung up.  I have to work myself up to deal with voice mail systems of companies I initiate the call to.  I don’t need the voice mail calling me and immediately putting me on hold.  I have not allotted a time frame to sit with the phone to my ear and I have no personal reward in waiting for the customer service rep.  The CSR can call me when she has the time to have my account up and ready on her computer.  I’ll talk to her – I won’t sit on hold because a computer told me to.

2.  Don’t insult your customer

This should just be common sense.  Really.  If you want customers, then you should – I don’t know – maybe value your customers?

“You just trying to buy stuff to show off to your friends when you have no intention of paying for it.”

“What kind of man goes and buys himself a big ass TV then can’t even work hard enough to pay for it.”

This astounds me because not only did the company agree to extend the non-collateral-based loan, they saw something in this person’s credit history that made them approve it.  If someone doesn’t pay their creditors, then why would you loan them money like you got a cousin named Bruno who has never failed at collecting the return.

3.  Don’t sell the customer something during the call

My goodness, people.  A collection call’s purpose is to get money.  It’s not to sell the customer a “Job Loss Protection Plan” for only $2.50 a month or “Life/Disability Insurance” that pays off the c-word if you should encounter something that would make you unable to pay.

Just get the payment and hang up.  Let the sales force or the CSRs who handle the non-delinquent account handle the extra products.

4.  Don’t insist on a payment over the phone but refuse to waive the fee to make the payment over the phone

This is a great way to get me to hang up on you.  If I can pay the balance over the phone, great.  I’m not going to pay you a fee for the “convenience.”  That’s not convenient – you can wait for the check I’ll mail out or for my online bank bill payer to transfer the money over.

5.  Don’t insist on knowing why the payment was late

Because I really don’t want to go into it so you can choose an option from a drop down menu on your account management software.  It’s also none of your business.  Your business is my payment history and whether or not you got your money.  You don’t need the sordid details of my life just to collect data for your analysts.

More than likely, in this economic climate, the customer had a choice.  Pay the electric bill or pay the credit card.  I’ll bet you they’ll pay the utility every time that choice comes up.

Moral of the story:  Your customers are everyday human beings.  Very few of them intentionally charged up the account with no intention of paying for it.  Deal with it and make sure your policies reflect it.  An amazing thing happens when you treat grown, civilized people like grown, civilized people:  they act like grown, civilized people.