Author: alearningaday

Transforming a poor shopping experience

I recently bought something with a missing part at a Target store close by.

When I called them to let them know about the problem, the team did a phenomenal job acknowledging the issue, helping process the return, and ensuring I got a replacement – assembled at the store.

Within a week, they had transformed me from a temporarily disgruntled regular customer to a fan. Just by taking ownership of a bad situation.

It was a great reminder of an idea I think about from time to time – “Do not fear mistakes. Fear only the absence of a creative, constructive, and corrective response to a mistake.”

Mistakes and bad situations often create opportunities for meaningful positive change.

In customer service experiences.

And in life.

Knowing defeat, suffering, and struggle

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.

These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” | Elisabeth Kübler Ross

This note struck multiple chords.

(H/T: James Clear’s newsletter)

Specks and the pale blue dot

Every once a while, I find it helpful to remind myself that we are specks in a massive universe. We won’t register in the grand scheme of things. And, our worries of the moment are completely inconsequential.

This reminder is both liberating and powerful.

It reminds me of Carl Sagan’s incredible note describing the “pale blue dot.”

“It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

Indeed

Bankrupt

The word “bankrupt” comes from Italian banca rotta, which means
“broken bench.”

In renaissance Florence, money lenders worked on wooden tables in the marketplace. When a money lender ran out of money, that bench would be broken. Hence, “banca rotta.”

Today, bankrupty often involves abstract legal entities filing a collection of forms.

Five centuries. Literal to abstract. Atoms to bits.

Sharks and perspective

I saw this factoid about sharks at an aquarium we visited recently.

Apologies for the dark photo (underground). It read – Are the sharks dangerous for our divers?

No. They’re actually very cautious around divers – as they should be. Humans kill more than 100 million sharks every year. Sharks kill about 5 humans every year.

The combination of the stats, the image, and the way it all came together made me pause and think about the power of perspective.

It was powerful, humorous, and poignant.

Refunds and customer service

If you charge money for a product and say it is refundable, make it easy for the customer to get a refund.

If you have a customer service number, make sure a customer gets a response within a few minutes. Or offer a call back.

This sounds simple enough.

And, yet, how many businesses can you think of that manage to do this at scale?

Simple is hard.

Trade-off

Trade-off – a balance achieved between two desirable but incompatible features; a compromise.

One of the enduring lessons I took away from graduate school was that defining a strategy inevitably means defining trade-offs.

A good strategy helps us navigate trade-offs by helping us understand what matters and, thus, the sorts of compromises we should make. This works just as well in business and in life. If we decide something is a priority, we should be willing to make compromises in other areas. This exercise is never fun. But, it is important.

If all we’re doing is spreading ourselves too thin in our attempts at doing everything, then we’re not executing on a strategy.

If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.