Wed, 26 May 2010 11:26:53 -0800WeeblyTue, 27 Apr 2010 16:20:31 -0800http://www.youcandeliver.com/1/post/2010/04/founders-club-wharton.htmlVery nice article about the Founder's Club at Wharton.  It's a great group of diverse entrepreneurs.  Here's the link:  http://wep.wharton.upenn.edu/gis/article.aspx?gisID=162]]>Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:30:42 -0800http://www.youcandeliver.com/1/post/2009/10/wharton.htmlLong time no post.  Since we last spoke I started my MBA at Wharton.  As I encounter really great or really awful businesses delivering/not delivering on the promise I will post.  In the meantime here are some links to note:

-A quick follow-up piece from on being named to Inc. Magazine's Top 30 Under 30 list: http://www.inc.com/30under30/2009/alumni_pg2.html

-Scott Neuberger, my partner at Collegeboxes, now President of www.infocore.com.

-Are you a small business based in Philly?  Do you want free consulting from Wharton MBAs?  Visit http://whartonsbdc.wharton.upenn.edu/ to signup for classes and one-on-one consulting sessions.

-Fun link:  80's Dating Video.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bomkgXeDkE.]]>Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:16:06 -0800http://www.youcandeliver.com/1/post/2009/07/bolt-bus-e-mail-customer-service-very-nice.htmlThanks to a friend, I have turned into small-time mileage/reward program junkie.  This extends beyond airline miles to bus trips.  I bought a ticket on Bolt Bus for a trip to NYC next week.  I forgot to login to my Bolt Bus account before buying the ticket and did not get credit for the sale (e.g. free bus ride every five or ten rides).  I e-mailed Bolt and asked if they could add the purchase to my account.  31 MINUTES LATER THEY REPLIED!  My mother doesn't even call me back that fast.

Business Analysis: Short, quick e-mail responses to any (even non-revenue generating) inquiries endear trust.  More so, you can handle many more e-mail CS issues per hour or per day than via phone.

www.boltbus.com

]]>Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:09:21 -0800http://www.youcandeliver.com/1/post/2009/07/breakaway-bikes-delivers.htmlI moved to Philadelphia this weekend.  Great city.  My bicycle had not been serviced in over a year.  My brother, who also lives in the city, reccomended Breakaway Bikes on 19th and Chestnut.  I walked my flat-tired, brakes rubbing against the wheels bike down to Breakaway.  I was no more then 10 ft. inside the front door when one of their hipster come bike techs grabbed my bike and said "let me take a look."  I obliged.

Ten minutes of cranking, twisting, rubbing, and talking later, he looks up at me and goes "this is a good bike."  He releases the bike from his work stand and wheels it over to me.  I ask, "how much do I owe you?"  He says, "don't worry about it, just come back and buy something."  WHAT?  Are you serious?  I was standing directly under signs indicating that a price of a tune up was $50.  I told him that I was floored by his generosity and that my brother was 100% right.  He doesn't ask my brother's name, he just wants to know what bike he rides.  This is awesome!

Business analysis:  The guy gave away 10 minutes of his time to tune up my bike.  It cost him/the shop pretty much nothing.  Now, he not only has me as a customer-for-life but he also has everyone else I tell.  I love when these types of things happen.

www.breakawaybikes.com

]]>Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:41:50 -0800http://www.youcandeliver.com/1/post/2009/02/great-pilots-at-jetblue-so-good-i-wrote-the-company-to-tell-them.htmljetBlue has great pilots and great customer service reps.  See correspondence below...


From me:
This is an odd time to write a compliment.  I am stranded in the New Orleans airport because the captain's seatbelt is broken and there is weather in Boston.  Captain Chris Dugan, however, has literally done the most incredible job of coordinating the issue (this includes managing the jetblue staff), keeping the customers updated, and even taking the time to answer each passenger's questions.  This captain should not be flying (even though I'm sure he's a great pilot), he should be teaching every employee at jetblue how to handle unforeseen issues (not that they don't know how, it's just Dugan is so damn good at it).  When I told him how impressed I was, he replied "This is how we roll at Jetblue."  Way to go!!!!

I know how ridiculous this whole comment sounds, but I am literally watching him right now work the gate full of passengers, answer their questions, and give competent, content-full answers.  Yes! Yes! Yes!

Their Response (in less then 3 hours):
Dear Mr. Kowitt,

Thank you for your email to JetBlue. We truly appreciate you taking the time to send us such a kind compliment!

Although we are very sorry to hear that you are writing from the New Orleans Airport (MSY) because of a flight delay due to weather in Boston and an issue with the aircraft, what a pleasure it was to read your letter and to learn of the outstanding customer service now being delivered by our Captain, Chris Dugan. We are very pleased to hear that Captain Dugan is taking the time to answer our valued customers' questions with accuracy and detail and that he is keeping you all abreast of the issues affecting your flight. Thank you for letting us know what an incredible job he is doing managing this difficult delay situation.

When JetBlue was founded, we set out to bring humanity back to air travel and to make flying more enjoyable. We are pleased to hear that Captain Dugan has taken this goal to heart in providing exceptional service to our customers. We have forwarded your comments to our Chief Pilot's Office. Your email is sure to make their day!

Thank you, again, for taking the time to email us. We are grateful for your appreciation of our commitment to excellence. We look forward to getting your flight in the air soon and to the opportunity to see you aboard JetBlue again sometime soon!

Sincerely,

Jean
Customer Commitment Crew

]]>Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:35:58 -0800http://www.youcandeliver.com/1/post/2009/02/flight-academies-and-entrepreneurship.htmlA paper I recently wrote about taking the principles of flight training and applying them to entrepreneurship.

innovation_center_paper.pdf
File Size:	88 kb
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Download File

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]]>Sun, 12 Oct 2008 05:32:41 -0800http://www.youcandeliver.com/1/post/2008/10/a-letter-to-the-ceo-of-six-flags-great-adventure.htmlDear Mark,  

I am writing to express my concern over some of your employees. I have been a long time customer originally visiting the park when I was a young child over 20 years ago. Yesterday, eight friends and I visited the park.  

Upon arrival, I was very thirsty so I bought a powerade at one of the cart vendors on my way to the Great American Scream Machine. Not only was the staff member extremely slow, but he didn't look me in the eye, he didn't thank me, and he didn't care to answer my questions about when the park closes. I figured this must be an isolated incident. I was wrong. At lunch, my friends and I visited Nathan's Hotdog Restaurant. We waited in line for 45 minutes. Surprisingly, there were only three people ahead of us! We noticed a few disturbing problems: (1) not one employee seemed to care about delivering quick and efficient service, (2) no one seemed to take the time to operate the restaurant as fast as possible, (3) there was no manager providing the staff with direction or motivation, and (4) the clear culture of laziness in the restaurant caused any potential star performer to act slowly and carelessly.  

Things again were similar at the rides. You can understand how frustrated I was after waiting in line 65 minutes for el Toro only to find at least two to three seats going unused on each train. The staff member was just shuffling us (albeit quite slowly) into the station. Why not fill up each seat? Why not encourage the staff to impress guests with their speed and efficiency?  

When I returned home, I read all of the articles online how you are in the process of staging a turn around. It has not gone unnoticed. All 9 friends of mine pointed out how clean the park is. We loved the message on the back of employee shirts to pick up the trash. Nice! Clearly, management and security supervisors have "spread the clean gospel" and the front-line staff is listening. It's now time to take a similarly aggressive approach with the rest of your staff.  

See you next summer.  
Regards,  
Josh Kowitt

]]>Mon, 06 Oct 2008 06:08:17 -0800http://www.youcandeliver.com/1/post/2008/10/jetblue.htmljetBlue provides a great example of how an innovative and "industry darling" company can screw it up.  Last winter, a massive portion of their airplane fleet was grounded due to an ice storm at JFK.  The company had no contingency plans, poorly communicated with customers, left full planes on the runway for hours, and ultimately had a massive PR debacle.

It looks like their still working on improving their issue (alongside dealing with high oil prices).  Over year later, and jetBlue is still paying a price for not delivering.  The New York Times has more here.  Very interesting.

]]>Thu, 02 Oct 2008 08:49:05 -0800http://www.youcandeliver.com/1/post/2008/10/great-pilots-at-jetblue-so-good-i-wrote-the-company-to-tell-them1.htmlMy friend told me about a Leading Hotels of the World promotion where you can reserve $500+/night rooms for $19.98/night (the hotel claims 6000 rooms are available at this rate).  You sign up on their website and then from 8am-9:30am the next day you go on the website and try to book a room.  A great deal and great publicity for the fancy hotel chain.  Of course, on your first shot the website says their busy.  BEFORE the internet, a company could get away without selling a single cheap room and just turn all of the phone lines to busy.  Today, with the internet, I was following the saga in real time on flyertalk, a frequent traveler bulletin board.  Not a single flyertalk user was able to book a room.  Turns out the website did not work at all.  Now there is talk of suing the company (ridiculous), but more importantly there are now over 100,000 dissatisfied customers/potential customers.

Here's a quick chronology of the event with appropriate snippets from the flyertalk forum.  The swiftness of everything (including the company's response) is fast and furious:

8am EST:  Customers try to get the deal on Leading's website.  Right away the site returns the following error on all pages:

Sorry! Due to the overwhelming number of consumers currently trying to access this promotion, your request is being delayed momentarily. Please be patient, don’t get discouraged, and retry in a few seconds by clicking here, or by going back to http://www.lhw.com/1928.

Users respond within 180 seconds.  One user (rightly) predicts:

This might end up giving them more negative publicity than they intended, makes you wonder if they will end up coming out ahead....
Like everyone else, I keep getting the errors too.

Ninety minutes later and not more then one or two users who were able to get the promotion, management responds on the bulletin board:

Unfortunately, we've had to suspend the sale due to overwhelming demand.
Although we were aware of the traffic volume and made preparations ahead
of time to accommodate it, the volume of traffic nonetheless outstripped
our enhanced capacity. In lieu of the online process, we will be running
an alternative email based sale shortly, as most of the inventory is
still unsold.
You should be receiving an email from us shortly describing the
specifics, but the details you've provided in terms of your intentions
are exactly what we are going to be asking of our consumers. With this
in mind, I'll try to get your request into the queue.
With sincere apologies for your inconvenience,
Robert Cantave
Director of Marketing Technology
The Leading Hotels of the World, Ltd.

Now that management has engaged the users by posting on the bulletin board, it becomes an endless back and forth between management and users.  At first, management decides to redo the contest via e-mail.  Then after enough complaints, the president says this:

Dear Joshua Kowitt,
Thank you so much for your continued patience with The Leading Hotels of the World. We are extremely sorry for the inconveniences we have caused and regret to advise you that the USD 19.28 email promotion scheduled for tomorrow October 2nd shall be postponed.
Although our original back-up plan provided a viable solution for the 150,000 people who were registered, it was met with some confusion over submission procedures and timing. In addition, we have become increasingly concerned that a large number of non-registered respondents plan to submit forms which would inundate the system and greatly diminish your chances of securing a USD 19.28 rate.
In view of this, please do not email your form tomorrow. You will most likely receive an error message we have put in place as a safety mechanism.
We are sincerely committed to restoring your faith in our brand and do not want to risk disappointing you again. We are working tirelessly to develop a solution that will be fair for you and all registered participants. We will email you next week with further details.
Sincerely,
Ted Teng
President & CEO
The Leading Hotels of the World, Ltd.

This is really wild.  Think about it.  You give away 6000 nights at $20 (these rooms typically go for $500+/night).  You get your users very excited about the fancy hotels, your brand, and a great promotion.  THEN YOU BLOW IT!  Might I remind you to deliver on the promise even on a giveaway.  Hey, they're the same customers as the ones that pay, right?

]]>Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:05:07 -0800http://www.youcandeliver.com/1/post/2008/09/writing-is-important.htmlI'm an adjunct faculty at a local Boston college teaching business management.  My students have trouble writing.  They were either never taught to write or do not feel that controlling the written word is important.  I tried to tell them that a potential employer will not even read their resume if the cover letter is poorly written.

I was taught to write by a dedicated college professor.  He accepted nothing less than thoughtful, concise English.  Why is writing not a bigger priority in K-12 education?

Also, I'm trying to get Mayor Menino to come speak to my class about managing a big city.  If you know, please tell him to respond to my e-mail that I sent last week.

Thanks.

Josh

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