I finally got my development environment working for the most part. Randomly happened upon some instructions in release notes of all places. You know, those documents called read me or booklets that come with devices. Sometimes I read them. Sometimes they tell you just what you need to know. I have also gotten a git server installed on the NAS backup device. This will give me two backup copies of future development efforts. Backups, they are a good thing.
In the last blog post, I mentioned I stopped reading Facebook but continuing to play a few games there. Now I am mostly oblivious to world news. And I find that I do not mind that. I do miss knowing things about friends who are still active on Facebook. I also miss some of the funny posts. Unfortunately Facebook forces you to wade through too much shit just to maybe find a few nuggets. If they aren't hidden from you. It was better when they gave you more control over what you saw or didn't see.
Sometimes when going to the Facebook games, I read the first page of my news feed, the one where they put what should be most important to me first. For the past two days, it has been the same post with the second day having more comments. I would have read the post before, but it wouldn't have been one that I was "interested" in. I certainly would not have read it twice or read the comments at all.
This led me to thinking about how companies go about retaining you as a client. Facebook does not seem to want to retain me as a client. Nobody at Facebook will call me or email me or even message me to ask why I do not seem to be interacting anymore. I am one person among millions. Facebook gets revenue by showing ads and using your shared information to profile you. Since I have an ad blocker, I never saw ads. So perhaps I was more of a cost to them than a benefit.
Then there are the horror stories of people calling Comcast to cancel service. Comcast will bend over backwards to keep you. If you are a customer of Comcast, it probably behooves you to call them up to see if you can get a cheaper rate. You just have to threaten to leave. You don't actually have to leave.
Next there is a company like Omaha Steaks that thinks calling every couple weeks will get me to order more from them. No, actually, this just makes me order less. Seems to me you have to pay someone to make those calls. That must make your expenses go up, which in turn makes your prices higher.
Then there was some company that was robo-calling. I answered the phone the first time, said I wasn't interested and hung up. 10 minutes later, I get another call from the same company but a different person. The person started with the same script. I told him someone from your company just called me 10 minutes ago. That apparently wasn't in the script, so he kept on. I asked him for a credit card number, figuring he could pay me for training him. He refused. I then asked to speak to a manager. He wasn't so sure about this. I was a little irate at this point. The company wasted my time TWICE. Finally he put me on hold to go get the manager. I decided it was time to hang up before the manager got there. Maybe I will be on their do not call list in the future.
Another one is the company in Arizona that handles calling customers for the local Toyota dealership. They have my cell number because that is the number I want the service people to call when they are working on my car. They can't seem to understand that I do not drive enough to service my car every three months. As if this wasn't enough, because the car is in my wife's name, they call asking for her on my cell phone. This one gets resolved because I have added their phone numbers to my iPhone's blocked list. About once a year, they get a new phone number, still in Arizona mind you.
American Express sends my business a multi-page customized color invitation to get a card every couple weeks. Not months, weeks. This after they already said no to a prior application. I don't need the card. It was to serve a specific purpose, which I met by other means. So sending me something that costs a couple dollars is just wasting money.
Think about how you would want your doctor, auto mechanic, bank, or grocery store to treat you. What can they do better FOR YOU? Have you told them this? Have they asked you? I usually fill out surveys; that is until they start asking silly questions. Would I recommend them to a friend? If they did a good job, probably not. If they did a bad job, yes people I know will hear about it. I mean really, when was the last time you recommended Home Depot to anyone? Yes, go to Home Depot, you will need to go back again in the same day.
Here is a wild thought: If a business that you current deal with, changed for the better, would you pay them more? More to get what YOU want. If Facebook were to show you what you wanted, how you wanted, without ads, and without promoted posts, what would it be worth to you? One dollar per month? Five? Ten?
This came from someone else, but I use it myself for game purchases. Generally, I expect a game to provide $1 per hour's worth of entertainment. A $5 game should give me 5 hours of entertainment. A $50 game should give me 50 hours. Sometimes I get more entertainment and sometimes much less. But that is the target I use when looking to buy a game.
In today's business world is pays to know who your customer or potential customer is, how you should interact with them, and what they want from you. Do your best to not waste time either yours or theirs. Time is a valuable commodity. Listen to what they want. They may not be right, but that does not make them wrong either. This is how local small businesses thrive.
