Award-winning web development since 1995
Written: April 7, 2016
On the web we can browse a site that is designed for mobile devices, or we can use an App. My local haircut store is Great Clips in Tualatin and this franchise has gone the App route. Installing the App is straight forward and when it opens I just have to click one button: Check In
Clicking that button brings up a map of the many Great Clips locations, along with the wait time at each store:
Today I wanted to go in for a hair cut, so I used this App from Great Clips, selected the closest store in Tualatin and it came back with a 29 minute wait time. No big deal, I just did some email on my computer and waited until the wait time reached 9 minutes, then I drove 5 minutes to reach the store in time, and sure enough my name was listed as #1 on their display board. Once inside the store the lady told me, “Oh, we have another customer in front of you, so there is at least another 10 minutes of wait time.”
My incredulous reply was, “I used your App and it told me when to be here, and I arrived on time, plus my name is #1 on your list, how can you bump me to number two?”
She replied, “Oh, that’s not how it works here, when anyone walks in they get placed on the list and you have to wait.”
I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing, so I simply left their store and probably will never return again. Great Clips has just lost another loyal customer because their App promised me one thing, and yet the Tualatin store seemingly cares more about walk-ins then App users, even when the App user is #1 on their display board.
I’m all for using Apps and display boards to empower your customers, but to be effective your business will have to use a policy that makes sense to the clients, otherwise you are going to risk losing loyal customers like Great Clips just did with me.
Corporate Response
Here’s the response from Great Clips customer service at the corporate level:
Written: April 1, 2016
My smart phone is used for both business and personal tasks, so it’s important for me to keep it updated to the latest release of the Operating System to ensure that security is kept current, plus it’s plain fun to have something new and shiny to use. AT&T is my wireless carrier and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is my phone, so today I received a message from AT&T that their Android 5.1.1 version was all ready to be installed. I basically read the dialog and clicked the Continue button, quite simple. The whole process took maybe 12 minutes or so, because after installation it has to optimize each App, and my phone has 81 Apps.
In the end I can click on Settings> About device and see that Android is now at the 5.1.1 version.
Your carrier probably has a very similar scenario to follow for upgrading the Android OS, and even Apple devices are quite easy to update the OS with.
Before updating make sure that you have at least 25% battery life, because the last thing that you want to happen is for an update to be interrupted by your device turning off unexpectedly in the middle of the process, something that could leave you with a brick for a phone.
Written: February 17, 2016
Richard Horswell asked me to help create a new web site for a charity near to his heart, Pioneers in Trauma. We got to know each other on a former web project at www.fidelityportland.com. He knew what the domain name was, had a logo, some photos, and an event invitation for their inaugural event on May 14, 2016. With that info in hand I set about to:
Enjoy viewing this new site, just launched at www.pioneersintrauma.com
Written: February 11, 2016
I use many Google products because they are usually free, work well on all devices even Mac and iPad, and simplify both my business and personal life. Google Drive is a cloud-based storage that lets me organize documents into folders and files, then share that with anyone else using their email address. That’s powerful.
Google Drive
Today I learned that I could bump up my free 15GB of storage on Google Drive to 17GB by just clicking through some security review questions at https://security.google.com/settings/security/secureaccount.
Enjoy your time with Google Drive, and remember that when you create a free Google account to use your business email account, you DO NOT need to add a Gmail account.
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