Think about the last time you fell in love. No, seriously. Take a moment to think about it.

Do you remember how you just wanted to tell everyone about it? Remember how you were just dying to tell your friends, and how that was the only thing you spoke about? People love to talk when they are in love. And it’s not only in relationships. Love is a natural catalyst for talk. When people fall in love with a restaurant, they talk about it.

Likewise, when people fall in love with a company, they will tell others. And the only way to get people to talk about MinuteFix is to give them the best darned support they have ever experienced. Make them fall in love with us and we will be big.

Wouldn’t you agree?

I want to get one thing straight. When a company is based in Michigan one would think that English would be the language primarily used for all correspondence, right? WRONG! I contacted my web hosting company, Web Hosting with TotalChoice, only to get the following message:

Hi,

I am sorry, I didn’t understand what you mean - Are you need drewandbritt.org parked on anotherkindofdrew.com or anything else ?

Thank you.
—
Tina Garrison
Technical Support Team
TotalChoice Hosting

Two things tick me off about this. The first is that all I wanted to do was get rid of drewandbritt.org as my umbrella URL for my hosting package. The domain is dead and I no longer pay for the hosting of that site. I wanted to instead use anotherkindofdrew.com. The second is that for a person named Tina (a very Michigan name, I think) that is just pathetic grammar. If you don’t believe me just read her email to me one more time. Obvious, unapologetic outsourcing. Not to mention no sign of hospitality or real customer service. At this rate it shouldn’t be too hard for us to revolutionize this industry.

Photo By: Britt Odom, anotherkindofred.com
Location: Barnesville, GA

This weekend I spent time at my folks’ house in Barnesville, GA. This image was taken by my wife, Britt, in my parents backyard. Thanks goodness for USB ‘net connection!

I have to admit that on a normal basis I wouldn’t exploit an essay answer or a help session chat unless it was really exceptional. While looking over some past essay answers on the certification tests, I ran across the following response. I am sure you will all know the question without me including it. If you don’t know the question you should hurry up and get certified so we don’t point and laugh at you.

In the lower right hand corner of the screen should be a little computer with lines around it. Hold your cursor over this and see what pops up. If it shows that you are connected, then we might have an addressing problem. If there is a red “x” on the icon, the card is not connected to a signal. We can double check the addressing problem by using the command prompt and running an “ipconfig/all” which will display the technical information about your system’s connection to the internet. If there is a red “x” you can try to connect to a different network - if available. If this doesn’t work, we need to check the hardware itself by using the device manager. You can find this by right clicking on the “my computer” icon, select manage, select device manager, and point your attention to the internet adapters tab.

But what makes this response so good and what could make it even better?

Points of Customer Service Goodness

• Very explicit descriptions
• Visual descriptions (i.e. red “x”)
• Detailed but succinct

Could Also Take Advantage Of

• An entry line like, “Thank you so much for contacting MinuteFix. I look forward to helping you just as soon as we determine the problem at hand.
• Further explanation of ipconfig (i.e ipconfig is a computer term which simply means…)

I just got word from Chris (or Lead Developer) that we’ll go into full-blown testing tomorrow, Tuesday. That means that if all goes well, we’ll be letting you all play with the chat interaction and working with some test customers by mid-week…

I have spoken on iChat and email (and even phone) with several of you now. We’ve talked tech and life and Super Bowl and movies and family. Lately I have been having a bit of a Woody Allen conversation with one of our MinuteFix Certified Technicians, Richard Adler. He attached a pic of his fam to an email so I thought I would highlight him and his handsome family. Send me your pics and I’ll give you some link love too! So, community, I introduce you to Richard and his fam.

BTW - Richard is certified in Customer Service, English, Antivirus, Gen Prof, Windows and Vista!

Part of any successful startup is the marketing campaign that takes place very early on. It is what can make or break early rounds of funding. It is the key to having a solid customer base. And ultimately it is what you will rely on to assure consumers and/or customers. It isn’t something to be taken lightly by any means. Drew McLellan knows this. That is why last year he assembled a team of authors to write The Age of Conversation. The book was a great success and the proceeds went to various children’s charities. It was so successful that a second volume is preparing to take off. The exciting thing is that I will be one of the authorial collaborates. I have to admit I am pretty darned excited. Looking at the list of some of the other authors is a bit intimidating but totally cool, nonetheless. So, in an effort to kick off this experience I am asking you to go and vote on the topic of the book. It is a quick survey and will really help with the initial effort.

If you want to know more about the project I encourage you to visit Drew’s blog and the actual book page.

I think by now we all know the history of computers. We have all seen that lasting image of the old guy in the white lab coat standing in front of the large machine with wheels and cranks and hoses and the caption, “the world’s first super computer.” It is timeless and to people like me is the equivalent of cave drawings to an anthropologist; fascinating and revealing all at once. So imagine my excitement when I came across this amazing museum site. Located in Mountain View, California this place seems like a geek dream. I guess until I can get to CA again I will just have to settle for a virtual tour.

Although it’s tough to believe, the entire MinuteFix staff works from home. Drew works from home. I work from home. Our lead developer Chris works from home. Alin, his right hand works from home. Oscar, our newly-appointed Marketing Manger works from home. We like it like that. Actually, we love it like that. We work best when we don’t have to drive an hour to the office, or have to wait more than five minutes to check our email when we wake up in the morning. You know the feeling.

MinuteFix is designed around working from home. You will most likely be working from home too. If you ever need a reminder of the pleasures of not having to go to the office, here’s a little game to refresh your memory. There are just two rules to surviving ’til vacation. 1) Finish your daily work by collecting the folders and 2) Avoid supervisors.

For three years now I have worked alongside Diego as we have navigated the ships of startup through the seas of techno-uncertainty. He is a great mind with an enormous sense of humor and personality. I thought I would return his favor and give you ‘five’ on him.

1. Diego was born in Bogota, Colombia but never knew Shakira
2. He lived in Barcelona before it was cool to vacation there
3. For some reason he insists on having whole milk in his English breakfast tea
4. He was once addicted to The Office…the british version
5. He once wrote an article for The South magazine in Savannah, GA about how to tango and another about immigration in the south