A great Saturday dive with Joshua!  (Jim Abernathy Scuba Adventures)

Quoted from “From Vision to Execution”, by Billy Marshall

Can you see the answers to these questions everyday in the metrics you review?  Do these answers simply appear in a daily report, or does someone have to grind away for weeks to give you information that is irrelevant by the time you receive it?

• How much revenue did each technician deliver yesterday?  last week?  last month?
• How much repair work did you quote yesterday?  last week?  last month?
• How much in repair quotes does each dollar of maintenance work provide?
• How long do your technicians drive on average for a dollar of revenue?
• Which customers need to be notified right now because the tech is going to be late due to a prior appointment experiencing complications?
• What percentage of your quotes get approved versus the total of quotes delivered to the customer?
• How much revenue do you deliver per dispatcher/scheduler payroll dollar?
• How much revenue did you deliver relative to the total value of revenue available last month?

If answering these questions is difficult, expensive, or impossible, or if seeing the behavior that drives these metrics is difficult, expensive, or impossible, you are blind, and a vision of a better business is just a hallucination.  To get traction, you need visibility.  When you have visibility and traction, you can drive to better outcomes.  When you get better outcomes, you get freedom.

Summer is the time for Boy Scout camp with Troop 395 and the Boy Scouts.  The traditional Friday night campout was moved inside because of weather.  Performing on Friday night in addition to skits and announcements by activity directors and staff was a show put on on by the visiting scouts  from Israel (Friends of Israel Scouts).  Each summer thousands of Israeli scouts apply to a program where they visit scouts and other organizations as ambassadors of scouts and Israel.  The scouts put on a great show.

Service training this week with Martin Engineering.  This is my second opportunity to participate in Dr. Tom Davidson’s class (CSI.)  Tom combines real-world experience and formal OSHA/MSHA training into a format that brings real credibility to his presentations.  Tom provides training in his training facility or will travel to a site to provide training for larger groups.  I recommend Tom’s class for anyone who is interested in increasing their awareness of safety (http://tinyurl.com/k6vw3ou)

I am sure that this video has circulated before, but it is such a great example of improving the customer experience I just had to post a link.  Although I am not a big user of Goupon I have occasionally used their deals when it was too good to pass up.  Some examples of really good deals have been a one-year Sunday subscription to the Palm Beach Post for $10 and the other was a scuba boat dive including gear for $125.  I have also followed the Groupon phenomenon through the news from it’s beginnings to it’s IPO.

This weekend I went to the site to fine-tune some subscriptions and decided the easiest way to tailor the account was to unsubscribe, re-enter my account information and then re-subscribe.  We all remember pre-regulation when unsubscrbing from a e-mail list could be a 10-step process.  Groupon took me by surprise.  When I went to unsubscribe a page told me that “Derrick” had worked hard to tailor my deals and if I wanted I could click a button and “Punish Derrick.”  A short video clip plays and someone throws a cup of water on Derrick at his desk.

If I was an upset customer and was upset and ready to unsubscribe from Groupon, this video might have changed my mind.  A great example how some innovative and responsive marketing can make he difference for a company’s visitors.

Groupon, if you are listening,I have a suggestion and a question.  How about another button for resubscribing that says “Reward Derrick”  When will we see Peoria, IL as a Groupon city?