Customer Disservice

I was down at the local T-Mobile store this week, looking for a phone with a full keyboard, to send text messages easily. After waiting for a customer rep to finish up with her boyfriend, she shouted that we should cross the store and approach her desk.

At her desk, while chewing bubble-gum and listening to music she "served" us. Each bubble popping in my face increased my dissatisfaction. Finally, she understood what we were looking for and showed us three models of phones that suit our needs. All three are ridiculously priced and I went to the Verizon store where I was treated like a paying customers. Very much appreciated, thank you.

I called T-Mobile to terminate my account, and the customer rep told me "I see that you have been a valued customer since since 2001, and we don't want to lose you. The termination fee will be $200 per line". "What? Are you telling me that it is $200 per line, for each of the phones, which both have various malfunctions and are now out of warranty?" "Yes".

Before these incidents, I was considering switching all of my phones to Verizon. Now after being insulted in person and on the phone, it is good bye, and good riddance to T-Mobile in my household.

As a presenter, this is good material for my speeches. I can make a few points with this story. Firstly, the customer rep blowing bubble gum in my face is probably clueless about the impact of her actions. (The store manager is probably also clueless, if he was even in the store). As speakers we can also have distracting and irritating habits that we are not aware of until someone points them out to us. Which brings me to the suggestion that you should record some of your presentations with a video recorder to see what you actually do on stage. A video recording of this customer rep would hopefully suck the wind right out of her next bubble.

A second, and obvious point to make, is that customers don't need to tolerate poor service. If your service is bad, then the customer goes elsewhere. Sometimes without you even having the opportunity to discuss or correct the situation.

Treat your audiences with respect and remember that we earn the right to the "Privilege of the Platform". Come prepared to your speech and do everything that you can to deliver a good performance for the audience.

Update - Living the Law of Attraction

I just received notice that "Living the Law of Attraction" is now available for purchase. I contributed my story of how I used the Law of Attraction to fill my dream and bring my family out of South Africa to the outstanding life we now enjoy in Connecticut, USA. The first 100 copies are being printed as I type this posting and I can't wait to see how the book has turned out.

I don't make any money from this book. My intention is for readers to benefit from my story and implement the Law of Attraction to reach personal goals and manifest some dreams.

Please review my slides

Can you review someone's slides and predict the outcome of the presentation?

Slides and stories and delivery style are intertwined like wind, a sailor and his sailboat. Some sailboats are faster than others, but can a good sailor in a slow boat win a race against a bad sailor in a fast boat? Of course. Looking at photos of a slow boat and a fast boat won't get me place bets on who will win a boat race.

When I review a client's slides, I take pains to point out that the slides are merely one component of the presentation. Unless the client is simply reading the slides to the audience then I cannot determine the resulting presentaiton from just reviewing the slides.

I have learned that when I review slides that eliminating text is the easiest path to dramatically improve a presentation from Audience "Aggravation" to "Toleration". I have not yet met a presentation that suffers from reducing the volume of text on a slideshow. After removing text though the next levels of improvement become harder as we implement increasing levels of the Pow'Rful Philosophy.

The Pow'rFul Philosohphy advocates for your audience by developing slideshows with unique photos, images and supplementing your presentation with personal stories and examples. Stories and examples are not captured in the slideshow. All that a good slideshow has is photos, giant text and unique images. A good presenter works off this minimalistic slide show to devilver a great presentation by adding stories. A poor presenter mumbles through the slides, clueless as to what the photos represent.

When you review your slide shows, what do you see? Can another presenter take your slideshow and deliver the same presentation? If so, go back to the storyboard. No-one else should be able to deliver your presentation, even if they have your slideshow. You need to create a slideshow supports your unique presentation with your unique stories and examples.

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there was a little boy growing up in Springs, South Africa. His parents were middle class employees and he attended public school.

Like most boys of his age, he was drafted into the South African Defense Force after High School and went to the "Border".

and so on...
***
Patricia Fripp encourages all speakers to look back at their lives as if it were a story. Think of the wording in Goldilocks. "One day there was a papa bear, mama bear, baby bear." I have been following Patricia's advice for the past few weeks. I encourage you to do the same thing. Why? This story of your life is going to uncover events that you can craft into personal stories. You then have a library of personal stories to supplement your PowerPoint Presentations. The heart of the Pow'Rful Philosphy is to show photos and tell stories in your presentations. (Read all about it in Dodging the Bullet Points).

Get started now. You have more personal stories than you think. "Once upon a time there was a presenter who did not tell personal stories and read his slide to the audience. His audiences fell asleep. Then he began to tell personal stories to support his PowerPoint Presentations and now he cannot get his audience to vacate the room for the next speaker..."