Start doing things on your customer's time (Saturated Market)

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Start doing things on your customer's time

Customer Service Let's say you provide your customer with a service. Sure, that's what business is all about. And you do your utmost to make sure that they get the very best. But are you working to the beat of your customer's drum, or to your own?

This post may be considered more of a rant than anything, so let me warn you in advance. I want to talk to you about Anti-virus programs.

I have a subscription to one such program (which I will restrain myself from identifying). It's served me well. It stops intrusions and gets rid of unwelcome visitors like trojans and viruses. It does its job, and I'm thankful. But there is one TINY little feature that they omitted, and it's caused me frustration to no end.

Because of the ever-evolving world of viruses (virae?), it is important to update the database of threats regularly. I understand this. My problem is that the company has stripped the program of any user control of updates.

My computer is roughly 5 years old. And it's still working better than many computers do after 3. But it's full of files and doesn't have as much free space and available RAM as it used to. So keeping control of my processes is critical for me. I've stripped out some dead weight, and for the most part, things run smoothly. Then along comes our old friend, Antivirus. SEVERAL times a day, this program insists on checking for updates. Which takes up VAST amounts of CPU usage and memory while it's doing it. So my computer slows to a crawl, and whatever I was doing at the time has to be put on hold. Programs sputter and crash, dvds become choppy and skip, and words I type appear seconds after I type them (that doesn't sound too bad, but I want you to see how much you type in five seconds and understand how far behind that puts you). All so it can update itself. Again. And again. And again.

Now, as I have said before: I know it has to update. I don't begrudge it that. But I am annoyed that I, the user, the person who shelled out money for a subscription, cannot have it on my terms. I am away from my computer for at least 9.5 hours every week day. That's more than a third of every day that I am not using the computer, so I won't mind if it spends all its resources. So I set the program to scan my computer while I'm out at work, then go into hibernation to save energy and stop turning my room into a sauna. Why, why, WHY can't I do the same for the update schedule?

This rant seems way off course, I know. But it's a key example of how sometimes overlooking the simplest thing can drive your customers nuts, and drive them away. Like this program, you might do your job; you might be great at it, you might exceed all of your customers' expectations. But if you inconvenience your customer or don't allow them to do things on their own terms, they won't stick around for long. I know I will be taking my business elsewhere if they don't fix this by the time my subscription lapses.

Until next time,