Turn Complaints Into Fixes, Features and Products - Welcome to Web 2.0

Ever since GE required me to get my Six Sigma greenbelt, I've been convinced that complaints can have a significant positive effect on costs and revenues. But only when you're prepared to painstakingly work from identifying the critical expressions of dissatisfaction to implementing the fix, feature and maybe eventually the product, that might logically result.

That isn't to say every business problem can't be solved without an enterprise-wide investment in Six Sigma, LEAN or some other problem-solving methodology. After all, an expression of dissatisfaction suggests a desire by the customer to improve his or her experience. And the process of capturing those expressions and resolving the issues creates the "architecture of participation" that is the very essence of successful Web 2.0 businesses.

Simply implementing a process for accurately classifying customers' initial expression of dissatisfaction from the customer's standpoint will get you going along the right path. It's then pretty much common sense to identify the most common issues, figure out their scale or value, and spend a proportionate amount in resources to find their root cause, the best fix for the money and a trigger that tells you if and when the problem resurfaces.

This is not a "customer service" issue. It's a business in itself.

Allowing all functions to see and contribute to the complaint resolution process will ensure that bad stuff doesn't get hidden, blame goes out the window (it could be you next!) and the organisation takes a holistic, realistic view of significant problems and the resources available to put them right for good.

Interestingly, the European Commission is currently consulting on a plan to harmonise the classification of complaints to third party agencies to ensure that "policy makers will be able to get a better picture of collective consumer detriment in various sectors". Ironically, that may in fact slow the pace of EU consumer regulation, as lack of transparency and consultation on the actual basis for regulating has long been a criticism leveled at the Commission.

BMW Should Help Pimp My Ride

I'm having an interesting discussion with BMW in the context of my efforts to reduce the wind noise on my R1150 GS.

It's been quite tough to find all the information on steps you can take to reduce wind noise. Most of it involves products offered in the after-market and no one seemed to have gathered the data together. So rather than waste my effort, I blogged it all and sent the link to BMW and MotorcycleNews.

While BMW were pleased to see the blog and its subsequent publication on MCN, they said "we are unlikely to link this to our website as it mentions other companies that we do not endorse or have any links with".

Now that's exactly the sort of standard corporate guff that I expected. Although I must say that I'm grateful BMW even took the time to respond, let alone say they liked the blog.

But in my view BMW is missing a few tricks by not facilitating its customers' efforts to personalise their bikes, notwithstanding their World of BMW off-road training courses, holidays and other efforts to encourage riding.

First, it would enable BMW to maintain a positive relationship with people who'd recently bought a bike. That relationship would help in the event there were any problems with the bike - and BMW recently admitted some quality control problems as demand for their bikes increases. Perhaps it was that admission which emboldened some owners to publicise their dissatisfaction, but those owners might not have felt so frustrated or inclined to publicise their concerns if their issues were swept up in the course of positive discussions about after-market features.

Second, BMW could profit from the after-market, both in terms of selling their own accessories as well as perhaps a revenue share on the sale of others' kit, e.g. via ad revenue on an owners' community website.

Third, well-facilitated personalisation options may make the bikes more attractive. Look at the Toyota's customisable Scion. The ability to personalise the car itself, drew praise in Peter Sheahan’s book, Flip. And according to the entry in Wikipedia:

"Scion offers about 40 different accessories; other after-market companies through the Optomize Scion program offer to add other accessories, as well. For example, one can add a subwoofer as well as different types of decals. The tC now offers an optional supercharger to increase power from 161 to 200 hp (120 to 150 kW). All accessories are sold individually, and do not require special packages. However, some options, such as Ground Effects, do prevent other accessories (such as mud flaps) from being installed. Companies that participate in the Optomize Scion program include GReddy, OBX, RÄZO, a few car detailing companies, and others."

So, what's to stop BMW facilitating its customers' efforts to personalise their bikes?

Nothing except BMW itself.

Pawnbroking Gets the Web Treatment

Kudos to Paul Aitken, Founder and CEO of Borro for spotting the gap in the secured loans market and cracking the process to support online pawnbroking in a way that people find usable.

For the cynics amongst you, this is not a ploy to prey on the overindebted. As the Channel 4 found, 50% of the customers have never been to a high street pawnbroker, and about the same are "middle class".

Pawning a souvenir or heirloom for a few months clearly seems preferable to persuading a bank to fund a short term gap in your cash flow.

"Platform" as "Markets"?

A hat tip to The Bankwatch for pointing out Umair Haque's interesting post "What Apple Knows That Facebook Doesn't".

My sense is that there's really not much in this, and there are more similarities between the Apple and Facebook approaches than substantive differences.

I understand Umair to be saying that Apple has adopted a "market" business strategy, whereas Facebook is taking a "platform" approach. Apple facilitates an increase in flexibility and utility for its customers, while Facebook channels its users into functionality of its choosing and exposes them to advertising. Apple will dominate, Facebook is somehow doomed. Specifically, Apple's approach will alter the basis of competition, irrevocably alter the market by unleashing a domino effect and open the value chain to myriad new entrants.

But how does this improve on O'Reilly's explanation that the success of Web 2.0 businesses stems from their "architecture of participation"? He sees the internet as a "platform" but with a different set of rules for success. So it seems we should see platforms as a feature of markets or certain market phases, rather than "platforms as markets", as Umair would have it. Perhaps this is nothing more than saying that markets consolidate around 2 or 3 large participants (platforms?) and fragment again over time.

And you could easily switch Umair's examples.

Facebook has actually made the internet and internet technology more usable for people who want to network, socially or otherwise. Yes, there are crappy apps, but VC's are funding some of those because of their ability to acquire signficant numbers of users overnight, hence the notion of the Facebook economy. It may be hype, to some extent, but what VC-fest isn't? The basis of competition has changed, because you can launch a business today with a tenth of the funding you needed 3 years ago. The domino effect might be seen in the way incumbents are forced to enter the social network services space and in the numbers of start-ups and early phase businesses relying on low-cost services like cloud computing to reduce their "burn", helping making those services viable in turn. Similarly, Facebook is encouraging new entrants, and opening up the long tail of apps and content for all those niche communities you see in the groups.

Apple, on the other hand, sought to make its iPod and now the iPhone the dominant platform in its space. Apple drip-feeds new functionality, new versions and content deals with the majors as a way of trapping people on those platforms. The result is a standards war between device manufacturers, by any other name, and it's boring for anyone who wants truly interoperable mobile applications and music that will play on any device.

Actually, I sense that the approaches of Facebook and Apple may be more similar than different. Each has created an architecture of participation, and time will tell which is more successful at sustaining it - perhaps both will be.

How to Keep Biking Down to a Sweet Roar

Keen bikers might shake their heads in disbelief, but I've been guilty of denial and procrastination over this since Jan '02, when I began blasting out along the M1 to Watford every weekday on an 1150GS. Boy does that wind howl in your ears at... ahem... 70mph.

Ear plugs seemed an obvious solution. But the little yellow foam ones had a habit of popping out en route. So I took myself down to Ultimate Ear within a few short weeks and got some custom-fitted silicone ones like rock musicians had begun to wear. They take out the high frequency stuff, but allow you to hear that some jerk has crept into your blindspot before it's too late.

But even with industrial-deafness averted, I still wanted to kill a bit more of that wind noise.

I threw money at the problem and got a larger, adjustable "Adventure" screen fitted to my GS. But when I traded that bike for a twin-spark version in late '03, I wasn't sufficiently persuaded by the results to transfer the larger screen to the new GS. My commute to Watford ended in early '04, so I stopped searching. But after 8,000 miles of pootling around West London I'm now commuting along the M4. Having taken a fresh look at wind noise reduction, I thought it might be helpful to share the results...

The science is important, of course, and Mike Lower and a team from the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research has found that even riders with enormous windscreens adopt unhelpful preferred riding positions from a wind noise standpoint - mainly because the windscreens can't be kept clean and clear enough to look through. So, on any motorcycle travelling more than 35mph:

"The main noise source was the turbulent flow from the top of the windscreen. The turbulence hits the helmet at a position somewhere between the neck or the top of the visor depending upon the windscreen's height. This position determines whether improvements to the sealing round the neck or improvements to the visor and its sealing and hinges will be more effective at reducing noise. Noise reductions up to 8 dB were achieved by simple helmet modifications or treatments. The lowest levels at the ear were obtained under earplugs and under a flying helmet containing earmuffs with active noise reduction."

While I'm just over 6'4" and my head seems way above the standard 1150 GS screen, the wind off the top actually only strikes the top of my visor. But it's the wind that hits my shoulders from the sides of the screen that seems to be worst, and that may be getting under the helmet to cause some of the noise. So how to keep it out?

An article on Webbikeworld recommended the Windjammer II as the best and longest wearing means of sealing the gap around your neck (though in winter the "elephant's foreskin" must help). But a comment on the article from a fellow Shoei helmet owner suggested that the Windjammer may not be that well adapted to Shoei's, and recommended the Shoei "chin curtain" at £7.99. I promptly ordered one. Fitting it to my XR900 was less than intuitive (don't be afraid to wedge the middle plastic "tongue" and the plastic "skirt" between helmet and helmet lining), but it has definitely cut the wind noise to some degree. It also raises the threshold at which the wind becomes louder than the engine to about 50mph instead of 35mph.

Meanwhile, I've also investigated the after-market in windscreens that are wider as well as a bit taller than the one I have. BMW will sell me an Adventure screen for about £196, including the screen blocks, but it's only about an inch larger all round, and didn't seem to make enough of a difference in the past. An MRA "Vario" will set me back about £106. Discussion forums talk about additional "winglets", but it's not all that clear that these are necessary. The rather fulsome X-tall Aeroflow will set me back £390, since it has to come from the US, via a French distributor. Finally, Cee Bailey of the US will send their biggest screen for about £240, just under half of which is for the shipping.

I've since ordered and fitted the MRA Vario, having seen generally good comments around the web, and discussed the why's and wherefor's briefly with Giles at HPS, the UK distributors.

I considered a here's-me-hands-free-on-the-M4-"Jackass"-style video clip for proof, but have contented myself with a shot of the the MRA Vario screen from HPS, in situ.

At last, I can hear that flat-twin Boxer at speed, instead of the wind.

Job done!