Credit Score Abuse 16 December 2008
Posted by Lao Tzu in business, customer service, economy, law, psychology, sociology.Tags: credit, credit score, insurance
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For at least 10 years now, businesses have been using credit scores for more than just a determination on whether to lend someone money. They have been used as a metric of “character” for everything from car insurance rates to job qualifications. A Geico agent actually told me that they would pull my credit report to determine my insurance rates because they believed there was a correlation, specifically that individuals with low credit scores are more likely to have an accident. I was able to find an article discussing theories for such a relationship,but the cause and effect relationship has not been established. There are clearly many factors here that could be related at some point.
My point is that this is not what a credit scores measures or was intended to measure. Organizations are using this because it is a conveniently available metric, not because there is any validity to expanding its application beyond granting a loan. In fact, it’s not even good at that. The credit bureau databases are poorly designed and proned to errors in relating information from other people with you (e.g., people with same first and last name). Finally, others are talking about this. See this MSN news article.
The Starbucks Experience in Devolution 29 May 2008
Posted by Lao Tzu in customer service, economy.Tags: coffee, mcdonalds, starbucks
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OK, this is a rant.
I must be addicted to Starbucks because I stand in a ridiculous line to pay $4 for a half-full cup of coffee that takes as long to make as a steak. And, here is what I typically go thorugh in that line. Somewhere in the middle of the line, a barista that is trying to be proactive asks me what I want so she can start it, then I get up to the computerized register, and I have to tell that person the same thing I just told the first person, and they punch it in the computer. I must assume that the reason they ask me is because there are specific buttons for different items so that they charge me the correct price for the correct type and correct size. Of course, I can never get the size right, but can you blame me. Why is the smallest one called tall? Where did the execs learn English? Oh wait, they didn’t because medium is in a different language (I won’t steal the term from the commercial). Just imagine for a second trying to explain this to a 5th grader. They would think it was stupid. So (this part’s funny) after I repeat my order to the person who is actually charged with taking orders, he then ASKS if he can call the order back to the baristas. I guess sometimes they get too busy. But they already got my order. But I think if I worked there just one day, I would have caught on somewhere around my lunch break that if I just gave them a copy of the receipt for every order, that would make everyone’s life much easier (let alone actually have the COMPUTER do some work and print the order separatley for them. Then you stand there and wonder if the drink they just put up on the little pickup table is yours because they don’t use numbers or names, they just call the drink, based on the brilliant assumption that they will never have 2 customers in the place at the same time order the same drink. So I look at everyone else that is waiting and they all look at me, and we, the customers, must figure out, through some complicated socio-economic algorithm, whose drink it is. Then we return the next day and do it again, until the cost of gas wakes us up enough to realize that we are paying way too much for coffee.
Hey Starbucks, the McDonald’s brothers revolutionalized fast food about 50 years ago when they realized that if they wanted to serve a lot of customers really fast, they needed more than one shake machine.
Misuse of Computers 14 May 2008
Posted by Lao Tzu in business, computers, customer service, software engineering.Tags: computers, patient management, pizza hut, starbucks
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In the underrated movie, The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi (don’t criticize the spelling, it should be in Katakana), told Daniel,
“Karate Yes = OK
Karate No = OK, too
Karate Maybe = squash like a grape.”
The same could be said about the use of computers. In other words, I constantly see examples of small to large businesses using computers to partially do a particular job, and the end result is typically that the computer does not help them as much as actually hinder them. They get all the process constraints (e.g., I must fill out the form, I only have the information it is giving me, it won’t let me do that); without any of the benefits (e.g., automation, workflow, database).
There are many great examples from small businesses like Starbucks and Pizzza Hut; to large, complex operations like hospitals. Hospitals are getting better, but Starbucks and most pizza places are just too fun to watch in action.
In other words, if your computer is not automating some part of your work (e.g., it is merely an expensive typewriter), you are probably not getting any benefit out of it, and it is only hindering your business.
Computers Yes = OK
Computers No = OK, too
Computers somewhat = bad customer service!
