Posted by Jason on February 14th, 2008 — in Society
I don’t think it is just myself but the majority of bloggers that use their blogs to call out companies or websites that wrong them. I looked through past posts and so many of mine were to highlight the breakdown in useability and customer service. I have to admit that the trend is still towards the attitutide of Who Cares when it comes to resolving customer conflicts.
I had what I thought might be a similar situation recently with a leading woodworking supplier in the UK called Axminster. I basically had a bad experience and seeing as how the order was less then €30, I expected them to give the polite brush off at best. Instead they went the extra mile and made sure I was MORE than happy at their expense.
The lesson here is not the moral one that you should treat all people with a bit of respect but a business one. Rather then going elsewhere like I would have done had they not responded, I turned around and placed two more orders for €500. So although they may have lost on my first order, they most likely were able to get my lifelong business worth a hundred times any loss.
I know it is a cliche for most but the foundation of business is customer satisfaction. It is far cheaper then advertising (I didn’t mention how many times I have told people they are the place to go to), and the return on investment is higher then any other method.
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Posted by Jason on January 24th, 2008 — in Society
With the continued success of the Online Business Guide below, it has freed me up to take up a few old hobbies I didn’t have time for previously. The main one now is woodworking. I’ve been building my own furniture and also taking on some commision pieces for the fun of it (I don’t make anything on them but it helps me learn more and more).
The hardest part has actually been sourcing good quality timber in Ireland. B&Q (otherwise known as Home Depot in the US) only has pine and even the timber they do have is as crooked as a Worldcom executive. After a few weeks of research I was able to find 2 places in Ireland that fit my needs (straight good quality hardwood timber).
The first is actually a really cool place which I would use exclusively but its a 2 hour drive each way (ouch). It is called the Lisnavagh Project. Basically it was a family farm that looked to providing quality Irish hardwood locally. They have loads of different timbers and if you are worried about your carbon footprint, the trees are felled within Ireland (most times within the farm). I’m no environmentalist so I prefer it because it is really high quality timber. The downside is that it is truly rough sawn and you need to do a decent amount of work to get it to finished quality.
The second source is Strahan Timber. Although they are a more commercial operation and probably sell 100 pieces of pine to 1 hardwood, they are very nice and easy to deal with. I use them as more of a location solution as they are only 15-30 minutes from where I live. The timber is in reasonable shape considering it is American Oak (Any time you ship timber halfway around the world it distorts). A good run through the thicknesser and its ready to use.
If anyone has any other sources (Preffereably on the Northern side of Dublin or in Meath), feel free to post a comment.
By the way, the picture in the upper left is the last piece I completed. A commisioned entertainment center made from English Oak (Grown in Ireland) and finished with just a few coats of Danish Oil.
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Posted by Jason on March 27th, 2007 — in Online Business
If you have been reading up here at Off the Top of My Head, you will know that today was the official launch date of The Online Business Guide . In order to gauge interest, I decided to offer the product with an incentive over at the Digital Point Forums. This is now one of the biggest webmaster/SEO forums on the planet although certainly the biggest when it comes to its marketplace. Unlike some of the leaders in years past, they are free to both Buy and Sell which encourages a wide variety of offerings. It does mean sometimes sorting through less then stellar offers but there are so many gems out there, it is all worth it.
So back to the early launch. The interest was very high with just over 70 eBooks being snapped up, 186 free First Chapters going via email, and something like 8 pages of queries in less than 5 hours. This is the number sold and emailed before midnight as the books continued to fly out overnight. With all the feedback coming back resoundingly positive, I could not be happier. I really enjoyed this project and know that this is only the beggining. There is a great deal more marketing to do and I hope to extend the success of launch day far into the future.
Thanks to all the Off the Top of My Head readers and I promise more and more value to those who have “invested” in The Online Business Guide.
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