Why do the loudest complainers always get the best customer service?

Why isn’t that level of customer service just the norm.  A perfect example is the notorious Comcast – their general customer service absolutely sucks, but if you scream bloody murder on Twitter, they tend to act a little more quickly.  I guess what I’m suggesting is wouldn’t we all be a lot more satisfied as consumers if every company went the extra mile BEFORE we get all fired up?

What are your thoughts on customer service?

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Sears, however, I felt this was an opportunity I just couldn’t pass up.

I will be working with some pretty amazing people and really can’t wait to get started!

“Folks on social media want to talk to customer service and product experts not Marketers.”

Blanket statements like this drive me absolutely nutso.  The fact is, promotion finds it’s way into almost every facet of our lives, it goes where we are.  There’s no denying it, there’s no controlling it.  The best you can do is accept it and try to make it into something that people might be interested in.

To say that people participating in social networks don’t want to be promoted to may be true, but that’s like saying marketers shouldn’t be on TV because people only watch TV for information and entertainment.  What is TV like without promotion?  Look at CSPAN – have you ever watched CSPAN?!?!?  I would use public television as an example, but even public television has elements of promotion.

I think everything has to be balanced, the company I work for does a very good job of balancing promotion with entertainment, expertise and customer service.  I think a lot of companies struggle to find that balance.

The best advice I can give: keep it personal and transparent.

Over the course of the contest, I received more than 400 unique page views, I was retweeted more than 15 times, including by some contest specific accounts, the post was shared on Facebook a couple of times, it was even written about on other popular blogs.

I received 7 qualifying entries.

7 people took the time to sit down and write a quick letter about why they thought they deserved a more than $350 laptop.  I guess the reason I was so surprised by this response was because of the prize.  I’m not talking about a $50 gift card or something like that, we’re talking about a computer.

I’ve decided to forgo the voting process and just pick a winner myself.  I’m going to re-read all of the letters this week and select a winner no later than March 6th. The winner will be posted here – the only catch – I expect the winner to take a picture with their shiny new netbook when it arrives and email it to me.

This is a critical mission for the Hawaii wing, they are tasked with being ready to launch within 1 hour of being alerted and according to an article on the Civil Air Patrol media site, they were able to meet that goal.  Hawaii Wing Commander Col. Roger Caires said “I am proud of our members, they again met the standard of being ready to launch within one hour.”

Hawaii News Now posted this article with a really good video of Civil Air Patrol crews in action.

As more information comes in regarding the Civil Air Patrol response, I will keep you updated.

The first stop on our tour was the Command Post/Base Ops.  We had a chance to speak to Captain Kevin Thorsell who is assisting in what the Air Force calls “Stage Management”.  Stage Management coordinates the aircrews flying out, alerting them, briefing them and launching them.  Since the relief operations started, the team at Charleston has launched more than 140 missions.  This is above and beyond their normal ops tempo for OIF OEF.  The kinds of things they are moving range anywhere from water and MRE’s to vehicles and people, as the Captain said, “…That’s what the C-17 does, we carry everything.”  Charleston’s primary aircraft is the C-17, and currently they are operating 15 jets in support of relief operations – at the peak, they were flying 25 jets at one time.  Charleston aircrews aren’t the only ones flying these missions, because of the significant increase in ops tempo, AMC has brought in crews from all over the country, one of Capt Thorsell’s jobs is to ensure that those crews have everything they need, and are taken care of when it comes to some of the creature comforts.  A typical day in the life of an aircrew assisting in this operation begins with the alert, at that point they get rolling and have 3 hours and 45 minutes to be wheels up.  Once they’re alerted, they will typically prepare for the day, including getting whatever food they need – they’ll arrive at the Command Post and start receiving their mission briefs.  This includes an intel and tactics brief and flight planning, from there they “step to the jet” and take off.  A typical day can last up to 16 hours, but they can last as long as 20 hours.  Crews have to have at least 15 hours of rest time before they are “legal for bravo”, legal for “bravo” means that they can be alerted anytime in a 72 hours period for launch on their next mission.  A normal crew consists of 2 pilots and 1 loadmaster, because of the longer duration of these missions they’re using augmented crews which consist of 3 pilots, 2 loadmasters, possibly a crew chief, and 2 Phoenix Raven security forces airmen.

Our next stop was the Air Terminal Operations Center (ATOC), which is located above the Aerial Port.  The Aerial Port (AP) is the hub for all cargo in and out of Charleston AFB.  The AP is responsible for in processing all cargo, sorting it, palletizing it, load planning, and loading it onto the aircraft.  Master Sergeant Michael Davis is the superintendent of the ATOC – this includes the load planning section and the ATOC itself.  Once of the things I was most curious about was how significant was the increase in ops tempo was for the AP and how they’ve handled it.  MSgt Davis explained, that the ops tempo has “really increased in general with the Haiti relief”.  Because most of the cargo is being picked up at other bases, the role of the ATOC has primarily been one of crew logistics support, making sure they have all the supplies they need for the missions.  Charleston has sent cargo downrange to support the relief operations as well – they have sent everything from medical supplies to water.  In fact, the primary cargo they are transporting to Haiti right now is water.

Overall the impression I got of the operations out of Charleston was good, they are very well organized and are working hard to provide support to the people of Haiti.  This is a great example of the Air Forces ability to have global reach, a capability that I think is critical to maintaining our Air Superiority, whether that means supporting combat operations, or providing critical resources in times of disaster.

I leave you with a shot of water on pallets to illustrate the types of loads they’re moving out of here.

The EMEDS system can be delivered to a site in 2 C-17 aircraft and can be deployed in a very short time. Currently, the Air Force has deployed a number of medical resources including a number of EMEDS teams and as of Sunday, has also deployed an EMEDS-plus-10, which has a 10 holding bed capacity. The concept of the EMEDS is to flow patients through the system quickly for stabilization for evacuation. Within the week, they will upgrade that to an EMEDS-25 system in order to accommodate even more patients.

The Col also indicated that Air Force medical staff will be assisting on board the USS Comfort. I asked the Col if they would be sending any of their personnel to assist directly in any of the native Haitian hospitals, he said:

“At this point in time, we don’t have any plans to do that. That doesn’t mean that we will not be partnering with those folks, based upon wherever we decide to place those assets. And we could certainly be working very closely, hand-in-hand, and possibly, wherever we set up operations, in bringing some of the Haitian medical folks into our facility and working with them. Again, taking lessons learned from Indonesia, what you’re suggesting is exactly what we wound up doing in Indonesia. We set up that operation right next to an established hospital that was still functioning.”

I asked the Col where patients were being evacuated to, he said:

“In terms of where the patients are moving to, that has covered a number of locations. A couple of the patients were originally moved out to Guantánamo. There have been some patients that have moved back to Miami. The request from the government of Haiti was to actually try and build a bridge to Miami. That is being looked at as a capability and a destination right now. Some of that, of course, will certainly depend upon where our civilian medical systems will be able to accommodate the receipt of an influx of patients, if a large number of patients do begin to move.”

Photo provided by DefenseMilitary.mil.  US Air Force (USAF) Technical Sergeant (TSGT) Dewaine Olson (left foreground), Medic, 43rd Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron (AES), Pope Air Force Base (AFB), North Carolina (NC), and other 43rd AES personnel set-up their living area and work center at the Port-au-Prince International Airport (IAP), Port-au-Prince, Haiti (HTI), while participating in support of a multi-national peacekeeping operation.

The images captured by the Global Hawk are being compared to those captured during a bar camera mission that was executed this past June.  It’s important for aid workers on the ground to have relevant historical images to compare the current images to.  Most of the images captured yesterday were of what appear to be destroyed buildings.  The Col indicated that it’s difficult to see if some of the buildings in the images have been completely destroyed, even when comparing them to historical references.

The Global Hawk will launch again this morning and spend a total of 16 hours on station and will capture more than 1000 images of critical infrastructure.  The Col indicated that the use of Global Hawk in this manner is somewhat unprecedented, but the Air Force is committed to providing whatever resources are available and necessary to accomplish the mission.  The Col also mentioned that he assumed the Global Hawk would remain in it’s current role in Haiti until it was deemed no longer needed by the President.

As soon as the images captured by Global Hawk become available, I will post some of them here and post a link to the complete catalog.

UPDATE:
Here’s some of the first publicly available RQ-4 Images of Haiti:

An aerial view of earthquake victims gathering in a soccer field in Haiti from a U.S. Air Force Global Hawk unmanned aircraft Jan. 14. Aerial images are providing U.S. military planners valuable situation awareness as they coordinate U.S. military support to the Haiti relief effort. (Release by U.S. Southern Command)

An aerial view of the damaged National Cathedral in Haiti from a U.S. Air Force Global Hawk unmanned aircraft Jan. 14. Aerial images are providing U.S. military planners valuable situation awareness as they coordinate U.S. military support to the Haiti relief effort. (Release by U.S. Southern Command)

An aerial view of the damaged Presidential Palace in Haiti from a U.S. Air Force Global Hawk unmanned aircraft Jan. 14. Aerial images are providing U.S. military planners valuable situation awareness as they coordinate U.S. military support to the Haiti relief effort. (Release by U.S. Southern Command)

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Any Future images can be found on the SOUTHCOM website in the photo gallery.

Another critical part of the overall relief effort is the transportation of all of the items necessary to support the ongoing relief operations.  Air Force Air Mobility Command is currently providing several of its C-17 and C-130 aircraft along with a number of its personnel to support this mission.  You can read all about the full effort of AMC and the 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center here.

Some other missions include:

• Deployment of Special Operations C-130′s
• Deployment of Special Operations Airman from Hulburt Field in Florida
• Deployment of C-17 aircraft from California

I’m currently working with AMC to see if I can get myself on a flight down there to cover the response first hand.  I will keep you updated as to my progress.  Also, for the latest updates on the USAF efforts to support the relief operation, I would follow @USAFPressDesk on Twitter.