By JoJo Tabares

“I am tired of YOU PEOPLE sending me this dumb invoice every month!” Sounds pretty scary, doesn’t it? You may be thinking…He sounds angry and I don’t like talking to angry people.

Well, would you believe me if I told you that you could learn some techniques that would turn this person in to a happy customer? It’s true!

Many times what an angry person really wants is someone who will listen and do their best to help. They don’t necessarily need someone to say the “right thing” or someone who will “solve all their problems”. They just need you to listen and do your level best to help them get what they feel they deserve.

Now we interrupt this communication advice for a message from reality: *BIG DISCLAIMER* Nothing in communicating with human beings is certain because every person is different and their moods change from day to day or even minute by minute.

Nothing works 100% of the time, but these tips will help you increase your chances of creating a connection with this person and enable him walk away feeling that you honestly did you utmost to help him!

1. Don’t take it personally.

Understand that most angry customers aren’t angry with you personally, but rather with the situation in which they currently find themselves. They may be frustrated and, until you hear them out, you have no idea why.

2. Let them vent.

Part of being good at customer service is letting the customer feel that he has the floor. Let him tell you the entire story. Take notes if it is long or involved. Only after the customer has felt like he has said his peace should you attempt to solve his problem. Make sure you are actively listening to what he is saying and what he is not saying. Sometimes you can tell more about what would satisfy a customer by paying attention to what your customer didn’t say or by the nonverbal cues your customer gives out -than you can by the words he chooses.

3. Ask for clarification if there is something that you do not understand.

Better to ask what may seem like a dumb question then to start off on the wrong path to solve his problem. If you begin by answering a question he didn’t ask, the anger will only intensify. Make sure you know what it is that happened and perhaps what he wants done about it before you begin.

Microsoft has this vision for the next big thing. To enable that vision, the supportive framework called “Windows Azure”, an operating system “for the next 50 years” — according to Microsoft when they introduced it back in October, 2008 — is being created. It is a pervasive tool that Microsoft hopes will be world-wide within a few years. They are already rolling out trial runs in Ethiopia to school-children.

With Windows Azure, Microsoft is building not only a software platform to allow rapid up/down scaling based on instantaneous global load and need, but also a hardware platform on which to run those software services. Microsoft will be guaranteeing to customers this ability to scale up and down almost immediately through the use of equipment they will own and operate.

From your point of view (as a business owner, government, or an individual with a website), the .NET code you write will be written wherever (possibly on a local machine, possibly also on a development area “sand box” in the cloud), then executed live on Microsoft’s servers. Once tested and debugged, it will be deployed and made accessible to whomever wants to use it across the entire globe, just like the Internet today. The only difference will be, all data and traffic will be handled by Microsoft, stored on their hard drives, and all traffic in and out of your website or business database will be accessible to Microsoft as it will be routed through their Internet backbone.

One Purpose: Control

In short, everything about your website, business or governmental use, including not only its transactions, but also trends, will have been handed over to Microsoft. The full details of what code was running at what time will also be visible to Microsoft. And everything that is of any part of your data interests can be mined behind the scenes, without anyone ever knowing when it was mined, how often it was mined, or for what purposes it was mined.

Microsoft is building a shield of invisibility which could provide them and their agents with unlimited, anytime access to your data. Microsoft will also know what custom code you’ve developed, when various algorithms are running, how often you update your site, how good your developers are, and of course there will be the constant threat of repeated, anytime access available for analyzing your data, your business, your government, its revenue potential, growth patterns, what the customers or citizens are viewing, buying, searching, and everything else.

Microsoft will offer these totally scalable resources for a fee, and it will be a fee commensurate with a modest savings over running the Internet server equipment yourself. A company or government will actually save money compared to “going it alone” and running their own server system. And this will be its appeal. But we must never lose sight of the real goals here for Microsoft. While they do want to make money, it’s really the control which comes from having full, unfettered access to your data and information they’re after. The irony is, you’ll be paying Microsoft to have total access to your data.

Ask This Question

If you think this isn’t the case, ask yourself this: Would you allow Microsoft to have full access to your hard drive today? Would you allow them access whenever they wanted to examine your data, your site logs, your comments, posts, or whatever other things you do each day with your computer? Would you install a software program which allows them to, through the Internet, come into your machine today and do an inventory whenever they wanted to? Then why would you allow them to do it with Windows Azure, their global operating system?

While outwardly this design may seem to be of great benefit to companies in terms of cost savings, having scalability and the full support of Microsoft’s development resources behind you, the reality is it’s the first step down the road toward a total lack of control over not only business data, but also potentially your very business, your assets, your freedom, and so much more.

I realize at this point many people are going to jump on the “Rick, this view is extreme” bandwagon. That’s fine. This is an opinion piece, and I am going to lay my cards on the table. I want this to be perfectly clear to everybody. And if I’m wrong in my views, then I welcome open debate. I will take a rebuke. I will stand up front and center and say I’m wrong. But if I’m right, and nobody else is warning you about this… then you owe it to yourself to distribute this opinion.

The Bottom Line

With Windows Azure, Microsoft is building a system which will allow them to monitor every user, every business, every user transaction, (etc.), and all of it in near real-time (and likely in 100% real-time within a few years, once some more of the hardware infrastructure is put into place).

Think about what this could extend to. When you boil everything else away, Microsoft is building a system capable of monitoring not only businesses, but individual user transactions, and ultimately in real-time (probably by the year 2020). This system currently under construction will facilitate the very ability to shut people completely out of the system should they choose to do so — a type of instant “freezing somebody’s assets” so they can neither buy or sell anything that’s part of this global cloud business model. And with what Microsoft is providing to companies in terms of abilities and savings, there will be very few people who are willing to deny themselves access to that profit potential.

Microsoft has promised Windows Azure will be the operating system for the next 50 years. If you think about Microsoft’s track record, how many Microsoft products have you known that have a goal of a lifespan of 50 years? We do not even get full Office compatibility across versions. And Windows XP software compatibility today is lost in Windows 7 unless you buy a more expensive model, and that’s an OS that came out earlier this very decade.

Danger Ahead

Microsoft’s goals here are not lofty.  They’re not visionary. They’re not even helpful. And they’re not good for business — though from the outside it may appear to be all of that and more. What we are seeing here is the significant threat to our data, and possibly, by extension, us. It’s a mechanism to control every aspect of our daily businesses, governments, and personal communications. We are seeing the creation of an ability to monitor everything, everywhere, simultaneously through distributed processing abilities and a top-down control network, all being directed from Redmond, WA.

With mobile devices evolving today as rapidly as they are, it won’t be long until in such a connected society, nothing will be outside the scope of this system being created. And once it’s entrenched, how much of our sovereign nature will we have lost?

Its appeal will be earnings potential through a wider cloud-enabled business. And for many it will seem a perfectly logic step to walk down that path, a sensible means to grow their business. But it will be a path that leads to their own (and our own) destruction. Look at what history has shown us: Every time an opportunity for new power come into play, wars have broken out because of it. And this coming war will be unlike any other because it will not be an attack with guns, knives, bows and arrows, or even nuclear warheads. This one will enslave all of us into the system through its wonderful traits and abilities, while simultaneously affording Microsoft, with the flip of a switch, to shut out people. Or entire families. Or groups. Or towns. Or states. Or even countries.

Take Heed

I advise everybody who reads this article to exert whatever influence you have over your family’s, company’s and government’s buying practices, and resist any attempt to buy into Microsoft’s Windows Azure, or any other form of cloud-based models offered by Google, IBM or other software giant. They are only after one thing: Everything. And if we allow this to happen, it will be the seal on our own fate we are signing. And we definitely do not want that.

Alternatives, Such As Opera Unite

And note also, for an alternative to this Microsoft-controlled cloud-computing future, that companies like Opera are creating their Opera Unite, which will be a native feature of Opera 10 due out later this year. It’s a system similar to cloud-computing, but one which operates on a person-by-person basis, allowing all of us to have our own website through the regular Internet simply by being online and using the Opera web browser (no complex servers to setup or maintain). We are responsible for storing and maintaining our data, not some remote, corporate system. And I have no doubts other similar efforts will follow.

I advise everybody to encourage those kinds of efforts, and not a centralized, running-on-corporate-owned-servers model. Your grandchildren will thank you for it.

Angry Customer

Ten powerful steps to diffuse angry customers,
address the issues and sustain customer loyalty

by John Mehrmann

1. Assume that the Customer has a Right to be Angry
Nobody makes mistakes on purpose, but they do happen. If you are working in a call center, behind a counter or in any capacity that directly interfaces with customers then you are going to encounter an irate customer at some time. The most common response is to evaluate the merit of the complaint while your are listening to it. Try to curb that common response and replace it with the assumption that the customer has a right to be angry, even before you know the details.

Perhaps the customer feels betrayed because the product or services did not meet expectations. The customer may be angry because he or she made incorrect assumptions that led to improper expectations. The customer may be angry because of previous experiences, previous contacts with your company or simply because the problem occurred at a very inconvenient time in the customer schedule. Regardless of the circumstances, acknowledge the customer has the privilege to be irate. Listen carefully to how the anger is expressed so you can find the root cause of the emotion.

2. Listen to Emotion without Emotion
Listen to the inflections and emphasis that the customer places on specific topics to identify the emotional catalyst. Listen to the emotion as well as the words. This will help you to identify the specific item or items that need primary attention. Resolving a technical issue may be only partially effective if it does not also address the customer emotional concerns. It may not be possible to completely resolve the emotional distress, but it is appropriate to acknowledge it.

Imagine that a customer experienced a technical malfunction when downloading digital images of a special event, wedding or family vacation. The technical issue may be related to hardware or software, but the emotional distress is related to the risk of losing precious memories. While it is necessary to correct the technical issue, it is also appropriate to acknowledge the risks that create the emotional response. Try to preserve the precious memories or at least explain why they can not be retrieved, but do not ignore the emotional catalyst.

Do not respond with emotion. Remember that the customer anger is not directed at you personally, even if the customer language is directed at you. If the customer language is attacking and borderline abusive, it is because the customer is looking for acknowledgement and response to the emotional distress as well as the technical or administrative issues. It may be necessary to repeatedly acknowledge the customer emotion to diffuse the situation and reassure the customer that you are attentive to the importance of the emotional distress as well as the technical issue.

3. Be Patient
Customer conversations come in waves. When the customer is at the peak of expressing anger, sorrow or distress, be patient and listen. It is not effective to interrupt the customer when he or she is venting combustible sentiments. It is like pouring gasoline on a raging fire. Rather, wait for the waves of emotion to recede and then use that opportunity to interject with reassuring comments.

Sometime the customer anger will erupt and return like another set of waves. When that happens, be patient and wait for the customer to run out of gas before you approach the fire again. Reiterate your compassion, acknowledge the customer right to be angry and the catalyst for the emotional distress. Takes quiet deep breaths and wait patiently for your turn to speak.

4. Speak Softly
If you encounter a loud and abusive customer, respond by speaking softly and with a very steady tone. If you try to shout over the customer or interrupt, then the customer will concentrate on the verbal battle for attention and will not pay attention to the importance of your message. If you want your message to be heard, wait for a pause in the customer tirade. Silence is your golden cue that it is time to speak your important message in a soft voice. Eventually the customer will have to lower his or her voice to hear what you are saying.

Even though it may seem that the customer does not care about what you have to say at first, remember that the customer approached you for resolution. The customer may have built up a considerable amount of emotion before reaching you, but ultimately the customer does want your advice and assistance to resolve the problem. Once the customer remembers why he or she contacted you, the customer will be receptive to your soft spoken conversation.

5. Reiterate
Make sure that you are addressing the technical, administrative and emotional aspects of the customer concerns. After you have listened carefully to the customer, reiterate the priorities that you believe that you heard from the customer perspective. This will assure that you are focused on the appropriate issues and reassure the customer that you are concentrating on the proper priorities.

Use a soft, firm and inquisitive voice. Ask the customer to confirm that you have restated the facts and priorities accurately, then write them down.

6. Own the Problem
It does not matter who created the problem or what transpired before the customer got to you. Tell the customer that you own the problem and will apply your personal effort to achieve results.

Sometimes it may be tempting to distance yourself from the problem by stating that you are not responsible for it, that another department will need to handle it, or that you are just a messenger. Put that temptation in a can and put a lid on it. Expressing that you do not have ownership of the problem or the potential resolution gives the customer a feeling of being adrift and powerless. if the customer senses that he or she is communicating with someone who is powerless, it will create yet another reason to be frustrated and angry.

Even if you do need to work with other departments, get manager approval or coordinate some other type of response, inform the customer that you will personally take the matter into your own hands and follow-up on the issues. The customer does not know your company, your policies or your procedures. The customer will never be able to navigate the requirements, restrictions or resolution with the same knowledge and experience as you. Reassure the customer that you will use your knowledge and experience to coordinate the best possible resolution, even if you need to get the assistance of other parties to achieve it.

7. Place the Customer First, Problem Second
In most cases there are two conflicting issues that occur simultaneously when dealing with irate customers. There first issue is the customer emotional distress. The second is the technical or administrative issue that caused the emotional distress. While it may seem logical to focus first on the technical or administrative issue that cause the emotional distress, it is important to acknowledge the customer anger first and the technical issue second.

Resolving the technical issue may or may not fully resolve the root cause of the customer distress. Acknowledge the customer concerns first and try to calm down the customer enough to help you concentrate on the technical or administrative problems. Sometimes the technical problem may require much more attention because it may impact other customers. Acknowledge the individual customer emotion first, resolve the specific customer technical issue second and reserve addressing any bigger issues as independent activity.

8. Triage
Once you have an opportunity to focus on technical and administrative issues, triage the root cause of the problems to determine what went wrong. Analyze the problem and provide corrective measures or detailed information in an effort to avoid duplicating the problem with other customers. It may be necessary to obtain some additional information from your customer to accurately analyze the root cause of the problem.

9. Correct the Issue
Correct the issue for the specific customer and also look for long term corrective measures. It may not be feasible to give your customer a guarantee that the correction will resolve all problems permanently, but it may be appropriate to reassure the customer that you will be available to assist in the event that another different problem should occur again. Demonstrate your confidence that this specific problem is resolved and is not expected to reoccur. Demonstrate your attention to the specific customer by reiterating original concerns and actions that you took to correct the issue.

10. Follow Up
When possible, follow-up with the customer after sufficient time has elapsed to demonstrate that the corrective action has been effective. A phone call or a personalized postcard demonstrates individual attention and acknowledgement. Demonstrating compassion and attentiveness thirty days after a problem has been resolved is a powerful message to show that you really do care about the individual customer. This follow-up after the anger has subsided and the corrective action has been demonstrated as effective may be enough to retain loyal customers and earn a few new ones.

Words of Wisdom

“You can’t teach someone to care.”
- Art Sakaguchi

“The crisis of yesterday is the joke of tomorrow.”
- H G Wells

“Speak when you are angry and you’ll give the best speech that you will ever regret.”
- Lawrence J Peter

Linus Torvalds and the Panel

The panel was a distinguished group: Jeremy Allison, one of the lead Samba developers; Larry Augustin, founder of VA Research and member of the Linux International Board of Directors; Robert Hart, from Red Hat Software; Sunil Saxena, from Intel’s UNIX Performance Lab; and, of course, The Man himself, Linus Torvalds. (While I know there are a lot of Linux fans who like to pronounce “Linux” with a long “i” sound (LYE-nucks), and despite the fact that Linus himself doesn’t care how anyone else pronounces it, he unquestionably did so with a short “i” as in “linen” (LINN-ucks). In Swedish he presumably still pronounces it the third way, roughly “LEE-nooks.”) The discussion was moderated by Michael Masterson of Taos, who traded off questioning duties with Phil Hughes, all-around hairy guy and publisher of Linux Journal.

Linus Torvalds responds to a question from the audience. Ben Spade, president of the Silicon Valley Linux User Group, serves as microphone wrangler.

I did not have a tape recorder, so answers are paraphrases of what was actually said. [Comments in square brackets are my personal asides.]

Prepared Question #2

Where will Linux be in two to three years?

Sunil Saxena: “It’s all on my foil right here.” Among Internets/Intranets/ISPs, Linux will continue to grow, especially in corporate America; we’ll see continued adoption.

There will be new growth in the areas of E-commerce and business-to-business Internet EDI (electronic data interchange).

It will start showing up in all sorts of Internet appliances, including wearable computers, video-conferencing systems, etc.

We’ll see 64-bit Linux on the IA-64 (Merced).

Linux will move into the data center via high-availability clusters and 16- to 32-way SMP systems.

Other spiffy features like I2O, hot swap, serial-based server management and control, etc., will be supported.

Linux developers will be granted early access and increased access to specs and Intel engineers.

“Please come talk to us and tell us what we can do.”

Larry Augustin: One big prediction: kernel 2.2 will be released within three years (“and that’s pushing it”). [much laughter]

He also took the opportunity to thank Leonard Zubkoff for the four-way Xeon port being demoed by VA Research in the rear. Apparently he modified (added?) 20 lines of code at the last minute without even having all of the source there.

Robert Hart: Two to three years is an eternity for Linux—even a week is a long time.

People are lazy, and laziness leads to creativity, which means great improvements for Linux.

He again noted that it’s the only non-MS operating system to gain market share and that it’s being actively courted by large vendors such as Intel. He also noted that it’s generating strong media interest, and not only that, but the reporting is generally both accurate and useful. (He thanked the representatives of the press in the audience.)

All photographs used with this article are by Jim Howell, courtesy of Taos Mountain.

There will be a strong showing of easy-to-use applications.

Linux will be the dominant server platform, not just on Intel but across all platforms. I believe he mentioned “64-bit, 4-way Merced,” too.

He mentioned that it was Bastille Day and recalled how, in 1788 and 1789, the people rose up and stormed the IT department and gave freedom to oppressed machines. “They even executed some people.” But he disputed his own comparison and said that Linux isn’t so much a revolution as an evolution; it didn’t happen just once.

He concluded by predicting that in two to three years, Linux will be “very nearly everywhere”.

Linus Torvalds: “I’m really bad at predictions.” For example, a few years ago when he was asked about SMP support, his reaction was, “I don’t know, it’s too expensive”; he said he didn’t care much about it and didn’t find it interesting. But for the last year he’s worked almost exclusively on SMP.

2.2 will be out by then. [much more laughter]

The kernel is really just a vessel for what one can do; he claimed that it was inappropriate to ask him such a question—“what’s really exciting is applications” (and the journaling file system is “slightly exciting”).

Servers will be big. [Do we sense a theme here?]

The interesting part will be “pretty” applications that traditionally haven’t been UNIX-based.

Jeremy Allison: He used to keep track of every minor release of every piece of free software; these days, no one can do so for even 10% of it, and there will be some incredibly cool things in that other 90%.

Linux will be a “killer server platform.”

Everyone at Cisco Systems uses Linux every time they print, whether they know it or not. [See the c.o.l.a announcement for details about the printer-administration tool used at Cisco, and the article about Cisco in this issue.]

At least one major PC vendor will start shipping PCs with Linux pre-installed. (If not, Robert will start such a company.)

With regard to applications, vendors are already “not as greedy” as they’ve traditionally been on UNIX systems; Linux applications are priced similarly to Wintel applications, not five times more. Linux will be on the desktop, and one will be able to buy almost any application for Linux.

Again, he predicted that Linux will be installed on 20% to 25% of shipping Intel systems.

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