Encouraging designs and strategies that matter to consumers

Subscribe To My Feed
 

Read More On

Read my blog on Kindle

Filter My Posts

     

My QR Code

Vodpod

Watch videos at Vodpod and more of my videos

Discover More

 

 

 

Videos


Visit Society of Digital Agencies

Great Products Tell Stories

   

Favorite Reads
What I believe



Thanks to Jessica Hagy from moo.com

Saturday
Aug282010

Navigating Your Airport Experience

With fewer direct flights, weather delays, and long security lines, there are more chances than ever that you’ll find yourself with time to kill in an unfamiliar airport. The boredom of waiting will inevitably lead you to twiddle your thumbs on your smartphone. If you're not texting—or triaging your inboxyou could be using the new FLYsmart app for Android and iPhone to look for the closest newsstand, restroom, souvenir shop or ATM.

FLYsmart is the result of a partnership between outdoor advertising giant ClearChannel Outdoor, and Geodelic (a client of Waldo Finn, a company which employees this author), a mobile, location-specific media platform powered by a network of informative and relevant guides to local attractions, businesses and services.

FLYsmart customers will also be able to linger in a bar or bookstore longer - and with less stress - because they can check arrival and departure times right from their smartphones, instead of running out to the concourse to check the displays.

"By combining Clear Channel's enormous airport footprint with the simplicity of Geodelic's mobile experience, we can provide consumers with a new level of convenience that comes from having personalized and relevant location-specific information at your fingertips," said Rahul Sonnad, founder and CEO of Geodelic. Sonnad says the app will be available for Blackberry in the near future, as well.

Location-based marketing is a growing category for businesses looking to maintain traffic into physical locations, like retail stores, restaurants, and tourist attractions. Companies like Gowalla and Foursquare have popularized "check ins", while social networking behemoth Facebook has just launched Places, a feature for connecting  with friends based on their location.

 The FLYsmart application takes a different approach, providing location-specific services and information to improve a transient customer's experience through an airport terminal.

“Airports are always looking to improve the traveler experience and find new ways to garner the attention of transient passengers in promoting food, retail and advertising sales,” commented Toby Sturek, President of Clear Channel Airports. “FLYsmart will do all that in the most relevant, convenient and contemporary way.”

The FLYsmart app will initially be launched in ten of North America’s largest airports including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Philadelphia, Phoenix San Francisco and Seattle. New airports will be added each week.

I used the app the first day it launched, on my travels from Seattle to Los Angeles. The app was very helpful in keeping me informed about flight departure times for my home airport. Although the Los Angeles Airport guide hadn't yet launched, I could still see relevant local information for my stay in Los Angeles through the Geodelic national directory, that comes with every FLYSmart app.

Thursday
Aug192010

Who Writes Write The Company?

I ran across Write The Company on Twitter through a shared interest in how companies engage with consumers. (And, as you can tell, I am a sucker for a great writer of alliterations.) Here's a brief description of this talented writer, who "covers" an area close to my heart with the humor and irony it deserves.

"A candid collection of crazy correspondence containing comments, complaints, criticisms, critiques and confessions that categorically captures and conveys the confusion, complications, curiosities, compliments and consequences consumers and customers constructively confront, creatively contemplate and/or continuously consider. Comprende?"

I asked the author of this creative, anonymous blog to come out from behind the curtain, and share a little insight about what type of consumer he is. In a nod to my Vanity Fair subscription, what follows is my personal hybrid version of the Proust and George Wayne interview with Write The Company.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Uncertainty. Like when my mom said she’d like to have me DNA tested.

What is your favorite place to shop?

  The Red Light District in Amsterdam, but my wife only lets me window shop.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Co-ed mud wrestling.

What consistent faults do you see in companies to whom you feel compelled to write?

Companies need to stop referring to consumers and customers as their “Target Market.” Targets are things you fire at, attack, hit and try to destroy. That alone makes me want to take aim at them.

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

Hester Prynne definitely tops the list. I’ve written hundreds of letters and she was able to take one single Scarlet Letter and turn it into a book and movie deal.

Who are your favorite characters in history?

Groucho, Chico, Harpo and sometimes Karl.

What phrase do you most hate to hear from a customer service representative?

“That’s our policy.” To me, that translates to: Nah-nah nah-nah-nah!

The quality you most admire in the person who replies for the company?

That he or she passed a background check and drug testing. You always want your inquiries handled by people with no rap sheet or traces of drugs in their urine.

What do you value most from the companies that respond?

The fact that they did respond. Too many don’t. Maybe they’re afraid some lunatic is going to post what they say online. 

What is your favorite kind of product to complain about?

Any product that comes with a technical support number. I consider it a pre-warning. As soon as I see it I assign a speed dial number.

If you weren’t using all your free time writing to companies, what would you be doing in your spare time?

Free time isn’t productive so I don’t believe in it. Even with the time I spend writing letters I invoice myself and then question the charges. Too much of my time is already devoted to banging uncooperative electronic equipment repeatedly with a Ball Pein Hammer. Any spare time beyond that is spent doing stuff like flossing and catching up on which celebrities and athletes are heading to rehab or jail.

Saturday
Aug072010

More Mashup Momentum

The trend in mashups only seems to have picked up steam. Got this tip on  one of my favorites from Cool Hunting: Kanye West has close to a half million followers on Twitter, hanging onto every ridiculous Tweet. Inspired by his words, musical comedic group Paul and Storm had the idea to mash-up Kanye's Tweets with classic New Yorker cartoons, resulting in a genius collection of newfangled cartoons found on the website #kanyenewyorkertweets.

Via Coolhunting.com

Saturday
Aug072010

Private Beta Invitation For Gearhead Gal's Friends

Get an invite-only first look at a cool mobile location app!

My friends at Geodelic are launching the private beta of their GeoGuide product and you can help out by creating your very own personal city guide. And by participating in this beta, you can also enter to win a new iPad. I have already created mine, Gearheadgal's Diners & Dives, my homage to Guy's Triple D on the Food Network. No doubt you'll have your own ideas! Got favorite places to take your dogs for a hike? Know the finest flea markets? Have fun finding your inspiration, but hurry, the contest ends in a few weeks.  Click here now and submit your idea so you can build a guide that might win you your very own new iPad!

Saturday
Aug072010

Rickrolling and The You Tube Phenomenon

Online Schools
Via: Online School

Saturday
Jul242010

Materials, Meaning, and Mistura

 

Mistura watches are made with materials that derive from the South American tropics. But they also send a message of meaning about sustainability and craftsmanship.  Created from Bamboo, Macana, Coconut skin, Carreto, Guayacan and Nazarene woods, these watches first require each designer to use a specific technique of preservation and a way of cutting the material that reminds the wearer how valuable time is. Mistura Designs

One of the founders, Daniel Schemel, whom I met at an arts festival, described how woods like Bamboo and Macana must be cut after 5:00 pm and before 5:00 am on moon’s last quarter night making sure that the circulating liquids in the main tree limbs are resting down in the roots. Using this particular night to cut the wood, he claims, helps to void cracks during the drying process that takes exactly 6 months. It's only then, his story goes, that designers start their creations.

The watches are made with a soft leather band, punched with large holes, which make it easy to use the oversized wooden clasp to secure them comfortably. The combinations of wood - teak and purple heart, for example - set against turquoise and white crackled straps are eye-catching. And the Japanese watch movement the artists use helps keeps them affordable. Ironically, the natural materials make them even more susceptible to the elements, especially heat and humidity that can change the shape and color of the wood and leather. Every piece merges art and nature as part of its lifecycle.

I have often said that every product has a story, and the man from Mistura surely had an interesting one to tell. You can buy these watches directly from their website http://www.misturadesigns.com/ or you can follow them on Facebook to find the next summer arts festival where they are appearing.

Monday
Jul192010

A New Breed Of Customer Experience "Hosts"

When service is your product, customer loyalty can be a direct function of your employees' satisfaction with their job. Every employee knows that feeling empowered to do the "right thing" is not always as easy as it sounds. Management teams often post policies to organize and coordinate the activities of front line service employees who operate in the field and interact directly with customers. Believing that one rotten barrel can destroy the whole bunch, executives will bias towards reducing the amount of decision-making a service representative has to do in order to ensure a consistent "experience" for all customers with their brand.

But what happens when employees understand that service IS the product because management gives them tools and decision rights to actually solve customer problems and, in fact, prevent them? Employees of two service brands, The Morgan Hotels Group and Virgin America, represent the new paradigm of customer experience owners, employees who feel more like "hosts" not "agents."

The Free Online Dictionary defines a host as "one who receives or entertains guests in a social or official capacity." In personal social activities, we have no problem seeing hosts as people who treat visitors graciously and are aware of their guests' needs, making sure that they are comfortable and feel welcomed, not just when it comes time to say "please come again."

Flight attendants on Virgin America are called "teammates" and flyers are "guests." That mental model informs each employee how to treat a visitor who enters via the jetway and spends time in their day traveling via the airline. For Morgan Hotels, guests who take the time to complete a marketing survey after the visit are rewarded by a personal note from a Customer Experience Manager who addresses the guest's specific feedback, if the guest opts to invite the hotel to contact them. That person is prepared to continue the dialogue with the guest to ensure the guest feels appreciated for providing the insight on their own time about their interactions and stay with the hotel.

Social graces seemed to have disappeared with the appearance of the socially acceptable practice of anonymously posting nasty comments about online content or marketing material. It's always been easy to criticize the host who doesn't get it right - who makes us feel unwanted and underappreciated. But those are also usually the people who don't treat us as if they are entertaining or engaging us either personally and professionally as a host.

 

Saturday
Jul102010

Corporate Amnesia, Accountability And Service

Should you take out your frustration about a business' failure to deliver service on its employees? I was debating this point today, after the umpteenth time of waiting in a four hour window for the Broadstripe cable company to send a repair man to our house in order to receive HD channels consistently using our TiVo DVRs.  My husband, who is Canadian and who hates to make waves, was clearly on the side of cutting the repairman slack today.  But I only saw another singer in the continuing chorus of Broadstripe employees who think they are problem solvers when they are actually key actors in our ongoing nightmare.  Why are my glasses so soot colored? Because each person who comes to our door optimistic that they can do what others before them haven't does so by assuring us they aren't interested in the past, only in the future.

Sure, it's an easy argument to make that the last guy was incompetent, but the history of continued failure to solve problems is something no single employee wants to own. In fact, the last senior executive of our region who told us he wasn't responsible for the past and "only the future" no longer works at the company.  Consequently, our past conversations and credit promises have also evaporated with him. This provided a helpful cue for the musical refrain sung by Jeff, the repairman who showed up today. "I can't tell you what he promised because he doesn't work here any more, I can only look forward at fixing your problems." Company amnesia about our ongoing record of miserable service appears rampant.

Lack of customer memory also has dramatically degraded the company's troubleshooting ability, and that contributes to our long record of service calls. Rather than tracking past work, and using that to narrow the problem set, the care, repair service and network engineering employees each start from ground zero, which further compounds the problem because no one seems to be keeping a big picture view. Over time, we have been told during different service visits that the repair will require the person to remove switches in our wired network closet, remove several of our DVRs from the network, remove and replace the cable card from the TiVo, replace the underground cable to our house, tune the signal at the junction box at our house, and a few more things I can't even remember.

It seems I am in good company, though, because it appears they can't remember much either. Today's supervisor was unable to even find our TiVo cable cards registered with the service system, despite the fact that the repairmen have been to our house more than a handful of times to address our lack of HD service. "I'm surprised you get any service at all," she commented. What then does she think they have been coming to our house to address all those blocks of time we had to be home when they booked an "appointment?"

Real problem solving only emerges from sourcing the collective tribal knowledge a company has about a customer and their service history. When a company has only short term memory, employees can't do their job. But when multiple employees espouse short term memory as their service "opportunity", beware - you are probably not going to really feel well serviced in the long run.

 

Friday
Jul022010

Favorite Tweets Of The Day

RT@saschasegan: More sad, bad tales of KIN: http://bit.ly/dvjrX9 and http://bit.ly/bOcII3” MSFT took the Sidekick down with it. Strange trip.

Hilarious @CraigyFerg "a magazine is like a paper-y blog." They came before there was AOL.

Wednesday
Jun232010

Will Consumers Be Better Than Broadcasters At Programming Online Video?

First published on Technorati June 22, 2010

Most days, the average Internet user curates a flood of content from multiple destinations into a patchwork of information, updates and insights that help them stay connected. It’s a lot of work to hunt, gather, personalize and sample all the content available, and even more if you are part of the growing percentage of consumers interested in watching video. Tubemogul reports Web media brands posted 326 million video streams in the first quarter of this year, which is an increase of more than 300 percent compared to Q1 of 2009, and does not include all the user generated content uploaded to photo and video sharing sites.

“Some times you just want to push play, and see what’s on,” said Blair Harrison, CEO of Frequency, a real time video site that lets you lean back and watch samples of video playing continuously from all over the Internet. “But with so much video coming online each hour, there really is no way for a consumer to get a sample of what’s playing on the web” Harrison contends that consuming video on the web has become a laborious and disjointed experience, forcing people who want to enjoy rich media online to jump from link to link, collecting clips or navigating between embedded players and web pages just to sample video content.

Launched earlier this month by Harrison, the former CEO of IFILM, which sold to Viacom for $49 Million in 2005, Frequency aims to make it easy for anyone to quickly scan and tune into what’s playing online at any time. He brought together a crew of experienced digital media engineers from that company, and built a platform that offers content publishers a promotional engine for long form video clips. Frequency’s tools create a continuous stream of previews, auto-generated in different bitrates, from feeds aggregated by the company’s platform. Users navigate the clips which play like previews of coming attractions, touting the longer version on the publisher’s website.

When consumers enter the Frequency site, there is always something playing. Like a stream of 140 character headlines on Twitter, the Frequency player cycles through fifteen-second clips from across the web, categorized by topic and source. If you want to learn more on a topic, simply pick a tag, and the player pivots to play previews that share that term in common. If you like to follow a particular publisher or collector of videos, you can create a personalized channel that just tunes into their “frequency”, or channel of auto-play clips.

“There are over 200,000 video clips being posted to the web every hour,” said Harrison. “We want to make it simple for anyone to quickly discover and watch what is appealing to them at any particular moment they’re looking to tune in. “

Frequency is a privately funded, early stage video network, and is also client of Waldo Finn, LLC, a business and strategy consulting firm, which employs the author of this post.

Saturday
Jun192010

What Makes The Product Guy Tick?

In my travels around the Twitterverse, I was lucky to meet Jeremy Horn, who has branded himself The Product Guy. Jeremy writes an informative blog about designing products, the people behind them and the trends they represent. His domain runs the gamut from Modular Innovation to User Experience. I've enjoyed reading his posts, and thought you all might enjoy meeting him, too.

You call yourself the “The Product Guy”.  How would you describe what kind of product guy you are?

As “The Product Guy” I work with startups, small and medium sized organizations in Product Strategy, Product Management, User Experience, and Technology Strategy.  I am the kind that understands both the high- and low- level details across all areas of an organization, from Design to Marketing to Technology to Business.  As The Product Guy I enjoy diving into products both on and offline, understanding how they work from as many angles as possible, exploring and sharing how I might do them better.

What do you think makes the difference between a good product and a great product?

There are many good ideas, unique business models, and innovations that are or could be great products.  What’s more important than the idea is the successful execution of that idea to product realization. To that end, what makes the dfference between a good and great product is the product person (team) behind it.

Give us the value proposition of The Product Guy?

The value proposition of The Product Guy lies in the unification of the key disciplines that make companies successful, coalescing product vision, and identifying the right ‘next steps’ in-sync with the long-term product strategies -- whether for a client, or in an article exploring a variety of products and trends. 

Put more succinctly, The Product Guy helps companies figure out the right things to focus on and when to focus on them.

What is the best advice you have given to people just starting out?

FOCUS & ACT

What is the best advice you ever received when you were starting out?

Pick something, one thing, and strive to be the best you can be at it.  In that, I strive to improve and broaden my skills everyday as a creator, innovator and enhancer of products.

Please explain Modular Innovation.

Modular Innovation (MI) is all about relationships, be they between people or products online. In looking at how these relationships are established, maintained, enhanced, and expanded, one can achieve greater insight into the underlying forces shaping products' successes and challenges.

Today, Modular Innovation is a prevailing trend that can be described as products and platforms consisting of or facilitating… 

  1. Relationships (people-people, products-products, people-products)
  2. Control of Experience (from creation to storage to interaction)
  3. Ownership of Content (personal content from comments to friend lists and more)

The role and presence of relationships within and between people, products and platforms are ever increasing in importance and influence.

The more relationships, the stronger the relationships, in turn, the stronger and broader can be a product’s acceptance, support, and success. These relationships comprise Modular Innovation.

How would you describe yourself as a consumer?

Analytical.  I experiment with all of the latest and greatest, but become a permanent user of much less. 

Speaking as that consumer…

What is the first and last app you downloaded for your personal use?

The first was probably a simple Commodore 64 game or BBS software for both playing/using and learning what made it tick.

Most recently I downloaded a Basecamp client for Android phone; but, quickly uninstalled it since I didn’t find it meet my task requirements.

What product is sitting in a “saved shopping cart” to buy soon?

None; if there is ever an e-ink device that supports color, is cost effective, and speedy, that may be among my first next purchases.

What product or service have you bought recently that most disappointed you? 

The majority of the products I use for work are through free services online.  It has been a very long time that I have purchased something (especially after having tried it) that has disappointed me. 

My purchase disappointments tend to be in the realm of overpriced movie tickets and Xbox games (of which I haven’t purchased in quite some time due to lack of anything of particular interest coming across my radar).

What one piece of technology innovation would you say changed your life the most?

The most... Electricity...  Computer.

Much less than that, a recent major positive impact was when I went from my painfully slow, and constrictive Windows Mobile phone to my HTC Hero Android – enabling me to be better connected and more productive.

What product did your family or friends have before you, that you eventually had to buy, too?

There wouldn’t be a purchased product that friends and family had before I did.  However, I arrived later to podcasting than most of my friends and family and have since become an avid listener to many podcasts.

Are you a Mac or PC?

I am whatever the occasion calls for: Mac, PC, Linux

What phone are you carrying now?

HTC Hero (the GSM one)

Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn?

Each has their strengths and through each I am able to reach different groups of friends and followers.

Monday
Jun142010

Why Content Creation Innovators Are Content Delivery Conservatives

This post was first published on Jinni.com on June 14, 2010


Last week at the Wall Street Journal’s digital conference, D8, content creators, distributors and the Chairman of the FCC all shared the stage with iconic technology journalists Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, and discussed the changing landscape for media in the post-econalypse, wireless age.

From Steve Jobs declaring the “balkanization” of television by cable providers who give away free digital video recorders, to Julius Genachowski’s realization of the national broadband plan, there were numerous proof points that consumers remain a long way from easily purchasing content once and viewing it anywhere, anytime, on any device. But if you are a tech savvy content creator like Steve Levitan or James Cameron, that’s not all bad, for two reasons: money and quality.

Click here for the rest of the post and to visit Jinni, a partner in Google TV and the Movie Genome Project.

Monday
Jun072010

Favorite Tweets Of The Last Week

After taking a few days to listen to real, flesh and blood humans discuss the future of digital technology, I tackled a backlog of commentary from the Twitterverse. Here are some of the nuggets I found buried in my stream.

Genius! RT@cshirky My next book will be 'Wikipedia Brown', about a boy detective who solves crimes by getting his friends to do all the work.

Consumers with an income of $100,000 or more are among the most likely to use coupons http://bit.ly/blL1At /via @adwise << interesting!

RT @emarketer Case you missed this: How Consumers Balance Openness and Privacy - http://bit.ly/aj0RRI

 

Monday
Jun072010

Impressions From D8

Share my experience at All Things Digital 2010 at Terranea Resort. And see it through multiple device cameras - my iPhone, Nexus One and Canon Powershot all made contributions to this montage of images. With so many ways to point and click, it can make a huge difference which one you grab, since the quality of the zoom, the low-lighting focus and the amount of time it takes to optimize the image can make the difference in capturing a moment...or not. In addition, snaps moved to the web in different ways - through SMS, as email attachments, and through tethered import. You can guess which snap was taken with which device and which route it took. (And, yes, some of the slides are not in chronological order, because this is not meant to be a documentary!)

Thanks, Walt, Kara, and Katie for a great few days.

Sunday
Jun062010

Inside the Design Mind of Ford's CEO Alan Mullaly

At this past week's All Things D conference, Alan Mullaly was asked by his hosts to reveal the page of notes he created in prep for his interview. Mullaly was dynamic, energetic and enthusiastic about the integration of popular consumer technology in cars rolling off the Ford line. His notes show how he organized his thoughts around the key points he wanted to make, which might offer a good template for Mark Zuckerberg to use next time he readies for a session in the hot seat!

Tuesday
Jun012010

Spa for the Mind

At the Terranea in Southern California for D8

Wednesday
May262010

Will Google TV Change The Way We Enjoy the Web?

Article first published as Will Google TV Change The Way You Enjoy The Web? on Technorati

Google’s announcement this week of the launch of its Google TV service comes after several attempts - and slightly different approaches - by Apple and Microsoft to converge online video viewing with broadcast television watching. Although the company identified several partners – Intel, Sony and Logitech - who will be deploying the Google TV service on set top boxes and home entertainment hardware like Blu Ray players and Internet-connected televisions, it remains to be seen how consumers will actually experience the service.

Google’s primary objective will be to monetize the Google TV content through targeted advertising and expansion of its audience for existing online services by making video more discoverable through search. Search has been a key component of online programming guides like Clicker.com and Yahoo TV, that help aggregate television and video content from across the web. However, search behemoth Google is also the owner of You Tube, and has a lot to gain from creating more opportunities for consumers to experience video on new platforms.

How Google will facilitate the way a consumer traverses media from different sources, and the many ad networks those sources represent, is unclear largely because the service will be embedded with other solutions and services on branded game consoles and DVD players, some provided by hardware manufacturers that may have a designed a brand user interface already.

“It's too early to tell how Google TV will be received in the market, and there are many unknowns about the product including price. But Google TV's openness is key,” said Mike Pohl, CEO of Jinni, one of the Google TV partners featured in the announcement. “Developers will create the apps that will make Google TV useful and unique for consumers. Jinni, as an alliance partner, is developing a smart guide for Google TV that will be crucial for seamlessly combining web and TV content."

Clayton Morris of Foxnews.com echoed the questions of many end users who heard the announcement but didn’t yet know what to make of it. He wrote, “Will Google TV allow me to press play on an Internet episode of Lost — or will it force me to watch the broadcast version with more commercials? [Or] does that mean I can simultaneously watch UFO Hunters on The History Channel while searching the Web?”





Monday
May242010

Creativity Can Solve Anything

One of the things to love about Netflix on my TiVo is that when there is nothing in my Now Playing List I feel ike watching, I can investigate Netflix and usually find some independent film or cancelled television program that fits the moment. My recent exploration led me to "Art & Copy", a film by Doug Pray on the ad industry.

For those of you that don't know, the first 13 years of my professional life were spent on the set of commercial productions in Los Angeles - as well as exotic locales like Mexico, Dubuque, Laguna Seca raceway and the Mojave Desert - as a Second Assistant Director and Producer. The people featured in this film were responsible for some of the mini-movies I had the good fortune to work on during that period, and a few of them remain to impact the world of advertising today. Enjoy...

 

Thursday
May202010

Social Media Managers: The Loyal Customer's New Best Friend

In these budget minded days, my husband and I have been trying to use our miles and rewards points whenever possible to fund our leisure travel. We have found for most of our programs there may be fewer flights or rooms available, or longer blackout windows when we can't use rewards. But, with some planning, we can redeem our miles and points for discounted or free rental cars, hotel rooms and flights when we want to take a vacation.

Not every program, though, we participate in is easy to leverage, and my husband's accrued Aeroplan miles from years of Air Canada travel have been consistently difficult to redeem, especially since we live in Seattle, which is not a huge hub for Air Canada or its partners any more. On a recent trip to Los Angeles for a family member's college graduation, we were fortunate to finally be able to use the miles to book three nights at the Sheraton Universal City, a Starwood Group hotel. Often, rooms we are assigned when we book with mileage plans are not the best in the house, but generally I feel "rewarded" for being a loyal customer, even if I have a view of the air conditioning compressor or the parking lot. Often a basket of fruit, a bottle of wine, or a coupon for a free continental breakfast greets us to acknowledge our relationship.

This visit, our stay required four nights, but our miles only could get us three nights. I reserved a fourth night with a credit card. My challenges began when I called Starwood's reservation line to link the two separate reservations so we would not have to check out of the room or change rooms during our stay .I was told that wasn't possible for Starwood to do, because of the fact the Aeroplan reservation was not visible to them.

When we arrived at the hotel on a Sunday night at 8P, there were seven people in line to check in ahead of us. Although the sign at the head of the line indicated it was the Starwood Preferred Guest line there was only one queue for all front desk interactions, and one very busy clerk. Apparently, all guests were Preferred...or not.

I stepped up to the counter after a few minutes of seeing guests who had been in line ahead of us vocalize their frustration at how long it was taking to get checked in, and I asked the concierge if help had been called to expedite our check in process and service other front desk services, like lost keys and late check out requests. While he assured me the Marines had been summoned, my husband hissed at me to get back into line, saying, "Don't piss him off, we'll get a crappy room." I complied, largely because he was talking through gritted teeth, signaling to me he meant business.

When we got to the desk, help finally arrived, too late for our benefit. We asked the clerk if he could link our reward and paid reservations and we got the same negative response as we did when we called. "You will have to check out and then check in again. You will have to give us the credit card at that time." We then asked for a parking pass to enable us to enter and exit the self park garage, and the clerk told us none was required.

After 40 minutes of waiting in line, and after a brief 50 foot walk to our room, my husband began his "I told you so" routine. Our room was probably positioned in the worst location in the hotel, directly adjacent to the hotel lobby, next to the public restroom, looking onto the top floor of a parking lot structure, and 100 yards from the Hollywood Freeway. But that wasn't the half of it. The safe in the closet was on the top shelf, above my head, which meant it was approximately 5'6" above the ground. When I placed something in it, the entire safe slid off the shelf and right towards the bridge of my nose. Holding it entirely in my hands, I saw it would fit into my suitcase - or a thief's - with no trouble.

That thief, by the way, could have had an easy time breaking into the room, because the balcony sliding door was ajar about 6 inches, flooding the room with the sound of freeway traffic. Closing the single pane door wasn't adequate to drown out the trucks and sirens, so we turned on the air conditioner hoping the fan would make it hard to notice.

Within about 2 minutes the air conditioner let out a bang, and continued the same jarring noise to signal startup and shut down through out the night, making for an incredibly restless night's sleep, but clearly distracting us from the tractor trailer rigs barreling by our window.

Being near the lobby meant we were very close to the business center, but despite asking the hotel operator twice how to get an access code to log in to the hotel's wireless, I never got connectivity, free or paid, through my iPad's wifi connection. But I had no trouble hearing all of the conversations from the drunk Lobby Bar parrons who used the Women's Room on the other side of our shower wall.

The first time out of the parking garage, the attendant asked for our parking pass, which, of course, we were told we wouldn't need. And when we returned to the room after the maid had cleaned, the toilet paper holder was broken. My frustration was boiling over and landed in my Twitter stream. As I was preparing to convert from our Aeroplan room to a paid night in this room, my Starwood Preferred Guest identity kicked in, and I was questioning my loyalty in a big way. Just then, my message to the Twitterverse landed on @Starwoodbuzz, who asked me to send a direct message detailing my troubles.

Since the morning of the fourth day, when we were supposed to check out and then check back in, was also the morning of graduation day, we were on a tight schedule. In an effort to save time, I called the front desk, and asked them to convert the room to my credit card. The clerk told me I had to come to the desk. Fearful there would be a long check out line, and another 40 minute wait for service, I persisted in asking for some Gold Preferred Guest service, asking the clerk not to require me to have an unpredictable element in a day that my family needed to go like clockwork. But at this hotel, the Starwood Preferred Guest line doesn't seem to really exist at the front desk, so I was finally escalated to the manager for support.

Fortunately, this is when my experience finally turned. Four days into a rather horrific - albeit free - stay, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Whether the person monitoring Twitter for @Starwoodbuzz carried influence and pleaded my case, or the manager felt a sense of responsibility for our experience I had not seen up until then, I can't say for sure. But the difference in customer experience when employees who provide service take accountability for how their customer's journey unfolds is remarkable.

To begin with, the manager began by offering to move us, but when we suggested that would be disruptive, she immediately offered to cover our stay. Because of the parking problems, she also took off the parking fees. She said she would immediately send maintenance to the room to repair the safe. This woman was all about solutions and action. She offered to provide us complimentary breakfast the next morning at the hotel restaurant. Since my intent was never to take advantage of the hotel, I didn't want to appear greedy and so I declined the breakfast, graciously thanked her for the handling of our bill, and asked her to hold on sending the safe repair team till we left the hotel for the day shortly thereafter.

When I later returned to Twitter to thank @Starwoodbuzz, I found a message from the Tweep already waiting in my inbox, informing me that several hours before they had indeed contacted the front desk manager to address my concerns.

Monitoring social media for dissatisfied customers gave Starwood the opportunity to quickly repair a damaged customer relationship. As a customer, I felt rebuffed at the front desk, but supported by a faceless, yet responsive online persona who quickly heard my specific concerns and appeared to act to address them. Ultimately, the Twitter monitor was able to help the property manager care for a customer when onsite staff did not.

The challenge in managing a service enterprise is consistent and predictable customer interactions, and the hotel manager was lucky to have a virtual support team to get the train back on the tracks. But clearly, training should have happened to educate or empower the front lines to provide similar solutions, making it unlikely any customer would ever want to insert a disparaging tweet into the online dialogue around the brand.

I recounted this story to a family member, and they asked me if I really would go back to this hotel just because I got a free night to make up for a crummy experience. "If the hotel is bad, why would you go stay there again?" And to me the answer is simple: customer loyalty isn't about never screwing up, it's about how you recover when you do. For the effort that was made, I am certainly willing to give them a second chance to make a different impression.