Communication

Communication seems to be one of the reasons the Internet became so popular. We can now communicate anywhere in the world with almost anyone we want but it seems we're missing the part "when we should".

Today, I went to see a regular client who is a real estate agent. He was having trouble printing from the Multiple Listing Service that he uses to pull listings. We were commenting on how the Rappatoni Corporation who created and runs the multiple listing service for the valley had just upgraded their website and that many people were having to learn the new features. The printing problem he was having stemmed from clicking on a "link" that should have linked him to the printer setup page before actually printing. The pop-up link window was not popping up. So we called tech support to find out what was going on. (At least I was calling someone in the US!)

The girl proceeded to tell me instantly that we had to upgrade the Internet Explorer Browser from 6.0 to the new 7.0 and that would fix the problem. Ok, I said. So I did. And sure enough it worked.

Here's where the system breaks down. Communication. Rappatoni Corporation like every other company is always working on the back end of the problem instead of the front end of the problem. Had they "communicated" to us "before" upgrading their system, we would have avoided this problem all together. It's like getting a flu shot BEFORE getting the flu! And yet many companies still lack the ability to communicate with their customers. I know alot of companies say "Well we sent them an email or we posted it on our website!" But I guess I'm still that small town girl. When something was going to happen in town, someone just leaned over and whispered it in my ear...