Alesig Consulting, LLC

We are happy to announce that Alesig Consulting will be building public facing mobile apps for GRTC Transit System.

By Chametra Baskerville

Dealing with upset customers happens almost EVERYDAY! The key is to understand that upset customers are expressing their frustrations; it’s nothing personal. Here are a couple of things we do to help control the situation and calm our customer. 

1) Relax and listen to what the customers concerns are-identifying the issue is important so that it can be resolved

2) Try not to raise our voices, even if the customer does

3) Never get into a screaming match with the customer…remember, they are ALWAYS right

4) Use empathy in our tone of voice and conversation with the customer 

5) Be patient with the customer- rushing the customer or talking over them will only add to their frustrations  

6) Resolve the customers issue by using a positive approach and offering additional positive feedback. Example: “I know that you are frustrated with what happened and I apologize for your inconvenience. Tell me what you would like to see happen from here and I’ll try to make that happen.”

Customer Service Representatives have one of the hardest jobs in the industry. It takes professionalism, poise and commitment to excellent customer service to make it in this business. We need to keep a professional demeanour at all times and treat our customers as we expect to be treated…like the VIC’s (very important customers) that they are! 

Alesig Consulting has been selected as one of the awardees of the GSA 8(a) STARS II contract. Alesig Consulting was awarded 8(a) STARS II in Constellation I. With this important contract vehicle in place, Alesig Consulting is now well-positioned to provide our solutions and services across the entire Federal Government.

Chris wants to make riding the public transportation system easier. He was frustrated by the lack of access to schedules at bus stops. This is his solution:

According to Chris:

If we want more people to use public transit we’ve got to make it easier. The biggest user experience blunder in bus transit is the inability to tell where a bus goes and when it goes there if you’ve never ridden one. In order to find out you can hop online but not everyone can do that. So they need a schedule, which only the buses carry (rarely), so it’s a paradox: I need a schedule to know when the bus comes but I have to get on the bus to get a schedule. This pissed me off, so here’s my weekend project: Laminate 10 bus stop schedules of the 3 most busy routes and attach them to the bus stops with cable wire and grommets.

Read more about his solution by clicking here. 

Wired has a post today about a study on 18 people who surrendered their cars for one week and used public transit. The take away?

"Smartphone apps may be the key to getting people out of their cars and onto mass transit."

The Smartphone apps puts the rider in control which is a key factor in winning hearts and minds. Read the full article here. Want help in building apps for your organization then contact us!

 Alesig Consulting recently received the GSA Schedule Contract.

Would you believe it if I told you that you can start your own web hosting business on a scalable and reliable infrastructure for less than 10 dollars? All you need is a cell phone and your own website to advertise your services. Your cell phone will help you activate your account on Google App Engine (GAE). You can then setup 10 web sites per cell phone, since each GAE account allows for 10 applications. Your cost is the SMS text verification message and a site to advertise your business.

Such is the power of Google App Engine. And while we are not using it to host sites, we are actively using it for our various products. It is an ideal backend server. We are also engaged in one off projects with various clients. GAE has allowed us to make livable wages, more than any other service on the internet.

Why did we choose Java GAE? As a small company we mainly consist of programmers. We don’t have the luxury of hiring a host of IT professionals such as System Administrators or Data Base Administrators to maintain our systems. GAE eliminates the need for database maintenance and system administration. It is one of the quickest ways to go from prototype to production.

Of course GAE has some missing functionality, but over the last year Google has shown its commitment to bringing new features and improving infrastructure. In a future post I will delve into the features of GAE in more detail.

This is one of the last things a customer wants to hear when they ask for an onsite service call for a broken appliance. Unfortunately, I was put in this predicament only a few days ago in the middle of a summer heat wave when our AC went on the fritz. Since we are in the business of building applications to improve customer service, I feel compelled to propose a solution for this service no-no in a world where the customer is supposed to be front and center.

In this day and age with the advent of smart phones and devices such as iPad, there is no reason that a customer should have to stay at home between 8 to 5 waiting for their service technician. While I would love an exact arrival time, even narrowing it down to a two hour window is a huge leap forward. How would I do it if I am a business providing this service to my customer?

First thing would be to equip all the technicians with a device with internet connectivity. This could be a smart phone like iPhone or an Android variant or even an iPad. The technician can get all their service tickets on one of these devices. There could be a few buttons such as “On my way to fulfill order X”, “At location X”, “Finished Order X”. This would give central dispatch or supervisors a real time view of order fulfillment along with precise location information.

A subset of this information could also be available to actual customers. E.g. you could display information such as “You are 4th in queue”, or “Your technician is on the way and will be at your home in the next 30 minutes”.  A best guess time window could also be published Based on minimum service times and distances. This information could be updated continuously on a website, or sent to the customer via email. When the technician clicks on the “On my way to fulfill my order” the system can immediately notify me about that and calculate a time of arrival based on distance from my home. While this information is not going to eliminate time windows completely, it is a great improvement over the 8 to 5 window. Also the technicians could use Square to charge the customers on the spot and send invoices via email.

Which brave service company is interested in partnering with us to do a pilot of the above mentioned system?