I recently ran across a reference to a software package called ‘MarsEdit‘ which is an offline editor for blogs. I’ve downloaded it and I’m going to try it for the 30-day trial. I’ll be tracking it on my Writing blog, so if you’re interested, drop by to follow along on what I’m finding.

NOTE: MarsEdit is for MAC OSX only, it won’t work on Windows. But this is about more than just using a Mac version of something, I’m interested in the good and bad of using an offline editor overall. If I find something for Windows or Linux that appears as good, I’ll probably setup a trial of that software as well.

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I’ve added spam processing to the comment module and opened comments to anyone who’d like to join in the conversation. I hope to hear from people once I’ve collected enough material to be interesting.

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For anyone who runs across this blog, this is a new blog. I’m just starting it up, so while it’s getting it’s legs, I’m restricting posting to people who are willing to sign up and log in. This is primarily for me to get some time to get used to new software and to get some history into the bog. I intend to open it up for everyone to comment, but I will be posting some guidelines for what postings will be acceptable. For example:

• I won’t edit comments except to cut out flames or obscenity.
• I will block anyone who tries to use this blog for advertising something not related to the blogs topics
• I won’t allow posts that link to sites that I don’t personally recommend. If anyone puts a link in a post, I’ll visit it first to confirm that I support it

Terry

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When I’m working with a group of people on a Customer Facing System, one of the things we talk about is how ‘The System’ is the business’ FACE for the customer. Customers see the company personified in their interfaces to the company, so it’s important to be consistent.

Think about people you know. What do you think about someone who acts differently to you at different times? When you’re alone over a beer, you see one face, when you’re in a meeting you see another. If a person is acting inconsistently in different situations, we call that person ‘two-faced’. If your company is acting inconsistently, you’re at least TWO faced, and maybe more. If each telephone operator in your call center responds differently with different rules, rules THEY made up for interacting with a customer, what’s a customer going to think?

A good example occurred in England on a project where I was able to monitor telephone calls coming in to agent’s desks as I studied the system. I found it was common that a customer would call and if they didn’t get the answer they wanted, they’d call again, and again until an agent told them what they wanted to hear. The agents weren’t working together, they were each working independently. Consequently the ‘face’ the the customer saw was inconsistent. Customers took advantage of that to get what they wanted. No wonder they needed help.

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I’ve spent most of my life designing, implementing, working on, finding problems with, evaluating, and improving Customer Facing Systems. The purpose of this blog is to take some of what I’ve learned and what I’m still learning and spread it around. I’m looking to start a dialogue on the concept and talk about systems I’ve worked on

Let me make an initial point … Customer Facing Systems are not necessarily computer systems. They might be

• Web Sites
• Store fronts
• Telephone Call Centers
• Interactive Voice Response Systems
• A Greeter at a Customer Event

Any or all of these and more are ‘Customer Facing Systems’. These are Human Activity Systems which integrate technology ranging from 3X5 cards to sophisticated CRM systems on large scale computers. This point of contact between the company and the customer is a complex system that too often is over-simplified in people’s minds. I hope to shed some light on this interface and how it really works

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