The times they are a-changin’.
This post seems to be older than 16 years—a long time on the internet. It might be outdated.
Okay, this really isn’t a case study. But I felt a somewhat witty title was needed. However, in many ways I think this would be a great case study for Naked Conversations.
This story is a little bit different though. Instead of the business reaching out through the blogosphere and starting the conversation with the consumer, I (as the consumer) reached out and started the conversation with the business. The effect is still the same (I believe at least), as the corporation (who the average consumer probably perceives as a monolithic entity) was able to have a frank and unhindered conversation with me, the consumer. There was no corporate babel, there was no legalese. It was, in essence, a naked conversation. Pure and simple. And that is what makes this so great. I egress to the story though:
As you know, I took an American Red Cross class on Saturday that I felt was less then satisfactory. I just got off the phone with one of the directors for the Mile High (Denver) chapter of the American Red Cross. I talked to him about how I felt about the class, what I expected from the class, and compared it to my training from NOLS.
At the end, he asked if I had filled out one of the survey sheets. I was a little surprised by this question as I thought that he was calling me specially because of the survey sheet. I said yes and asked if that’s why he was calling (in retrospect, this is a rather illogical question; further compounded by the issue that survey was anonymous, how could he contact me?). No, someone there had found my blog post and brought it to his attention. My phone number is right there on the front page, so it’s easy to contact me (which is the point).
I wrote about my thoughts on the class last night at 10:30 pm and now I was actually talking to real person who was trying to help me out. That is why this is so awesome. The American Red Cross cares about me as a person and they’re willing to go the extra kilometer make sure that I’m happy.
He offered to schedule me for another class. I declined. Partly because it would have been near impossible to schedule*, mostly because I had received the CPR training (which is what I really wanted, even though I also received AED and First Aid), but also because I did not believe going through the course again would give me any additional knowledge.
In the long term, this gives the American Red Cross HUGE points. I can’t tell you highly I think of them now. I’d even venture to say that because of his call, I am now significantly more likely to take another class from the American Red Cross then I was before.
And all it took was a seven minute phone call.
*: A week and a half of school left, plus another week of finals, and them I on my way back to Seattle.
[tags]Red Cross, American Red Cross, Mile High Chapter, Denver, CPR, AED, NOLS, First Aid, Naked Conversations[/tags]
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