Customer Service at the Blood Drive

Just in time for Hallowe'en, my thoughts on blood drives:

I read a lot of business books. The authors that make me impatient are the ones who describe the perfect, seamless customer service experience they crave. They want hotels to remember that they like dark, not milk, chocolate mints on their pillows. Or local wine shops to keep a database of their customers who enjoy zinfandels, so they can send out a special mailing when they get a new shipment.

What narcissists, I think. Of course we would all appreciate special treatment. I wish the salespeople at Nordstrom would call me whenever they got shipments of comfortable size 12 shoes. In reality, even if they call me, I will still only buy shoes a few times a year. If my total spend on shoes per year is only a few hundred dollars, it is not worth the salesperson’s time to call me. It would be unrealistic and selfish of me to ask them to keep me at the top of their minds.

People who get that kind of personalized service should be prepared to pay well for it. Since I’m not so prepared, all I ask is that the lumpencustomer not be treated too badly.

In one area, though, I really think that customer service could be improved: blood drives. I have heard that blood is worth $200/unit by the time it gets to the hospital. So why can't we treat donors a little better? Here are my narcissistic demands for blood drives:

Take donors’ time seriously. I learned a long time ago that there is no use making an appointment for a blood drive. If you show up at your appointed hour, but there is a long line, you queue up with everyone else.

Similarly, don’t encourage women to donate blood every 56 days. Blood banks know that women have hematocrits lower than men’s, lower, on average, than the donation threshold. It obviously takes me longer than 56 days to rebuild my iron level to the threshold, because 50% of the time my blood is rejected for a low hematocrit. Donating every 56 days may be appropriate for men—the statistical donor is a college-educated man between 30 and 50—but for women it may not be appropriate. So tailor the donor appeals accordingly.

Here’s a radical idea: give me the finger-stick when I walk in the door. Let me flash my donor card and offer me the option to test my hematocrit before I do all the paperwork. If I fail the iron level again, at least I haven’t lost too much time.

(On the other hand, when I attended blood drives with babysitters, I didn’t care if I failed or not. Free babysitting when your kids are young is free babysitting. I could still eat the cookies, even if I couldn’t donate that day.)

If the donor says he or she has special blood, be prepared to act on that claim. The NY-NJ Blood Center randomly tested my blood once. They determined that I have special proteins in my blood, and that I am CMV-negative. This means that my blood can be transfused to newborns.

“Hey!” my husband said. “I have special blood, too! In Chicago my blood used to be packed into tiny bags to be given to babies.” Every time we go to a blood drive together now, he tells the intake workers that. Yet somehow his blood has not been tested on the East Coast. He’s disappointed that his blood is no longer “special.”

Now, just because I donate blood regularly does not mean I love pain. I’m old enough to remember when the phlebotomists shook the needles to get rid of the excess citric acid on the tips. Now, they just jab it in. Ow! That Country Time lemonade stuff really hurts! I know it’s supposed to prevent clots or something, but how much can my blood clot in the 15 minutes I’m allowed on the gurney? So shake it off, or don’t be dismayed when your donor numbers drop.

On the positive side, I am pleased to say that finally the Mayo Clinic has adopted my idea of telling donors how many calories they lose when they donate a unit of blood. Every nursing mother knows that she expends about 500 calories a day nursing Baby. Why, instead of giving a thin-lipped smile, couldn’t they have told us before now that each pint of blood is about 650 calories? That’s a hefty slice of cheesecake!

Speaking of sweets, when you go to a really good blood drive—usually these are organized by churches—the juice table features plenty of homemade cookies. Not much says, “We appreciate your donation today,” better than cookies lovingly baked in someone else’s kitchen.

And here’s to the stalwart Red Cross volunteer who made me sit with my knees squarely under the table. If I fainted, she wanted me to pass out into the plate of cookies so she wouldn’t have to pick me off the floor.

Happy Hallowe'en!

The Debate I Wish I'd See

I wish I'd see McCain and Obama in a cafeteria debating for middle scholars. They could explain how they believed that their intended policies would affect these children in 20 years. Including Sarah Palin's children, and Barack Obama's.

I wish I'd hear them explain how the federal government will repay its 2008 fiscal year deficit of $455 billion (up from $162 billion in fiscal year 2007). If the government does not intend to repay it, then Obama and McCain had better justify the red ink to their creditors.

More about debates.

Surveys in the Big Box

I have long thought that it would be cool to work for the Census department. For some reason I have been lucky enough to answer the long form once. I have also lived in an apartment with a special longitudinal census. For that census they asked me everything: how big were the cracks on my walls, how far did I live from public transportation, did my toilet flush most of the time?

The idea of collecting and aggregating so much information fascinates me.

That's why I was really looking forward to yesterday. In the past I have enjoyed conducting consumer research. You go to a retail outlet and promise a consumer some incentive if they will answer your questions. People like free gifts, and they like talking about themselves. I like listening.

In reality, yesterday was not amusing. I worked at a big box store. Even though I wore orthopedic shoes, the concrete was very hard on my feet; the shoppers were uncomfortable, too. The survey did not take 10 minutes the way the company promised. It was closer to 20. The company wanted pictures of shoppers, too, but at the end of the surveys I was too embarrassed to ask.

It was a concrete lesson in keeping surveys to the bare minimum. Sure, when you're sitting in the office and thinking about all the things you would like to know from consumers, it's easy to let your imagination run away with you. Don't let it.

I am sure of one thing: no one who took my survey yesterday will ever consent to take another one in the big box store.

Semantic Stretch

I have written here before about how exasperated I feel when people overuse a term, wringing all the meaning out of it before handing it back, limp, to the people who originally coined it.

Now I have learned that there is a term for that. It's called "semantic stretch." Authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath included it in their book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

Semantic stretch has encouraged a lively debate about the use of four-letter functionals in Churchmarketingsucks.org.

McCain on Fannie Mae

I caught the early parts of the presidential debate last night.

Because it was a town hall style debate, ordinary people from the audience posed questions. One ordinary person was Oliver Clark.

McCain speculated that Clark had never heard of Fannie Mae nor Freddie Mac before the financial crisis. Did McCain think that Clark had never bought a house nor taken a student loan, nor had a relative who worked in real estate? McCain patronized Clark.

But it was even odder that McCain said that buying up bad loans would help Alan stay in his home. Alan wasn't the one who asked the question. Oliver was. Was it coincidence that Alan was Caucasian and Oliver wasn't?

Thanks to CNN.com for transcript below:

Clark:

Well, Senators, through this economic crisis, most of the people that I know have had a difficult time. And through this bailout package, I was wondering what it is that's going to actually help those people out.

McCain:

....But you know, one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis.....That's why we're going to have to go out into the housing market and we're going to have to buy up these bad loans and we're going to have to stabilize home values, and that way, Americans, like Alan, can realize the American dream and stay in their home.

New Media for the Over-40s

Although I would have preferred a less sacrilegious title, I recommend that you read Tynan's Anger on the difference between what Gen X and Gen Y expects of new media and blogs.

No SAT Words, Please

Yesterday I fielded a request to write my web content for the "lowest common denominator." This was a response to some copy that included two-syllable words that a high-school junior should reasonably expect to encounter on the SAT.

The request reminded me of my early career, communicating with corporate headquarters in Paris and with steel mills in "Province" (a region I sought vainly on my map of France and finally concluded was anywhere that was not Paris.)

My colleagues in Paris tended to use the informal "tu." Their sentence structures were clipped, rather American. My colleagues at the mills, on the other hand, used the formal "vous." Moreover they wrote long, flowery faxes and emails that ended with lovely phrases like, "Please accept, Madame, my most distinguished salutations."

Because of the time difference and my own halting French, I preferred to write to them rather than to telephone. I soon learned that I could make my point more effectively if I larded my prose with respectful "Madame"s and "Monsieur"s. Instead of pegging me as a brash and illiterate American asking for yet another favor (such as being sure to ship before the Great Lakes closed), the language I used made it easier for them to give me what I wanted.

I hit the goldmine one day when I found a French-English dictionary published in 1912. It oozed with the unctuous greetings I needed to go toe-to-toe with my French counterparts.

I still have that dictionary. It reminds me that different vocabularies suit different populations. Some readers appreciate and respond well to SAT words.