August 2003

Tread Lightly By Bridget White

Oh no, you’re probably thinking, not another column aboutcustomer service! We see them everywhere. Give us a break here, please!

No. I can’t do it. I’ve got to have my say. Fortunately foryou, though, I mostly just want to relate what happened to me on a recentbusiness trip and leave you to ponder the ramifications of your customerservice.

It Really Happened

I was in Portland, Ore., last week for the FarWest tradeshow and seminars (which, by the way, is a great event that many on the greenhouseside view incorrectly as a nursery show) where I rented a car for part of thetime. I didn’t need it all week and was going to return it after two days. Butas things often do at trade shows, I got tied up and saw that I was not goingto be able to return the car on the promised day. I called the car rentalcompany, whose name I won’t mention except to say “Remember theA****,” to arrange an extension in the contract. After going through a fewcounter people, I arrived at customer service, who tried to negotiate anarrangement between me and the local agency. You see, they wanted to charge mea $10 per day penalty for additional days. My pleading to get out of the feedidn’t help. My choices were to return the car, upon which I could get a newcontract, or pay the penalty.

I was a little aggravated that the company would not workwith me to get my extra business and asked the customer service agent to tryagain for me. When she came back, she relayed to me that the local agent wasinflexible on the penalty and that, in fact, they could have me arrested if Idid not return the car immediately. I returned the car and took publictransportation. There, ponder away!

Letters

We’ve had a few letters to the editor recently; thefollowing are excerpts from two that I thought the industry might findinteresting.

One of the most famous case studies in marketing is howJohnson and Johnson (J&J) handled the Tylenol situation in 1983. SomeTylenol capsules were laced with cyanide in Chicago. J&J pulled all Tylenolnationwide and reissued the product in tamper-resistant consumer productpackaging. J&J benefited because they had a more active, respected role infuture government regulations and because they quickly regained consumerconfidence and market share. The public benefited from getting more securepackaging of medications. J&J set the standards for all pharmaceuticalcompanies. Goldsmith Plants and their leadership to ensure that in the futureour industry will have prevention and early detection of infected cuttings ison par with the leadership of J&J.

From various articles that I have read and from recentpress releases, I know that Goldsmith has held numerous meetings with the USDAto discuss the recent quarantine of geranium growers. Goldsmith Plants isleading movements in similar industries (potato, fresh fruits and vegetables)in order to develop a long-term strategy to provide rapid compensation togrowers. The changes will reach far beyond our industry.

It is not easy to make lemonade from lemons.Goldsmith Plants is providing the kindof leadership that will shape how parts of our business are handled, making iteven better than it was. I am sure that we will look back on the”Ralstonia solanacearum quarantine” in the same way we look back at Johnsonand Johnson and Tylenol.

–Lynn Hackett, Director of Marketing, NexusCorporation

The article entitled “Temperature and Light onBedding Plants” in your July 2003 issue had a minor mistake that I wantedto explain. In Figure 4 (page 36), the table provides two different daily lightintegrals, 5.5 and 19.5 mol·m-2·d-1. These numbers represent theamount of light that plants received in one day. These values were converted tofoot-candles in the editing process. However, in these circumstances, aconversion from a daily light integral to foot-candles (an instantaneousmeasurement) cannot be done. Foot-candles represent a light measurement at oneparticular moment, while a daily light integral represents the cumulative lightreceived over the course of one day.

A conversion is possible when using an artificial lightsource (such as light from high-pressure sodium lamps), since the light outputis relatively constant. However, since solar light intensity is always changingdue to the angle of the sun, clouds, etc., it is impossible to make an accurateconversion. Thus, to measure the daily light integral, a light sensor needs tobe installed and measurements need to be taken on a frequent basis (e.g., everyminute).

–Erik Runkle, Michigan State University