Writing | Polymer Studios :: Web Consulting

Emotionally intelligent hold messages

18. August 2009

For most businesses, the question of what to play while customers are on hold is not critical. Important, but not vital to customer satisfaction. What if most of your business is handled over the phone? If you’re the iconoclastic savings bank ING Direct, you help customers cope with waiting by playing messages that are witty, informative [...]

Full monty

1. July 2008

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Two writers have come across my radar, thanks to the tweets of others: The disclosure on journalist Jeff Jarvis‘ blog BuzzMachine is a refreshingly thorough rundown of his business dealings, stock investments, religious affiliations and political leanings. It’s also funny in parts: “I make some would say too-frequent appearances on TV and radio but I am [...]

Making change happen

11. June 2008

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The first picture that turned up in a Google images search of “meatloaf.” Turns out it’s a vegan meatloaf by Field Roast Grain Meat Co. Go figure. Mark Bittman, food writer at the NYT, just wrote a column about how to reduce your meat intake. With the rising price of oil directly and indirectly pushing up [...]

Hitting the reset button

7. June 2008

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We recently decided to give our business a reboot. As any Windows user knows, a reboot is sometimes necessary to clean out the memory and bring the system running back to peak performance. Not that our business hasn’t been successful and all that. It has. But perhaps symptomatic of a deeper funk, we’ve been struggling for three [...]

Wish I wrote it, #2

5. October 2007

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“There is something about our ocean-going friends that reminds us all to wash up after freeing Willy.” Brian Unger, Day to Day, (National Public Radio) commenting on a study showing that 81% of men and women washed their hands after using the bathrooms at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.

Wish I wrote it – #1

2. October 2007

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“The plot, like the Lord, moves in mysterious ways.” Suketu Mehta, in Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, describing the convoluted and preposterous plot of the Bollywood film, Jai Shakumbhari Maa.