The other day, I heard a radio ad for the season premier of a popular TV series. I didn’t catch the name of the show, but the ad promised “the biggest reveal ever”. I’m not very familiar with the TV business, but somehow I know that a “reveal” is when they disclose a fairly shocking detail about the plot of the series — like the true identity of a secret agent. Interestingly, the ad didn’t use a more familiar term that everyone would know, like “surprise” or “discovery”. Instead, they went with a more obscure term that only a subset of people may recognize. I wonder: was this an oversight, or do they just want those who “get it” to feel like we discovered something special, giving us all the more reason to share it with others?

I read today that United Airlines is increasing its change fee to $150 per ticket. In other words, if you book a flight and need to change your plans later, they charge you $150 for the transaction. They also bill you the difference between the old fare and the new fare, which is standard procedure for every airline. But it’s the magnitude of the change fee that interests me, since it’s now large enough to buy an entire ticket on competing airlines.

In particular, I’ve purchased tickets on Southwest that cost less than $150 per round trip. This makes me wonder how such a large change fee might influence the behavior of people who normally fly United. Though I don’t pretend to understand the full dynamics of people’s travel decisions, it can’t be a good thing when the ancillary fees and penalties alone from one airline (United) are more than the entire cost of a ticket on another — especially if that second airline doesn’t levy any change fees at all (Southwest).

What’s the takeaway here? I think people are smart enough to notice that one company’s nickel-and-diming has gotten so severe that it overshadows the entire price their competitors charge for the same product. It’s like one store charging a restocking fee equal to 100% of what the product costs at another store down the street. Unless the other store also charges the same outrageous fee, you’d never shop at the first one. Before long, some portion of people are going to wise up and start buying from the vendors who don’t hit you with such enormous fees, and the market will reward those companies that keep fees at a reasonable level relative to the cost of the product.

I’m always amused when I see a field service manual that tells the reader how to behave. In such cases, the text instructs the field technician to do things like “dress properly” and “treat people at the site with respect”. I don’t know what planet the writers are from, but my experience has shown that the people who need this advice rarely read the instructions, let alone follow them.

This is sort of like putting a big reminder in the owner’s manual for a new car that says “Always fill up your tank when it gets to half-empty”. Do they really think the people who normally wait for the gas light to come on are going to heed this warning and change their behavior accordingly? I’d say the odds of that are slim.

So, before you cram this type of advice into your own documents, think about whether the people who practice the negative behavior are really going to change. Typically, it’s a lost cause, and including this text just insults the people who already know better.

I write very few personal checks, since most of my purchases are made with a credit card or electronic debit. But at work, I’m involved in a fair number of transactions that involve sending or receiving checks. It’s no secret that checks suffer from some drawbacks, including the long delay between when you write a check and when it posts to your account. A recent discussion with a colleague got me wondering: why can’t the bank automatically notify you once a check has been deposited?

Granted, you can always look in your online banking site to see which checks have posted and when. But there are definitely cases where you would want to get this information pushed out to you in real-time. How might this work? Well, in the online banking site, you would enable the automatic check notification option. Then, you would choose if you want the notices sent via email or RSS feed, and decide which rules to use. For example, you might have a notice sent for checks over a certain amount, or checks to a certain payee. Then, you would simply watch your email or feed reader to find out when these checks were deposited by the recipient.

In fact, I think some banks already offer this service for basic things, like telling you when checks over a certain amount of money have cleared. My idea takes it one step further with the following twist: the bank would add a checkbox on each printed check, so that you can specify if you want to be notified when that check clears. This would provide the ultimate level of control, since you decide which transactions are time-sensitive enough to be tracked that way. Coupled with the reporting options in the online banking system, this would greatly improve the “send it and hope for the best” approach that seems to accompany check payments today.

Today my BlackBerry crashed when I plugged in a headset. This is the same headset I’ve been using with it for years. Since the headset is analog, I didn’t even realize that such an interaction was possible. Perhaps the BlackBerry software changes the audio input and output when it senses a new device. All I know is, of all the things that can make a piece of hardware or software freeze up, this is definitely a lame reason. However, I can’t say that I’m surprised: many products become less reliable and fall victim to new bugs over time, even without any apparent physical wear.

Don’t fly very often? Here are some tips from the trenches:

– Leave your two-pound belt with the stainless steel hawk head buckle at home. Believe it or not, metal detectors will beep when you put metal through them.

– Southwest has open seating. The sooner you check in online, the earlier you’ll be able to board the plane and pick your seat. If this is too hard for you to understand, fly a different airline — and stop complaining to everyone else at the gate about it.

– When you recline your seat, it takes that much more room away from the person behind you. And don’t bother trying to force it farther back than it’s designed to go: I’ve never seen anyone do that and actually end up more comfortable as a result.

– If you’re coughing or sneezing constantly, have some courtesy and cover your mouth. It’s really not that hard. (I wish the airlines would give out face masks to these people, but that’s another article entirely.)

Hat tip to the clueless American Airlines refugees who crowded my normally pleasant Southwest flight last week. I really enjoyed the wheezing man two seats over who sneezed into the air for hours, and the guy with the giant fingers in front of me who nearly broke the tray table by reaching over the headrest and trying to recline an extra inch.

A few months ago, I noticed a neat looking noodles place that opened up a few blocks from me. I checked out their menu online and it looked promising. Then I went to Yelp and looked at the reviews. Apparently, a lot of other people noticed the place too, since there were quite a few reviews for such a new restaurant. And these reviews were less than flattering: many people reported cold food, poor texture of the noodles, and other issues. With this info in mind, I abandoned my plan to try the noodles shop.

I think my experience indicates a larger trend. There is a small but growing group of people who read online reviews before going to new restaurants, stores, and other local businesses. For these people, good reviews can bring them in the door, and bad reviews can keep them away. None of this should come as any surprise, since it’s only natural to be interested in how our peers perceive a certain product or service. But there are interesting implications for how local businesses should go about soliciting reviews from their customers.

Specifically, I think local businesses should make an effort to get customers to write reviews. Let’s use a restaurant as an example. Perhaps they might offer a 20% off coupon for your next meal if you leave a review on Yelp and send them the link to it. They could advertise this with a little stand-up sign on each table, or at the takeout counter. To ensure that people are being paid for their honest feedback, whether it’s positive or negative, the restaurant must promise to honor this offer no matter what the actual review says.

But what about the negative reviews? Do we really want to give people more motivation to share negative experiences? Isn’t that the source of our concern in the first place? I propose a simple solution to this. When they promote the discount for writing a review, the business could also make a special offer for customers who were unhappy with their experience. Something like “If we let you down today, tell us about it and your next meal’s on us.” Then, ask those “second chance” customers to leave a review explaining how you handled their concerns. This approach helps you address people’s complaints before they become public, while giving you valuable insight into improving your business.

On the balance, you should end up with more reviews for your business, and a large percentage of them should be positive. This helps bring in new customers. At the same time, the coupon you provide for leaving a review will motivate existing customers to return. And what about the people who take you up on the free meal offer? If you properly handle their concerns, these customers — who would otherwise be lost forever — might turn into loyal evangelists for your business.

I’ve been seeing a lot more advertising for toilet paper lately. Maybe it’s just a Chicago thing, but these marketers have significantly increased their presence on billboards, bus shelters, and other out-of-home media. I’m guessing this campaign is running in other big markets too, like New York and LA. Cottonelle seems to be the brand that’s driving this, or maybe their ads are just the most effective in getting noticed.

Since consumer demand for toilet paper probably doesn’t change that much from year to year, I wonder what’s behind this sudden increase in outdoor spending. Perhaps they’re emulating the Starbucks approach of encouraging people to indulge in so-called “small luxuries,” which in this case would be softer toilet paper, and outdoor is just one piece of that media plan. Or maybe Cottonelle noticed that none of their competitors had any presence in outdoor media, so they saw an opportunity to be the only toilet paper brand that urban consumers see during their daily commute. They might have purchased a category exclusive for these media venues, locking out the competition.

Regardless of the motivation behind it, their approach is effective — at least where brand recall is concerned. More generally, I think the key here is that people don’t expect to see ads for toilet paper in so many out-of-home locations. This departure from the ordinary, coupled with the sheer volume of messages they’re delivering, provides a good way to take a mundane product and make it front-of-mind for consumers.