I’m not really what you’d call a patron of the arts, though my mailbox would suggest otherwise. I belong to a grand total of two museums and non-profit organizations, but I seem to be on the mailing list of at least a dozen more. The funny thing is, aside from the stuff that everyone gets (like those annoying packs of address labels), the mailings started to multiply right after I joined the two organizations that I paid for. It’s like I was entered into some sort of horrible spam ring, without any disclosure upfront or opportunity to opt-out later.

I have no problem with getting a few newsletters, event notices, and other correspondence each month from the places I actually belong to. It’s the flood of truly unsolicited stuff that bothers me. Apparently, paying for even a basic membership at one museum puts you into a hot demographic that all the others want to reach. But did the original entity ask for my permission, or give me a chance to decline these offers? Nope. And this lowers my opinion of them, along with all their partner organizations, quite considerably. So much, in fact, that I would recommend that any new members provide a bogus address to avoid this hassle.

Long story short, I finally contacted each organization that I belong to, and asked them to exclude me from any mailings that don’t come directly from them. Time will tell if this makes a difference or not. But for regular businesses and non-profits alike, the cost of this behavior should be pretty obvious. If you sell your customer info to anyone who asks for it, don’t be surprised if your own membership and communication efforts become less effective. Eventually, people will figure out what’s going on, and the organization that breached their trust will be the one to suffer.

I’m not a huge fan of voice mail, but I understand it’s not going away anytime soon. With that said, I am constantly amazed at the absurdly long greetings that accompany some people’s outgoing messages. Worse, many voice mail systems make you listen to a ton of rarely-used options before you can simply leave a message.

Here’s an example. Say I call John Smith and he’s not in the office. I might get his greeting that says: “Hi, you have reached the voice mailbox for John Smith, Senior Widget Engineer at Acme Corp. I’m either in a meeting, or on the phone, or out of the office, so please leave a message with your name, telephone number, account number, and the nature of your call so I can you back soon.” Then, you hear another voice from the phone system, which chimes in with: “To leave a voice message, just wait for the tone. To page this person, press 5. To try another extension, press 6. To dial the operator, press 0.” All told, I have heard this little charade go on for as long as two minutes. That’s just absurd, and it’s a waste of the caller’s time.

To fix this, start by shortening your outgoing message. Virtually everyone knows how to leave a message these days, so you don’t need to hold their hand the whole way through. Something like “This is John with Acme Corp, please leave a message including your account number and I’ll call you back” would do just fine. Then, tame the computer demons by getting rid of all those options that nobody uses. The last time I checked, a simple “beep” would do the trick.

How many times have you looked at a shirt, sweater, or other piece of clothing in your closet, and wanted to buy another one just like it? For most of us, the answer is probably “at least once”. But since the typical garment lacks any kind of part number, it can be pretty challenging to find the right item in the store’s website or catalog.

To fix this problem, and stimulate more sales for the brand, I’d love to see a short web address appear right on the label. Something like: “To buy this product again, visit http://www.example.com/12345”. Then, even if the garment is no longer sold, the retailer could show the closest matches and perhaps some info on how they compare to the original.

This technique could be applied to virtually any product, except for those that get installed in some out-of-the-way location. So, has anyone tried it before? There are precious few examples in the wild, including those HP printers that have a permanent sticker telling you which ink cartridge to buy. But given how low the incremental cost is, anyone who makes consumer or business products ought to consider adding an easy way for existing customers to buy more of what they already have.

Upgrading any piece of software can be complex, whether it’s a web-based application, desktop software, or an entire operating system. Most products do a pretty good job of remembering your settings and reminding you to make a backup first. But they tend to omit a very important step: Letting the user save a full list of settings, in case some of them can’t be retained after the upgrade.

It would be foolish of me to suggest that every setting can be carried over from one version to another, as product improvement typically means consolidating old features and preferences in ways that can’t easily be translated to new ones. I’m OK with that. What bothers me is when programs don’t tell you which settings have to be clobbered during the upgrade. For example, I recently did a BlackBerry OS upgrade which worked pretty well. In the process, it deleted all my font and display settings, which was easy to see and correct. However, changes to the keypad speed and ringer profiles were more confusing, and took me a good half hour to restore.

I propose a simple safeguard against this sort of problem: Before any upgrade, let the user save a full list of every setting and preference. This is different than a backup, which is designed for when the upgrade fails entirely. Rather, the settings list helps you go through the updated software and get your settings back the way you like them, without having to remember how they used to be. Even if this list is rather ugly, simply listing the category, setting name, and selection, it would be incredibly useful when things don’t look right following an upgrade. And given the frequency of upgrades that accompany software products, this would be a huge timesaver for customers.

Alright, I admit it: My sense of direction in airports just plain stinks. But bad signage certainly doesn’t help the matter. I actually saw an article about how airports are bringing in signage consultants to fix their signs, which sounds like a step in the right direction. Since I won’t be holding my breath for that, I’d like to discuss a quick and dirty way to alleviate this problem.

My solution is based on a simple assumption: Most people leaving a plane want to get their bags (if any) and leave the airport, whether by car, taxi, or train. Their needs might be summed up as “Which way do I go for the baggage claim and airport exit?” So here’s my wild idea: Right after the plane lands (but before the passengers depart), the airline could make an announcement over the intercom telling people which way to go. The options would be “left”, “right”, or “straight ahead”. Here’s an example: “If you’re looking for baggage claim or the airport exit, just turn left after you leave the plane.”

I know this would create a little bit of extra work for the airlines, since they would need to check the gate map before making this announcement. But since it would cost virtually nothing, and at least some percentage of passengers are bound to find the service useful, I’d love to see someone try it out. Southwest seems like a good candidate, as they’re highly focused on customer service and the little details that create repeat customers. Alas, this will probably remain a pipe dream, and I’ll be left with heading the wrong way at Minneapolis-St. Paul at least a few more times.

I’ve often wondered how some companies can offer a lifetime warranty on a product that doesn’t cost that much. It would seem like the expense of handling those warranty claims over time could easily exceed the value of the product. For instance, I have a pair of hiking socks that cost $18. After about six months of use, they started to tear in the back. So I looked at the manufacturer’s website, and they offer a lifetime exchange policy. But here’s the rub: you have to pay for shipping the item back to them, and include a bunch of backup documentation about when you bought them, what’s wrong, etc. Given that a basic priority mail package runs about $7 in postage, I would be spending nearly half the cost of the product, plus probably an hour of my time, just to get it replaced.

With the above in mind, I bet that no more than 20% of customers with defective products ever bother to exchange them. Is this the company’s fault? Not really. From their perspective, it’s only fair for the customer to bear some of the cost of the exchange process. After all, the company is paying to ship the replacement product back to the consumer, plus the logistical cost of processing the return. And with so few returns actually being submitted, even a lifetime warranty ends up being quite affordable for the seller.

However, this situation can become dangerous for the vendor. While I think I’m being reasonable in my analysis, the fact that the warranty on my socks is basically useless has lowered my perception of the brand. I probably won’t buy these again, since I know that if they break, I’ll have to toss them and buy another pair.

So what’s the answer here? I propose that companies selling low-cost goods offer an alternate warranty option. Instead of having to send back the product, give customers a choice of receiving a merchandise credit good for some portion of the purchase price, with the percentage declining based on how long ago they bought it. This could be applied to a replacement or another item from that company. Of course, the seller would need to put something in place to prevent fraud, like making sure people don’t file more than one claim per item, and limiting how many claims a person can file each year.

I think a lot of customers would be thrilled with the option to receive a credit voucher, even though it wouldn’t cover the full purchase price. In my case, a credit for say 50% of the cost (since the issue arose during the first year) would have led me to buy another pair of hiking socks — while giving me the confidence to purchase more from the brand.