Appreciation - 2007 Microsoft Office System Technical Beta Tester

I got this Certificate of Appreciation in my mail last week. The cert is signed by Bill Gates (more like printed). Was involved in some beta testing on the 2007 Microsoft Office System.

It's kinda of cool. I only have a few issues (not to be ungrateful):

• The paper and printing quality is quite shocking (I could scan and print for you, probably one which is of better quality than the one I received!)
• I believe it's not that hard to do a little personalization, like address me instead of "Valued Beta Tester". I thought Microsoft Word had a mail merge feature.

MOSS 2007 Beta Experience

I've been wanting to post about my experience in implementing and deploying MOSS 2007 Beta. This wasn't the easiest of things to do really. Today, that implementation has gone out as successfuly case study and we're looking into deploying MOSS 2007 for production in the near future.

10 of the valuable things I've learnt while implementing MOSS 2007 software in the beta stage and this could be quite a standard thing with most beta products (Microsoft Office 14?):

1. We definately need to set the users expectations right and let them know of the risks that are involved in deploying and implementing a beta software.
2. It's a learning curve for all parties involved and time spent on certain things which would normally take less time could take more than expected.
3. The users will need to identify certain areas they are keen to explore and try to focus on a particular area so that there is value at the end of the implementation.
4. I believe it's not so much a best practice or optimizing performance but trying to get a certain concept or idea correct at this stage.
5. Very important is to foster a close relationship with the client and keeping them updated on what's going on even of the bugs and faults the software is causing. Some of them love seeing this!
6. Keeping up to date with the beta newsgroups, blogs and other sources of information do help.
7. Lots and lots of testing and finding alternative ways and methods to achieve the same end result!
8. Using the software in it's beta stage for some aspect of the project (used it as repository for project documents) helped the users get familiar and helped the team learn! Of course we also kept the documents in some other repository just in case.
9. We musn't be afraid to break the software as it's in it's beta stage and we need to discover the "breakability" of it so that we can;
10. Report bugs!

Those were some of things I've learnt and I believe the most annoying thing was when the software wasn't behaving as it was suppose to it was always a matter of... "was the software mucking up because it's in beta or was I mucking up that the software wasn't doing what it was suppose to..."

It was a good experience at the end of the day!

be a friend to your customer

Of recent when working with clients I've realized to focus on customer relationship building where the process begins with having an emotional (in a good way) element when you establish a connection with your clients.

So what is good relationship building?
Developing and maintaining a win-win partnership where both parties gain, is the essence of a good customer or client relationship. When you have a good and trustworthy relationship with your clients, you're on the path to growth and profitability. Why do I say that? Well, your customer serves as an important reference for new prospects. Their happiness and level of satisfaction serves as a marketing tool (I've seen this happen). Also, the time taken to attract a new client is shortened which might lead to lower costs for repeat business.

The ability to build good customer relationships depends on three things:

• product knowledge
• people skills; and
• your attitude

Building the relationship
To engage a customer, you need to have good product knowledge, so read all the material you can possibly get on your product, and I think using it is definately a plus! By having the right information and tools on the product, you will feel empowered to handle most questions.

Your soft skills or people skills, and your positive attidude help you in connecting with the customer. Show your sincerity in identifying what your customers value.

I hear this term quite often where "listen to your customer as opposed to merely hearing him". Where you seek to understand them from their frame of reference. Listen carefully to what they say and notice hints they about their interest.

Maintaining the relationship
To maintain good customer relationship, we need to store some data on customers' interest in order to target them selectively. I also believe that simple gestures like sending a greeting card or a thank you card do help strengthen the relationship. Also attending to their complains and attending to them punctually also do help.