Investing

[Deleterious]

Tesla now up 4% after hours.

[Screwball]

Found this interesting while looking at data from the Port of LA. Goes back quite a ways and I notice the trend upward around the mid-ninety's.

[Deleterious]

Jim Cramer rang the bell this morning. I predict red.

[Screwball]

11 hours ago, Deleterious said:

Jim Cramer rang the bell this morning. I predict red.

Jim Cramer....

I had to look it up to see how long he has been in front of a camera and billed as an expert. His Mad Money show started on CNBC in 2005 (Bubblevision). If you were a CNBC junkie, his show came on around 5 or 6 after the markets closed. He had a keypad type thing about the size of a small organ. Maybe a dozen buttons. He would rant and rave slobber then smack the button that said "buy, buy, buy." 

They even had a link so you could push the buttons from home and play along.

I tried to find a link but couldn't find one. Funny ****.

So this huckster has been in front of a financial camera for 20 years? And he still is!

You can't make this **** up.

Edited Wednesday at 01:48 AM by Screwball

[oblong]

Honestly I would have guessed longer.  

[Deleterious]

GM is recalling 600,000 vehicles. Something to do with the crankshaft.

That would be pretty expensive without tariffs.  I also wonder how easy they can get the parts.

[gehringer_2]

24 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

GM is recalling 600,000 vehicles. Something to do with the crankshaft.

That would be pretty expensive without tariffs.  I also wonder how easy they can get the parts.

Yikes! Crankshafts and rods. This could be the recall from Hell for GM. How on earth do you "inspect" the crankshaft/rods on a V-8 SUV? Maybe a specialized fiber optic through the oil filler or dipstick hole? Drop the oil pan (half a day's work at least)? And that assumes that visual inspection is even going to tell them anything useful. It's likely to cost them a small fortune. Not to mention doing a short block replacement of the defectives they find. Then fixing all the AC/Steering/tranmission/Electrical damage likely to occur in the  process of doing an after market engine replacement.

Edited Wednesday at 04:07 AM by gehringer_2

[Screwball]

Cramer's Mad Money was 2005, but after looking again, I found another creature. Cramer had a show with Larry Kudlow from 2002-2005. Cramer was also frequent guest commentator on CNBC in the late 1990s. So yea, the dickwad has been around longer.  Kudlow is another. I used to mute the TV when he came on. He isn't even a good BSer. Truly awful. He was the green shoots guy after the crash of 2008 that made you want to puke.

[Deleterious]

Sout Park spoofed Cramer but instead of stocks it was friends on Facebook.

 

[Deleterious]

 

[Deleterious]

Starbucks with a big miss and set to open about 10% down.

 

[chasfh]

15 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

Sout Park spoofed Cramer but instead of stocks it was friends on Facebook.

 

I see this episode is from 2010 … fifteen years ago. Cramer was very much in the public zeitgeist back then. I wonder whether, if a Mad Money spoof were to air as a first-run episode today, much of the audience would miss what the joke was supposed to be. I would guess a high percentage of the viewers would think the idea is original with South Park.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Deleterious said:

Starbucks with a big miss and set to open about 10% down.

 

Starbucks may be the poster child for a firm unable to make an in person sale efficiently,  but it's amazing to me how many retail/counter sales type operations can't get a sale done quickly. It's such an obvious requirement to stay in business...🤷‍♂️

[Deleterious]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

Starbucks may be the poster child for a firm unable to make an in person sale efficiently,  but it's amazing to me how many retail/counter sales type operations can't get a sale done quickly. It's such an obvious requirement to stay in business...🤷‍♂️

When people opening a business ask for advice, I always tell them concentrate on customer service. Master this, and you'll surpass 90% of service-oriented businesses.

[Screwball]

Customer service. Nice phrase. Too bad in most cases it doesn't exist.

I'm old and spent 35+ years in Office Space - and here we are - I'm not surprised. In the last two months I've dealt with bank problems, car problems, and internet problems. Nazi's all.

Piss poor design problems that become unfixable in the auto realm, then the digital world swindlers, then you have the financial wizards of the world who rape us in every way possible.

I've just spent 1400 bucks on a problem with my auto, and it's not fixed. According to two different dealers and a service bulletin, my condition is deemed normal per engineering at this time. Exact words given and I have a copy.

My engine is overheating, according to the gauge. It never gets into the red or sets off an engine light. But it still gets hot, then goes back down. Not good. They had it for 3 days, send scanner data to the mothership. When they gave it back they told me - this is normal - just don't let it get into the red. WHAT?

I then went the OEM route and the comedy was immediate and off the charts dicked up. It's called - you are ****ed.

What a world.

[gehringer_2]

14 hours ago, Deleterious said:

 

This GDP number would make one think unemployment is destined to start trending up faster as well.

 

[chasfh]

11 hours ago, Screwball said:

Customer service. Nice phrase. Too bad in most cases it doesn't exist.

Customer service is an early-stage business imperative. When a business is first starting up, it’s crucial they openly cater to the customer, and they make sure the customer knows that, in order to get a foothold in the market.

Once a business reaches its mature and late stages, after having established themselves among the top names in its categories, and especially once it becomes either a market leader or part of a collusive group of market leadership, customer service gets mere lip service, while actually getting pushed way way down the priority list, receiving minimum expense and effort. For a business with easily identifiable customers, those who share PII when purchasing the product, only the biggest spenders get at least some level of true one-to-one customer service, usually the minimum amount needed to manage them through a crisis; in a business with an anonymous customer base, like consumer packaged goods, there is practically no customer service, no matter how much anyone spends on the product.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Customer service is an early-stage business imperative. When a business is first starting up, it’s crucial they openly cater to the customer, and they make sure the customer knows that, in order to get a foothold in the market.

Once a business reaches its mature and late stages, after having established themselves among the top names in its categories, and especially once it becomes either a market leader or part of a collusive group of market leadership, customer service gets mere lip service, while actually getting pushed way way down the priority list, receiving minimum expense and effort. For a business with easily identifiable customers, those who share PII when purchasing the product, only the biggest spenders get at least some level of true one-to-one customer service, usually the minimum amount needed to manage them through a crisis; in a business with an anonymous customer base, like consumer packaged goods, there is practically no customer service, no matter how much anyone spends on the product.

That is what I have noticed as a consumer.  Good small businesses tend to be easy with which to work assuming they have the service or product you want.  With big businesses, if anything goes wrong after the point of sale, you are usually screwed. If you you are lucky enough to be able to contact them, you will probably speak to somebody in Pakistan or the Phillipines who will generally give you the solution that you already saw online (which didn't work)

[Tigerbomb13]

9 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

That is what I have noticed as a consumer.  Good small businesses tend to be easy with which to work assuming they have the service or product you want.  With big businesses, if anything goes wrong after the point of sale, you are usually screwed. If you you are lucky enough to be able to contact them, you will probably speak to somebody in Pakistan or the Phillipines who will generally give you the solution that you already saw online (which didn't work)

I found this happening before my own eyes at my current company. I got laid off last year because our job was outsourced to the Philippines. When that went poorly, they hired a bunch of us (myself included) back. Most of those positions have stayed outsourced though, and there is a huge turnover with them. Service has absolutely taken a hit. 

[CMRivdogs]

Having spent a fair amount of time in CS the problem is weighing what the customer needs/wants vs what management objectives are. A couple cases in point. Metro Airport farms out its ground transportation to private companies who provide cabs/limos on airport property. The company sets the rates, DTW sets conditions. The Transportation company must weigh their costs (upkeep, wages, etc) vs what the consumer expects. Meanwhile for the most part the CS agent is the lowest peon on the totem pole. Having to deal with crazy drivers (who mostly work on commission), angry customers (who usually have little or no clue about logistics of getting around a large region with little or no public transportation). Throw in turnover because pay sucks and burnout for anyone who stays there for any length of time and gets grief from both the consumer and the provider.

Currently I spend time as a volunteer at the Colonial Williamsburg Visitor Center. We're usually the first people the visitor sees when they visit. Spend four hours or so balancing your time between the visitor's expectations  and the objectives of manage, On Sunday's we get a range of folks arriving for a multi day visit to those passing thru on the interstate and have no clue what CW is about other than it is an old city that someone may have told them about and they had about an hour to kill on their way to or from the Outer Banks. For all they seem to care it could be a Buc-ee's.  Throw in a management "cost saving" decision to change the map/program guide to a map only and tell the visitor they can find program information on line. (The vast majority of our Sunday visitors are either senior citizens whose phone skills are still in the early 2000's or really can't deal with reading their phone in extreme sunshine). Meanwhile we are expected to be helpful, friendly, courteous , kind, cheerful and loyal.

 

[Hongbit]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Customer service is an early-stage business imperative. When a business is first starting up, it’s crucial they openly cater to the customer, and they make sure the customer knows that, in order to get a foothold in the market.

Once a business reaches its mature and late stages, after having established themselves among the top names in its categories, and especially once it becomes either a market leader or part of a collusive group of market leadership, customer service gets mere lip service, while actually getting pushed way way down the priority list, receiving minimum expense and effort. For a business with easily identifiable customers, those who share PII when purchasing the product, only the biggest spenders get at least some level of true one-to-one customer service, usually the minimum amount needed to manage them through a crisis; in a business with an anonymous customer base, like consumer packaged goods, there is practically no customer service, no matter how much anyone spends on the product.

This reminds me of a sushi restaurant that I used to frequent when I lived in California.    Great, great location with ample tourist and local foot traffic.   They were successful for the first few years and then it slowed down to the point that they went out of business.  

A few months later, a different owner started another sushi restaurant in the same space.  They made no changes to the inside except a new name on the front and a fresh coat of paint.    The quality of fish was the same, and the menu had only minor differences.

The only significant change was in leadership and management.  The owner of the new restaurant was exuberantly friendly.  Same with the sushi chefs, bussers, hosts, and everyone on staff.   They would happily give out free carafes of their low end sake but it made everyone feel like they were regular.  They did a great job of remembering the faces that came in and making people feel special and at home.

It wasn’t long before there was an hour wait on most nights.  

Flash forward a decade, the restaurant is still packed.  There’s not as much of a wait as they bought a struggling Korean BBQ restaurant a few doors down and put their brand on it and installed a sushi counter at that location.  They also expanded with 3 or 4 other locations within a 30 minute drive of the main restaurant.  

[chasfh]

52 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

That is what I have noticed as a consumer.  Good small businesses tend to be easy with which to work assuming they have the service or product you want.  With big businesses, if anything goes wrong after the point of sale, you are usually screwed. If you you are lucky enough to be able to contact them, you will probably speak to somebody in Pakistan or the Phillipines who will generally give you the solution that you already saw online (which didn't work)

Most of the time, when you bring up an issue to one of these foreign-based CSRs, you can hear the clattering of the keyboard as they google the same answers you already did before calling. They are almost certainly contractors, not company employees, and they probably have several dozen different corporate clients they service, so none of the CSRs learn anything about the clients' products. But then, they don't have to, do they? All they really need are moderately above-average (say, index of 105-110) googling skills.

[oblong]

I had to call my bank yesterday and the rep made sure to tell me she was from Texas.

The level of customer service you get is directly related to the liklihood they would lose you as a customer if you are unhappy with that service.

 

[chasfh]

3 minutes ago, Hongbit said:

This reminds me of a sushi restaurant that I used to frequent when I lived in California.    Great, great location with ample tourist and local foot traffic.   They were successful for the first few years and then it slowed down to the point that they went out of business.  

A few months later, a different owner started another sushi restaurant in the same space.  They made no changes to the inside except a new name on the front and a fresh coat of paint.    The quality of fish was the same, and the menu had only minor differences.

The only significant change was in leadership and management.  The owner of the new restaurant was exuberantly friendly.  Same with the sushi chefs, bussers, hosts, and everyone on staff.   They would happily give out free carafes of their low end sake but it made everyone feel like they were regular.  They did a great job of remembering the faces that came in and making people feel special and at home.

It wasn’t long before there was an hour wait on most nights.  

Flash forward a decade, the restaurant is still packed.  There’s not as much of a wait as they bought a struggling Korean BBQ restaurant a few doors down and put their brand on it and installed a sushi counter at that location.  They also expanded with 3 or 4 other locations within a 30 minute drive of the main restaurant.  

This is an example of how customer service is generally better among companies whose base is easily identifiable and recurring customers, versus one whose customer base is largely anonymous and always turning over.

[gehringer_2]

4 hours ago, chasfh said:

This is an example of how customer service is generally better among companies whose base is easily identifiable and recurring customers, versus one whose customer base is largely anonymous and always turning over.

the other issue in large US business is just lack of any long term stability in the average corp management. A management team can spend several years building up a commitment to CS and core of people to do it, and a management change can destroy it all in one quarter.  So as a customer, even if you are well taken care of once, you have little expectation it will be repeated again.