Blog dedicado a la formación en todos sus ámbitos: presencial, online, a distancia
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Una infografía con 10 Actitudes positivas de un Gerente con Liderazgo. Vía
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10 Actitudes positivas de un Gerente con Liderazgo
Reuters reports that the regulator has concluded its seven-month investigation into allegations by Italian hotel owners that TripAdvisor fails to sufficiently block fraudulent reviews from being published — especially since the site presents its content as being the authentic feedback from actual travelers.
TripAdvisor’s own text touts “over 200 million candid reviews, opinions, and photos of hotels, restaurants, attractions, and more – all by travelers like you,” but the Italian regulator says such claims are “misleading information about the sources of its reviews” that TripAdvisor should stop publishing.
The site has been fined 500,000 euros ($612,000), but also has 90 days to file a response.
TripAdvisor tells Reuters that is plans to appeal the ruling, saying that the site’s “systems and procedures are extremely efficient in protecting consumers from a small minority of people who try to con our system.”
Crowdsourced review sites are incredibly controversial, especially in the food and hospitality industries. Some business owners claim that it’s too easy to fake reviews — whether it’s a shill trying to make a hotel seem nicer than it is, or a competitor trying to tarnish a restaurant’s reputation — and that angry, negative write-ups can sink a business even if the comments are fictional.
A small number of businesses have attempted to fight back by instituting non-disparagement fees that penalize customers who comment negatively online about their experiences. For example, a hotel in England tried to levy a $157 fine against a couple for a particularly vitriolic TripAdvisor review. After a huge public backlash against that policy, the hotel decided to change its rules.
Hola:
Una infografía con 15 tendencias en marketing hotelero para 2015. Vía
Un saludo
15 tendencias en marketing hotelero para 2015
Yes, Amazon is enabling procrastinators by promising delivery before Christmas for items ordered with one-day shipping up until tomorrow, and same-day delivery on December 24th for orders placed before 10 A.M. in the select markets where they offer that service. If you prefer in-person shopping while you’re supposed to be asleep, big-box retailers including Walmart, Toys ‘R’ Us, and Kohl’s plan to stay open 24 hours a day until they close down on December 24th.
Of course, this is exactly what UPS asked retailers not to do again this year, fearing that another last-minute shopping frenzy could lead to a last-minute delivery disaster like what happened last year in much of the country.
Tick-tock: Tips for last-minute shoppers [Associated Press]
For a small business owner trying to reach customers, advertising in an online directory might sound like a good idea. But there are also scammers out there looking to take advantage of these businesses by charging them for directory listings that never materialize. Just ask the victims of two “directory” operators that allegedly bilked millions of dollars from small businesses.
The Federal Trade Commission announced today that it has put a stop to both operations, which have been charged with defrauding small businesses and nonprofits by charging them for online business directory listings they had not ordered or received.
The companies allegedly deceived consumers by using unsolicited telemarketing calls and sending bogus invoices with the walking finger image often associated with local yellow page directories.
In the first settlement [PDF] with Montreal-based Francois Egberongbe, Robert N. Durham, Sr., and 7051620 Canada Inc., the company has agreed to pay $1.7 million to reimburse consumers who lost money to the scam.
The settlement is the result of a June complaint filed by the FTC and the State of Florida that initially resulted in the operation ceasing work.
In a second unrelated case, the FTC charged [PDF] Oklahoma-based Your Yellow Book Inc. (YYB), Brandie Michelle Law, Dustin Robert Law, and their father, Robert Ray Law with defrauding small businesses, doctors’ offices, retirement homes, and religious schools.
According to the FTC complaint, the defendants asked consumers to “verify” or “update” information in YYB’s Internet business directory and to pay up to $487. Many consumers paid, believing their organization had agreed to be listed in the directory.
Under the settlement, the companies must pay a $715,478 fine to be paid through the surrender of certain bank accounts and proceeds from the sale of a vehicle, boat, and camper owned by operators.
FTC and Florida Close the Book on Fraudulent Business Directory Schemes [Federal Trade Commission]
Dr. Oz testifying in June 2014 before a Senate consumer protection subcommittee.
The study, published last week in The BMJ, looked at 40 episodes of Dr. Oz from 2013 and investigated each of the recommendations made by the host during these shows.
Of the 80 recommendations from these episodes, researchers could only find evidence to support 46% of them. That doesn’t mean the claims are true; just that there is at least one piece of qualifying scientific evidence to support what Oz said on the air.
Interestingly, in 15% of the recommendations studied, the evidence actually contradicted Dr. Oz’s televised claims.
When researchers looked even closer at the actual evidence, the numbers sink lower, with only 33% of the doctor’s recommendations deemed to have evidence that could be labeled “believable or somewhat believable.”
Even if you disregard these stats and maintain that Dr. Oz wouldn’t recommend something he didn’t have a reason to believe was effective, there are some other numbers that may give you pause.
First off, Dr. Oz’s most frequently stated type of medical advice was dietary, as opposed to suggestions of physical exercise or seeking the guidance of a physician.
Nearly 60% of the time, Oz provided vague, immeasurable descriptions of a recommendation’s benefit, like claiming that a certain vitamin can increase your brainpower without explaining how this could happen or to what extent.
And while specific benefits were given in 40% of recommendations, fewer than 10% of Oz’s claims discussed potential harms of the advice he was giving.
“Thus, anyone who followed the advice provided would be doing so on the basis of a trust in the host or guest rather than through a balanced explanation of benefits, harms, and costs,” write the researchers.
The study also looked at medical recommendations made by another daytime chat show, The Doctors. This show fared slightly better, with 63% of claims supported by some evidence and 53% supported by evidence that holds up to some scrutiny. However, The Doctors also had an alarmingly high percentage of claims (14%) for which the evidence actually contradicted the on-air recommendations.
To wrap this all up, let’s enjoy John Oliver’s take on the Dr. Oz effect:
While every Comcast employee apparently gets a few of these “We’re On It” cards that give recipients access to a dedicated customer service rep, Comcast’s lobbyists have reportedly been using theirs to grease the wheels in D.C. (image via The Verge)
Buried deep in the Washingtonian’s feature on how Meet the Press’s David Gregory lost his gig as host of the long-running NBC show after Comcast took over the network is a note about the influence peddling that goes on, not through campaign contributions, slush funds, or promises of high-paying executive jobs, but through the promise of getting your cable/Internet fixed in a timely manner.
“Comcast also had an even more personal way of sucking up to Washington,” writes Luke Mullins. “Its government-affairs team carried around ‘We’ll make it right’ cards stamped with ‘priority assistance’ codes for fast-tracking help and handed them out to congressional staffers, journalists, and other influential Washingtonians who complained about their service.”
Now, a Comcast rep rightly points out that this tactic is nothing new, nor is it exclusive to Capitol Hill. In fact, the cards — which are no longer called “We’ll make it right,” but “We’re On It” — are something that all employees are given and which can be distributed at each worker’s discretion to whomever he or she chooses.
It just helps that even though plenty of lawmakers are from parts of the country without Comcast service, they spend many months of the year in the D.C. area, where Comcast is the dominant cable and broadband provider.
So these cards, which only promise a dedicated customer service team for your particular issue, can help to convince a lawmaker from a non-Comcast area to think that the company is not the absolute worst in customer service.
Perhaps that’s why PA Senator Pat Toomey, who lives outside of Comcast’s service area, felt so compelled to demand that the FCC stop futzing around and approve the Time Warner Cable merger already. Or maybe it had something to do with the more than $70,000 his campaign received from Kabletown during the most recent election cycle. The world may never know.
Don’t underestimate the motivating value of decent customer service, and not just on legislators who are easily won over. Take, for example, the case of journalist Bob Garfield, who was so annoyed with Comcast that he created the site ComcastMustDie in 2007. Two years later, after finally being treated not-horribly by Comcast, he abandoned this crusade, declaring that Comcast “has finally seen the light.”
Except that it’s still at the bottom of most customer service rankings and has earned the Worst Company In America title twice since then, while spending billions to gobble up NBC Universal and trying to acquire Time Warner Cable.
Instead of handing out these cards to a select few, how about improving customer service for everyone?
The Hartford Courant reports that leaders from Stamford, New Haven, and West Hartford first announced the initiative in September. Between the announcement and the deadline, an additional 43 towns in the state signed on.
The plan is, as the formal language has it, to “issue[] RFPs to create public-private partnerships resulting in open-access fiber networks in many Connecticut municipalities providing a variety of competitive Internet-based services to residents, businesses, and community anchor institutions.”
Or, in other words: to make internet service in Connecticut better for everyone through a local-level, public project that would bring gigabit fiber (like Chattanooga has) to the state’s residents and businesses.
Those 46 towns, out of Connecticut’s 169, represent over a quarter of the municipalities in the state.The list (PDF) includes a wide variety of towns, from the large and well-to-do to the small and entirely underserved. All have in common that the current options in the state — which is Comcast country — are simply not meeting their needs.
Connecticut is not one of the twenty states with some kind of incumbent-sponsored law against muni broadband on the books, so that’s one less obstacle standing between residents of the nutmeg state and blazing-fast internet speeds.
Towns had until December 12 to submit their applications to participate; companies interested in the contract for building the network need to submit their proposals by January 15. The state broadband commissioner did indicate in a statement that other towns may also be able to join the project down the line.
No doubt at least 46 Helens agree: Connecticut residents will benefit heavily if the broadband plan pans out.
46 Connecticut Cities And Towns Join Ultra-High-Speed Internet Project [Hartford Courant via DSL Reports]
It’s not that taking extra Vitamin C once you start sniffling is bad for you, exactly. It’s just that it doesn’t really do any good. While some studies do show that zinc shortens colds a little bit, Consumer Reports’ medical adviser says that Vitamin C hasn’t been shown to shorten your cold…if you weren’t already taking a supplement. It does help some if you were taking the supplement regularly before you were exposed to the cold virus, which means that taking supplements once you’re already experiencing cold symptoms doesn’t do any good. Also, the people in the study whose colds were milder if they were already taking Vitamin C were exerting themselves heavily in the outdoors during the winter.
Excess Vitamin C is just eliminated in your urine, and an “excess” amount is more than one might get by eating a cup of fresh fruit. In addition to expensive pee, one long-term study showed that taking Vitamin C regularly makes someone twice as likely to have kidney stones.
5 reasons to skip taking vitamin C for colds [Consumer Reports]
