If Hyundai and Kia cars are cheaper, we don’t mind. If a Toyota is passed by a BMW or a Mazda, that’s okay. And if a Nissan is racier looking or a Mercedes is more prestigious, we accept that too because Toyotas are supposed to be durable. That’s what we buy. Toyotas are appliances that should start and stop every time.

Ironically, if Toyota had come out early, identified the problem and told their consumers that because of how seriously they take their oath of durability they would fix the cars for free, they could have improved their brand image and galvanized their brand loyalty.

But they didn’t do that.

Instead, they suffered the same fate that happens to celebrities and politicians who behave badly. If you look carefully, you’ll see that Toyota is not being punished for what they did wrong (their mechanical problems), they’re being punished for how they handled the situation (the cover-up and the callousness).

But here’s the good news. Another car company paid attention to Toyota’s actions. And when Ferrari recently announced that their new supercar, the 458 Italia, could spontaneously catch fire, they handled the news very differently.

According to The New York Times, “the (Ferrari) apparently has a tendency to burst into flames and is now subject to recall by its Italian manufacturer.”

Apparently? Apparently??!!

“‘A Ferrari spokesman said the source of the problem was a wheel-arch heat shield that came too close to an exhaust pipe. The adhesive that secures the shield can smoke or catch fire because of excessive heat.’ Now we all know that Ferraris are supposed to be hot but this is ridiculous. Especially when you consider that the car starts at $230,275 (if you can even get one) and is so good that it was referred to by The New York Times auto reviewer as ‘the best sports car I’ve ever driven, the current state-of-the-art.’”

But here’s where Ferrari and Toyota differ. Of course Ferraris are faster, sexier and prohibitively more expensive than Toyotas. But the Italian company clearly knows how to handle both curvy roads and their customers. Instead of trying to ignore or cover up the news, the company simply explained what happened, apologized and said that they would replace every car that’s been destroyed and repair every car with the faulty parts that hasn’t yet been reduced to cinders.

An expensive solution? Of course. But not nearly as expensive as losing the billions of dollars of brand value that Toyota watched go down in flames.

(Click here for a BBC slideshow of Ferrari 458s on fire)

Lots of you responded and were almost unanimous in saying that you’d had similar experiences or knew of people who had. A few of you pointed out how malpractice attorney’s coffers are fattened because of the adversarial relationships arrogant doctors create with their patients. Only two people thought the doc was justified, suggesting that busy doctors neither have the time nor the focus to be polite – they’re too busy saving lives. Tellingly, one is the son of an interventional surgeon and the other one had trained as an emergency medical technician (EMT).

Disagreeing with that point of view, Michael Earley, CEO of Metropolitan Health Networks wrote, “Unfortunately, your recent experience is typical of our struggling health care industry. (Doctors believe that) ‘We’re here to save your butt, not kiss it.’”

But this post is not a recap of my story. Instead, I want to focus on good customer service and the power of social media.

Less than a week after my post ran, I received a call from Dr. Pascal Goldschmidt, the senior vice president for medical affairs and dean of the University of Miami School of Medicine. Dr. Goldschmidt said he had read my essay and was calling to personally apologize for the way we had been treated. He told me about some of the programs he was establishing at UM and what he expected from his practitioners. And he gave me permission to tell all of you about his call.

Please note that Dr. Goldschmidt didn’t have someone else call, he spoke to me himself. And he didn’t blame the situation on anyone else. Instead, he took full responsibility. Finally, he didn’t just offer an empty apology; he told me what he was doing to rectify the situation. Whether he knew it or not, Dr. Goldschmidt masterfully followed a textbook QERC strategy – Question, Empathize, Respond and Close.

Question – “Tell me what happened.”

Empathize – “I understand why you’re upset.”

Respond – “I’m truly sorry.”

Close – “I want you to know what we’re doing to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Imagine the effect that simple manners and graciousness can have in otherwise unpleasant circumstances. Because Dr. Goldschmidt initiated the call (he was both informed and concerned about what had happened, and offered a sincere apology) the situation was neutralized and improved. And my future stories will not be about how shoddily we were treated but instead about how well the follow up was handled.

But here’s what I find even more interesting. After I hung up, I checked to see if Dr. Goldschmidt’s e-mail address was on my master distribution list.

It wasn’t.

That means that at least one of you either sent the post directly to Dr. Goldschmidt or passed it on to someone who did.

This clearly confirms the simple power of social media. Whereas years ago my story may have only reached a few people, now the power of the message is multiplied every time someone reads it. While we used to live in a world where big advertisers controlled message distribution, now the process has been democratized directly into the hands of anyone with a computer, an Internet connection, a story to tell, and people who are interested in hearing it.

Think about what this says about your business and your reputation. Think about the strategies – both offensive and defensive – that you need to employ to know who is saying what about you and to whom. And think about the opportunities that you’ve got to spread the word, reach your customers and sell your services.

What do you do when you’ve finished your to dos? That is, what do you do when all your phone messages are returned, your projects are up-to-date, your deadlines have been met, and even the pesky errands you’ve been avoiding (filling out time sheets, computing tax forms, checking blog analytics) are finished?

Believe me, this question is a lot harder to answer than you might think. I’ve asked lots of people whose opinions I respect – clients, friends, family – and I’ve gotten a lot of answers but not a lot of satisfying ones.

Here are some of the better suggestions I’ve heard:

Seth Werner, managing principal of The Davis Companies, said to “walk around.” His point was that free time is the perfect time to check in on co-workers to see how they’re doing and what they might need help with. After all, just because I’m done with my to do list doesn’t mean that others in my office are done with theirs.

Bob Berkowitz, founder of Multivision, suggested I go home or go do something fun. He stressed that inspiration is more important than hours invested and so the best thing to do is recharge your batteries and get fired up for the next challenge.

Steve Demar, partner with Kaufmann Rosin, checks on the people who report to him. Jason Kates, CEO of rVue, calls clients. Tom Cowan, founder of Vecker, reflects on his goals and his plans for achieving them. Jeff Palmer asks “what question needs to be answered right now?” Banu Dadlani meditates.

I’ve been told to work on pro-bono projects, review company fundamentals, even to write new blog posts. My dad told me that the answer always changes but that I “always know what needs to be done.”

Most everyone else I’ve asked just doesn’t seem to understand my question or at least they don’t see why it vexes me so much. Some laugh that their to do lists are so long that they’d just be happy to have my problem. Some can’t imagine why I want more to do.

Call clients? Practice harmonica? Start a new book? Make more cold calls? Visit with my co-workers? Come up with unsolicited ideas for our customers? Clean my desk? Practice my latest speech? Go for a run? Learn a new web skill? Tweet? Blog? Take a class? Take a hike? Take a nap?

Maybe you’ve dealt with this and have a solution. Or maybe this is the first you’ve thought of it but you’ve got a good suggestion. Either way I’d truly appreciate your input. As a thank you I’ll send a copy of my latest book, “Building Brand Value” to the person who sends the idea (or ideas) that I incorporate into my daily routine. I’ll also post the best suggestions in a future blog so everyone can benefit from this experiment in crowdsourcing.

Thank you. I’m looking forward to your answers.

As I told my son, having Dr. Interian perform this surgery would be like having Thomas Edison over to change our light bulbs. After all, who could be more qualified than the doctor who both invented the procedure and performed it thousands of times?

About an hour after they wheeled my son into the operating suite a middle-aged man in green surgical scrubs stood at the door of the waiting room and asked if I was “the father.” I nodded and he told me they were ready to start.

“Who are you?” I asked. He hadn’t bothered to introduce himself.

He looked at me like I was something he was annoyed to find stuck to the bottom of his shoe. “Dr. Interian. The surgeon. I met your wife. I’ll talk to you after the procedure.”

I went back to waiting, joined by Danny’s good friends Angie, Mari, Stephanie, Eric, and Jay, who had come to visit.

A few hours later, the surgeon came out, told me Danny was fine and that I could see him in 10minutes.

An hour after that I asked the receptionist when I could see my son, she said it would be another half an hour. When I mentioned I was told I couldsee him in 10 minutes over an hour ago, she laughed and asked, “Who told you that, the doctor? They have no idea.”

Finally I went to see Danny. In the recovery room I mentioned to the nurse that the doctor had told me he’d come talk to me but we hadn’t spoken. The nurse was aghast and went to fetch him.

“What do you mean we didn’t talk?” the irritated doctor said when he popped in a few minutes later. “I already told you everything was fine.”

“I want you to tell me more about the procedure,” I said. “What you found, what you did, what happens now.”

He looked incredulous. “I’ll discuss it with you when you have eight years of education,” he snapped.

I looked at him, turned to look at my son who was lying on the gurney with tubes coming out of his arm and machines beeping around his head, and decided the best thing to do was to take a slow, deep breath and walk away.

Now some of you might think that I’m being petty to complain about the doctor’s behavior. After all, what I wanted from the surgeon was an optimal outcome, and that’s exactly what I got. His lack of bedside manner and common courtesy was beside the point.

But it my mind it was bad customer service, bad manners and very bad form. And if I marketed health care for a living (oh wait a minute, I do) I would be really unhappy if one of my docs treated his patients the way I was treated.

The experience reminds me of my wife’s favorite joke:

Q: What’s the difference between God and a surgeon?

A: God doesn’t think he’s a surgeon.

Until Saturday morning.

I was doing my LSD (long slow distance) run and looked down at my watch to check my pace. Depending on the setting, my running watch displays two of the three figures I care about – distance covered, heart rate, and pace – and amazingly, they both read 140 (yes, there were some decimal points – don’t get ahead of me here). Did that mean I’d covered 14 miles or my heart rate was 140 beats per minute or I was running at a pace of 14-minute miles?

Hey, I’m slow but I’m not that slow so I knew my pace was about 10 minutes per mile, meaning my watch was showing me distance and heart rate. The point, though, was that I couldn’t tell what the information was because I couldn’t see the labels next to the data.

Suddenly, I knew why my Grandmother’s shelves were dusty and her chin was unkempt. I also remembered that when I used to speak to my other Grandmother, she’d say, “Let me put on my glasses so I can hear you.” And when I’d come home from school the woman who helped raise my brother, sister and me used to instruct me to “sit still so I can look at you.”

They were getting on in age and couldn’t see clearly.

Last week I wrote a blog post titled “The Boomers Shall Inherit the Earth” about the statistics of our aging population and the opportunities they will provide for savvy marketers. Perhaps the most important part of the article was the first paragraph.

“Between now and 2014, 10 Boomers will turn 50 years old every minute. By 2030, 20% of Americans will be 65+. What’s most remarkable is that most of them will live at least 25 years more, creating the largest and wealthiest generation in the history of the United States.”

Years ago, Atico Bank instituted a program to train their predominately young tellers on how to deal with the bank’s mostly aging customers. The tellers were outfitted for the training with kernels of hard corn in their shoes, Vaseline-smeared glasses over their eyes, cotton plugs in their ears and tight suspenders looped around their necks and fastened to their belts, causing them to hunch over. They were then instructed to walk around the sun-baked parking lot two or three times before they walked into the bank and tried to manage their accounts.

It was a great lesson to the impatient tellers who didn’t realize what their customers were dealing with.

It was also a great lesson to the young designer I was who often forgot that form follows function and thought that any type larger than seven point was “horsey.” Wonder why your elderly clients are cranky? There’s a clue.

Perhaps the bank’s methods were extreme, but it’s easy to see how awareness of – and empathy towards – aging customers can increase both sensitivity and profitability, regardless of what business you’re in. Senior Selling — creating products and services specifically designed to make purchasing easy and pleasant for the largest and wealthiest generation in history just has to be good business.

As for me, I’d just be happy if the labels on my running watch were a little bit bigger. IS that too much to ask?

Despite the current financial situation and the fact that many Boomers have seen their 401(k)s slashed to 201(k)s, Boomers are the wealthiest generation in history and will only get wealthier as they inherit their parents’ generation’s assets. And because Boomers will possess the physical and financial means to enjoy their lives, over the next two years alone, Boomers will spend at least a trillion dollars MORE than all consumers under 45 combined.

Unfortunately, millions will discover that social security will be their only source of income. But millions more will have increased time, resources and interest in enriching their lives. What will they spend their money on? Wellness, travel and making being older cool.

Although 83% of Boomers say that eating healthy is important or very important, only 11% claim that they eat healthy all the time. 61% say they are only successful half of the time. And while 29% say they can’t afford it, most simply say they don’t have the information, availability or the time to make healthy changes to their lifestyles.

If the old saying is correct that “we spend the first half of our lives trading health for wealth and the second half trading wealth for health,” then the opportunity should be clear – Boomers will spend money, and lots of it, to stay healthy and enjoy their lives. Entire new businesses and industries will spring up to service these newly wealthy consumers eager to spend their hard-earned and inherited cash on improved lifestyles. But lots of existing businesses – restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, cruise lines, computer companies, retailers, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, HMOs, cosmetic surgeons, advertising agencies, and others – will reconfigure their businesses to exploit this golden-age mine.

The Who’s Roger Daltrey (who turned 66 in March) was talking ‘bout my generation when he sang, “hope I die before I get old,” and Boomers heard the message. But instead of dying young, 50+ consumers have decided to stay young just as long as they can. How are you going to take advantage of this burgeoning opportunity?

Seems to me the entire travel and tourism industry could do the same thing. Tourism is a trade that encompasses so many different business sectors but has no single defining industry designation, and therefore, has no real way of demonstrating its value to the greater community.

Check the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and you’ll find listings for Air Transportation; Aircraft-Aerospace Manufacturing; Amusement and Recreation; Fishing, Hunting, and Trapping; Food Preparations and Food Specialties; Hotel and Restaurant; Museums, Art Galleries, and Botanical and Zoological Gardens; and the Railroad Transportation Industries – all listed as separate sectors. And that list doesn’t even include limousines, cruise lines, sporting events, nor all of tourism’s supporting industries such as Legal, Accounting, HR, Real Estate, Retail, etc., etc., etc. Yet every one of those businesses owes some or all of its success to tourism.

Funny how things change in times of trouble, though. Now that BP is dolling out money to companies whose businesses have suffered due to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, it seems every business that might have ever received a dollar from a tourist’s wallet has its hand out for relief. Watching the evening news the other day, I saw a gas station owner from Palatka complaining that BP owed him money because tourists have stopped driving down to Florida. Even the Brass Monkey Lounge in Marathon filed a lawsuit against BP for diminished business.

As Judy Sorenson, owner of the bar, said in The Miami Herald, “It‘s still beautiful here, but people aren’t coming because they think the oil is here, even though it isn’t here. That’s killing the Keys.”

Maybe so, Judy; but it ain’t killing bars. The last thing people in the Keys are going to give up is booze. In fact, I’d bet that the worse the situation gets, the more they’ll drink.

Regardless of the economic realities, our tourism industry will keep stoking the economy – providing jobs, generating taxes and showing people the best parts of the United States, all without getting the respect it deserves. It’s so bad that even Rodney Dangerfield used to diss our industry: “Boy, what a hotel that was, why they stole MY towel! Then I asked the bellhop to handle my bag and he fondled my wife.”

I’m tellin’ you, we don’t get no respect.

My Delta flight from Miami was so late I missed my 4:20 PM connection in Atlanta. I was quickly put on the next flight and scheduled to leave for Milwaukee at 6:45. Unfortunately that flight was postponed time after time until Delta canceled it altogether at 9:30.

Luckily I was able get a one-way ticket on an AirTran flight scheduled to leave at 10:20. Up until now I have avoided AirTran, remembering that they strategically changed their name from ValueJet right after they stuffed a plane so deep into the Everglades muck that there was nothing left to pull out. But I did need to get to Wisconsin and they had a flight available. Thanks to more delays, that 10:20 flight didn’t leave until 2:30 in the morning but I was still able to make my meetings with SC Johnson (albeit on two hours sleep).

When my work was over, my hosts where nice enough to arrange a tour of their Frank Lloyd Wright designed campus – an afternoon of joy for an architecture groupie like me. Then a quick flight to Detroit where I eagerly checked the connections board only to find five dreaded red letters next to my flight to Miami – “CNCLD.”

Two Delta flights cancelled in two days! And this one meant an overnight stay at the scenic Detroit Airport Clarion Hotel, albeit with two six-dollar meal vouchers from Delta. Who said flying’s not glamorous anymore?

When I posted my plight on Twitter, @Randy_Gage responded that Delta stands for “Doesn’t Ever Leave The Airport” which pretty much fit my experience.

Randy’s tweet, coupled with last week’s blog post “What’s In A Name?” got me wondering what’s in an acronym? FIAT used to stand for “Fix It Again, Tony” and Saab meant “Swedish Automobiles Always Break” and neither brand is sold in the US anymore. Bud is short for “Beer’s UnDrinkable” and I agree with that. TCBY used to stand for “This Can’t Be Yogurt” until they were sued for copyright infringement by the “This Can’t Be Butter” people and changed their acronym to “The Country’s Best Yogurt.” I can’t tell you if that was true but I doubt it.

Some brands have managed to avoid the fate of their acronyms. Ford used to stand for “Fix Or Repair Daily” but seems to have figured out how to build quality cars. And BMW stood for “Break My Window” in the eighties but changed their electronics and cut down on radio theft.

Getting back to my feelings about Delta, I can’t think of a better acronym using their name but I do like IBACDIHBIFWTA which is short for “It’ll Be A Cold Day In Hell Before I Fly With Them Again.”

Love to hear what you think.

About a year ago I wrote a blog post titled “The Problem With Newspapers Is The Word Paper.” My point was that if media companies spent more time concentrating on selling us what we want – the news – and less on delivering what we only thought we wanted – the paper – they might not find themselves in the troubled spot they’re in. But unfortunately the title newspaper put equal significance on both of their offerings.

When Tom Cruise was ranting and raving about psychiatry not being a science, Lewis Black pointed out that the actor knew what he was talking about because Tom Cruise belongs to a religion “that’s got science right in its name!” (The video is hilarious. Click here to watch.)

So my question is whether there’s any correlation between the label and the action.

Sure I know that it’s a joke of convenience to point out that every time you see a building on fire it’s always surrounded by fireman therefore it’s likely that fireman caused the fire itself (after all, they’ve got fire in their name). But let’s look at a more timely and relevant example – the damage done to both personal fortunes and the world economy by Wall Street and the real estate industry, both of which employ people called brokers.

If playwrights write plays and house painters paint houses then doesn’t it stand to reason that real estate brokers would break real estate and stock brokers would break stocks? Or is the argument as fallacious as assuming that just because olive oil comes from olives and peanut oil comes from peanuts then baby oil comes from babies?

Would Ralph Lauren have been as successful if his eponymous company used his given name, Ralph Lifshitz? Can you imagine bringing home or receiving an expensive perfume bottle branded “Lifshitz” for Valentines Day? (Hey Ralph, if your Lifshitz does your tuchas talk?)

I’m not suggesting any of this makes sense, only that labels do have enormous value and perhaps important consequences if only because of our perceptions of what the labels stand for. And while it may appear to be a shallow argument, there’s a lot to learn from the way we name products and people.

As we discussed last week, Nicholas Negroponte coined the phrase “content is king” in his book Being Digital. Since then, modern communicators have enthusiastically picked up the gauntlet, publishing page after page and screen after screen of opinions.

My question is this – is anyone actually reading all this stuff? I know what happens when the proverbial tree falls in the deserted forest but what happens when all these unsolicited words fill more and more blogs?

When I speak at corporate conferences I share the dais with lots of newly minted social media experts who will tell you that they’ve built their entire businesses through blogging. And even though Google Analytics can track every hit and report back with voluminous metrics, cataloging who visited, how long they stayed on site and where they’re from, is that also much ado about nothing? Other than some clearly successful outliers such as Mashable, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Tim Ferriss, Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis, Alex DC and a few more, is anyone actually paying attention?

Of course, all of this just begs the obvious – is anyone reading MY blog? Well, besides the fact that you’ve read this far (thank you), I’m just happy to have an outlet for what I want to say. I’m pleased when people comment online or tell me they thought what I wrote was either smart or hilarious. And if a printout makes it to my mom’s refrigerator, that’s the best consumer response I could ask for. After all, even Google can’t show me the metrics on making my mom happy!!