CUSTOMER SERVICE!
Have you ever bought a book and brought it home only to discover pages missing, or find it’s been printed upside down? Well, when Michel Cuhaci of Ottawa discovered his copy of "A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations" was flawed, he was rightly miffed and posted a comment on the internet to vent his irritation.
When the author, Professor Dan Fleisch of Wittenberg University, read the complaint he posted a comment to Cuhaci promising he would send a replacement copy by overnight courier.
I’m sure that Michael Cuhaci was well pleased to receive a perfect copy of the guide which detailed the four most influential equations in science: Gauss’s law for electric fields, Gauss’s law for magnetic fields, Faraday’s law, and the Ampere-Maxwell law. Fleisch’s guide for students devotes an entire chapter to each equation with explanations in plain every day language. There’s even a website hosted by the author with interactive solutions to every problem in the text as well as audio podcasts to walk students through each chapter.
You would have thought that this professor couldn’t possibly go further to encourage learning in his field of expertise, but wait, there’s more:
Having realised that it was in fact Christmas Eve, Dan Fleisch discovered he would not be able to courier the book anywhere. He then rang local bookstores in Ottowa only to discover his book was out of stock.
Now, I’m sure that Professor Dan Fleisch hadn’t let a soul down in his whole life and he wasn’t about to start now; he would hand deliver, he decided, it was the only option. Hmmm, he thought he’d drive to Canada but discovered a massive snowstorm over the whole Northeast. A flight, also, appeared to be out of the question until 6am on Christmas Day when the intrepid professor boarded a plane in Dayton Airport after which he picked up a rental car, drove to the Cuhaci homestead, walked up the drive, knocked at the door and said: Hardcover or soft?
I’d love to have seen the look on Michael Cuhaci’s face when Fleisch apologised for the misprint, handed him the book, turned on his heels and went back from whence he came. "To think, there he was and I didn't even ask him to sign it," Cuhaci said. "I didn't even invite him in for coffee."
And that, my friends, is customer service!
When the author, Professor Dan Fleisch of Wittenberg University, read the complaint he posted a comment to Cuhaci promising he would send a replacement copy by overnight courier.
I’m sure that Michael Cuhaci was well pleased to receive a perfect copy of the guide which detailed the four most influential equations in science: Gauss’s law for electric fields, Gauss’s law for magnetic fields, Faraday’s law, and the Ampere-Maxwell law. Fleisch’s guide for students devotes an entire chapter to each equation with explanations in plain every day language. There’s even a website hosted by the author with interactive solutions to every problem in the text as well as audio podcasts to walk students through each chapter.You would have thought that this professor couldn’t possibly go further to encourage learning in his field of expertise, but wait, there’s more:
Having realised that it was in fact Christmas Eve, Dan Fleisch discovered he would not be able to courier the book anywhere. He then rang local bookstores in Ottowa only to discover his book was out of stock.
Now, I’m sure that Professor Dan Fleisch hadn’t let a soul down in his whole life and he wasn’t about to start now; he would hand deliver, he decided, it was the only option. Hmmm, he thought he’d drive to Canada but discovered a massive snowstorm over the whole Northeast. A flight, also, appeared to be out of the question until 6am on Christmas Day when the intrepid professor boarded a plane in Dayton Airport after which he picked up a rental car, drove to the Cuhaci homestead, walked up the drive, knocked at the door and said: Hardcover or soft?
I’d love to have seen the look on Michael Cuhaci’s face when Fleisch apologised for the misprint, handed him the book, turned on his heels and went back from whence he came. "To think, there he was and I didn't even ask him to sign it," Cuhaci said. "I didn't even invite him in for coffee."
And that, my friends, is customer service!
Labels: Customer Service, Dan Fleisch
3 Comments:
Actually, what looks captivatingly interesting to these eyes is the notion that those particular equations would submit to comprehensible rendering in "regular language."
Maxwell's contribution (I think around 1865) was a grand synthesis of physics as it then existed. Less than half a century later physics as it then existed morphs into quantum physics. The equations which undergird -- really, which are -- quantum theory notoriously resist meaningful statement in regular language.
Or at least most folks say so. But regular language changes. And we are -- most of us feel -- in the throes of a new paradigm being born, whose birth must implicate just such linguistic changes. So there may come a time -- perhaps very soon now -- when the equations of quantum physics may be explicable in "natural language."
I realize the piece was about customer service, but it takes you where it takes you.
Ken, I'm waiting for that day to come! As it is, it's all double dutch to me. One thing I do understand though, is good customer service. Appreciated your comments. Mary
Wow. That poor author. The "didn't even invite him in" part has me shocked. Of course, the reader had no way of knowing what the author went through ... but I wonder how he knows now? Did they get together later so the reader could apologize for his momentary lapse of manners?
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