TSS-Radio Blog

One thing that makes TSS-Radio unique and, I hope, a good place to work, is that everyone here has multiple jobs.  Unlike many companies that have armies of customer service reps, who handle 100s of calls per day and are judged on how quickly they “resolve” the calls, at TSS-Radio almost everyone answers the phone and works on other projects between calls.  Other projects include: researching complicated issues for customers, artwork for the website, descriptions on the website, answering questions on sirius-related forums, researching new products, etc. Even the bosses – managers and founders of the company – answer customer phone calls and emails.  Here are some reasons why we think this is a good idea:

1. Better customer service – because we are not exhausted and under pressure to maximize the number of calls we answer we have more time and patience for our customers.  Lots of us have worked in the “other” kind of customer service job and know from experience how much it sucks.

2. It makes us smarter – the same people writing content for our website and ordering new products are also talking to customers.  This allows us to write content and order products that our customers are telling us they want.

3. Training – those of us who have been here the longest, can better teach our new employees by example.

BusinessWeek recently wrote an article about a sports clothing company in Canada called Lululemon, that is much bigger than TSS-Radio, but where every employee, even the CEO, needs to spend a full day each month doing “front-line” work like customer service or sales.

Alexander the Great, one of history’s most successful leaders and warriors,  is also famous for leading from the front, fighting like any other soldier.

Our Shipping to Canada thus far has been through the United States Postal Service which gets handed off to Canada Post once through customs. For the most part things have been fine. We label and declare the customs value for each package honestly. Things have been shipped to Canada one of three methods, Global Priority Mail which averages 4-6 Business Days and Global Express Mail which Averages 3-5 Business Days. Global Priority does not have an official tracking system like UPS or FedEx but it comes with a Delivery Confirmation Number which will at least show that the item has been successfully delivered once it has arrived at the destination. Global Express mail does have tracking, but it’s still a step behind UPS and FedEx.

Starting very soon, we will begin shipping packages to Canada using DHL. The DHl sales rep stopped by today and I was more than blown away by the service. It should begin mid next week. Ultimately shipping a package Next Day should be more reasonable to Canada than it is within the United States using UPS. They are very competitive. It’s one of those things you’ve heard in the past but never quite taken the step to initiate anything.

All in all shipping say a SIRIUS Radio Car Antenna to Canada using DHL will take one business day and will cost roughly the same as the United States Postal Service’ Global Priority Mail which take about 4-6 Business Days. I also sincerely hope that Canadian customers take advantage of it since DHL does not have the same Brokerage fees as does UPS and FedEx.

On a separate note, last nights Episode of “Entourage” was not what I had hoped. But next weeks episode is partly shot at a restaurant in Beverly Hills, CA that I used to work in called Mastro’s Steakhouse . This will have been the third episode that was shot there, and this one seems to take place in the Wine Room. There was a time a few years back where I was working there and Bill Clinton had a private party in there with many celebrities including Quincy Jones, David Spade, Owen Wilson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and many others. That same night, which was engraved in my memory, Conan O’Brien was there, he was hosting the Emmy’s later in the week, Britney Spears, and Joey McIntrye. I had the gumption to go up to Conan and tell him a joke based on the celebrities in the restaurant. He and his writers that he was eating with were more than kind, despite this being a fireable offense. They had told me that they’d consider the joke and play it the following week when he got back. Unfortunately the following week was the year anniversary of September 11. If you have a chance to watch “Entourage” it will be on next week on HBO usually around 11pm.

Somehow in the last week we got a lot of on Air Plugs. Maybe it just all landed on that one week. I’d love for it to always be like that. I was briefly interviewed by George Flowers on the Howard 100 News, Craig Gass mentioned us on the Jim Breuer show, and Steve Covino, “Covino” mentioned us as well on Octane. Thanks to all those for helping keep the SIRIUS sales up.

My personal weekend which only seems to last hours can always be frustrating for a number of reasons. It’s a balance of getting things together combined with working combined with attempting to relax. During the weekend always look forward to Monday-Friday since at least some solid work is getting done, not to mention new Stern shows breathing life into me.

Also Mondays is particularily good recently because of my new favorite show, “Entourage.” Artie Lange recently filmed an “Entourage” episode out in Los Angeles and that will definetely be a bonus. The show has some of the best cliff hangers ever.

This week we look forward to receiving our first batch of GM Sirius Connect Units on Wednesday. Of many many pieces we placed orders for back in 2005, we are getting a small batch. We have many customers who are eagerly awaiting their units but the supply is quite limited, which is very frustrating and once again, we have no control over getting more or not.

In a month things will be moving far faster with the introduction of the SIRIUS new Live Portable the SL100TK1, the new Universal Kits, the SUPH1, SUPV1, and SUBX1. For retailers, the Holiday Season is just around the corner.