Free software was a Critical Non Essential

Morgan PR has written before about the marvellous concept of CNEs - Critical Non Essentials, a term coined by Australian dentist Paddi Lund - and we saw a brilliant one today after buying a new flash memory card for the camera.

It was back on Saturday that a card crashed mid photoshoot at the Little Jogs Nursery School. Naturally we carry spares so the day was not lost - but some great photos were!

I tried a few freeware programs to rescue the images to no avail and in the meantime ordered a new memory card, from SanDisk, via MyMemory. When it arrived it came with a free copy of RescuePRO, which swiftly recovered the photos! How delighted was I with that service? And all because of a CNE!

Paddi Lund says that Critical Non Essentials suggest that paying attention to detail in the Little Things surrounding the customer experience could have such a dramatic impact on the way customers feel about the business, and more importantly about the kind of stories they tell their friends.

He's not wrong!

I guess there is a certain irony that with the program I might not have bought a new memory card for the camera, but being unable to recover those photographs prompted paranoia about crashing cards, hence the new purchases.