I spent an overnight trip at my mother's house to finally load all the software she needed in her new laptop, which I talked about a couple of weeeks ago. It's hard to imagine for most, but it takes a lot of time to load software if you're loading multiple things.

One of the things I loaded was new software to go with her new Palm. My mother used to be one of those people always on the cutting edge of technology, if it was something she wanted. Back in 2000, she bought her first Palm, and made sure she bought the top of the line version. Up until two weeks ago, it was the only Palm she'd ever had. But it had taken a beating over the years, because the design back then wasn't really meant for all the things women throw in their purses without thinking about it.

Anyway, I loaded the new software, after first moving over all the data files from her old hard drive. This way, supposedly, when I synched the Palm the first time, it would not only load the new software, but it would search for preexisting data files and move everything over.

For the most part, things worked as they should have. But not perfectly. For some reason, the sync didn't pull over every contact she had in her address database. Also, the new software didn't pull over some other things she had on her old Palm, because they had changed how that information flowed, and suddenly it was incompatible with the new Palm. It did pull over a few things I wouldn't have thought it would, so I guess there's a trade off.

The question of customer satisfaction has to be something taken into account whenever anyone makes an improvement in something, whether it's a procedure or a product. Consideration must be made as to not only whether something that's changed was needed in the first place, or if someone might actually miss it because it was something that was important to them.

Or, do we deserve to have it in the first place? I know that each upgrade of Microsoft's operating system adds some things, and takes things away. Each version of their Office program adds something and takes something else away. Personally, right now I'm not as enthusiastic about Windows Media Player 11 as I was the first time I loaded Media Player 10, for this very reason. I bemoaned losing what I had, but I embraced the new things and got used to them.

I guess it all depends on the money, and whether the maker or supplier of the new products or services will actually listen to their customer or employee and their impressions of the change, or whether they don't feel it's necessary enough to worry about. Just makes me wonder how many customers decide, because something they liked wasn't the same anymore, whether it was time to look at someone else who makes something similar. Has to, since I've done that from time to time.

And, a lost customer rarely comes back.