Can you believe this?

Notes

A former co-worker of mine, who know lives in Australia told me about this recent “Customer Service” story that happened to her: (emphasis are mine)

“OK so I tried to order from a USA food site, and shipping was $400.00 so I sent a complaint, here was the response:

Dear XXX,

Thank you for your email. We have checked into our site and we were having problems with our shipping quotes. Your items would most certainly not have been that amount to ship. We have thousands of customers in AU that are very happy with our service and would also never pay that amount for shipping. The cost would have been a fraction of that amount.

If you had been more pleasant we could certainly have checked into that excessive quote you got from the site and sorted out our problem. We are well aware of USAfoods and we would prefer if you would continue to shop with them or any other online options you have as we don’t appreciate rudeness. Please feel free to pass this on to anyone you wish.What a pity you choose to be so abrasive.

Regards,

Paula Greally” (my note: She is the OWNER)

So she admits the problem and then blames the customer?? Can you believe this? In today’s Social Media world, she actually says: Please feel free to pass this on to anyone you wish.

Ok Paula, happy to help! Feel free to comment here or pass along.

BTW, the site is www.cravingamerica.com

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Upcoming (free) Networking Workshop

events

There is a free Networking Workshop, sponsored by BNI at the Bergen Community College Tuesday evening, May 24thfrom 7-9 p.m.

The workshop is for busy professionals who want to generate more business referrals by improving their networking skills. There will be a panel of business networking experts who will share tips and techniques for successful networking.

If you are interested, please reserve your space by registering on-line by Thursday, May 19th at  http://bniworkshopmay24.eventbrite.com as space will be limited to early registrants.

Light refreshments will be offered and there will be a raffle for several business networking books.

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Welcome, Kevin!

news

I’m pleased to announce that Kevin Haughwout of the freedmarketer has agreed to do some blogging and posting for us and our clients! Most of Kevin’s work will be seen around the interwebs and maybe I can convince him to write a post or 2 here as well.

Please give a big welcome to Kevin and say ‘hi’!

 

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You writes about the good, you writes about the bad!

rant

So, a while ago, I wrote about the excellent Customer Service that former NY Met Art Shamsky provided when a signed picture I ordered came with a minor issue.

So, now it’s time for really bad Customer Service.

About two months ago, I deposited some funds into a bank who’s name I won’t mention (but their initials are TD and the last word is Bank.) I did this with the express intent to transfer those funds into ING Bank. Why? Because ING is paying 10X the interest that TD is.

So, after the funds are transferred, TD calls me and tells me they need to cancel my account. Why? Because all I’ve done is transfer the funds to another bank. When I call to explain, the CS Rep admits to me that he does the same thing(!) and that he will try to cancel the cancellation.

But, alas, he cannot and 1 week later TD sends me a bank check (via Overnight UPS) – closes my account and that’s that.

Really?

I admit the accounts I had there were nothing more than emergency type funds, plus I originally opened them because of the benefits TD had (and are now phasing out) like no-cost ATM use, even overseas, the ability to purchase a Visa Gift Card at no cost, etc. So I’m not that upset that I won’t be using them anymore.

But – the fact that they terminated me because my ‘recent activity’ was to transfer money away from them and into their competition is a bit silly. “HEY! You want to play with them? Go ahead but you can’t play with us anymore!”

Oh, and TD… want to keep your customers? Stop paying 1/10 the interest rate of other banks.

 

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Social Media is… (and isn’t)

news and notes, Notes, social media

So, since I’ve been doing a bit more speaking and networking recently (see the last post) I’ve been talking about what Social Media IS (and what it ISN’T)

  • Social Media IS a fundamental shift in the ways companies communicate to their ‘public’ and vice versa.
  • Social Media IS a cheaper/faster/(better?) way to communicate and exchange ideas.
  • Social Media SHOULD BE PART of your marketing plan, NOT your entire marketing plan.
  • Social Media ISN’T a panacea. It won’t make a crappy product or service better. You won’t get a million new customers just by having a Facebook page or a Twitter account. You need to work these ‘new’ channels just as you would work the old ones. Actually, even more-so.

What else? Let’s hear your comments on this one.

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Today’s Tip of the Day

tips

This morning (very early this morning!) I left for a networking meeting as a substitute for a regular member. I’ll do these occasionally in addition to the group that I am a member of.

So, after a nice breakfast, many cups of coffee and an hour or two of networking, I leave with a stack of new business cards and connections.

Here’s the tip – My next step was to log in to LinkedIn and add these new contacts as connections. That’s what LinkedIn is about, right? Business Networking, right? So, why do so many people skip this important step?

-aw

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Want to know what’s happening? Listen to Twitter

news and notes, tech

Check out this story from Baristanet.com. This is just a snippet that I edited;  you’ll have to click on to read the rest of the story:

Last Friday night… an alert came over from Breaking News Network, which caught my attention:

*Smoke Condition*| Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), 10 Toler Pl| smoke condition in the control tower has all air traffic shutdown for the airports…

…we turned on the car radio to see if the local news had anything, but heard nothing…

I didn’t think any more about the incident until yesterday, when I read a blog post by Tom Evslin, chief technology officer for the state of Vermont, who happened to be sitting on a plane waiting to take off…Evslin, being a captive to the situation, tried harder than I did to find out what was going on. Using twitter he… (click here to read the rest: http://www.baristanet.com/2011/03/twitter-and-ewr/

 

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Has Apple has killed the desktop computer?

Notes, tech

Here’s what I mean: when I first started consulting I had two computers – I had a desktop to do the majority of my computing work and I a (less powerful) laptop for my presentations and for when I wanted or needed to work remotely.

When Apple came out with the iPad and now the iPad2 and then a hundred or so plus compatibles, it may have killed the need for the desktop computer. Today’s laptops are just as powerful as the older desktop and have as much power as most people need. If you need extra storage space, hard drives are cheap- you can buy a terabyte hard drive for under $70 and you no longer need to buy an expensive docking station to attach a monitor and a keyboard -you simply plug them into a USB port.

So your laptop is now becomes your desktop and if you want something smaller and lighter and more portable to do to do presentations, you grab an iPad or Xoom or a Blackberry Playbook- that’s going to be the new laptop. You don’t need a desktop unless you’re doing hard-core video editing or something similar. Today’s laptops are just as powerful as 95% of the desktops out there and I think proper desktops, for the most part, will disappear within three years.

PS: I wrote this first on my iPhone using dictation software then did some minor editing on the iPad. No desktop or laptop at all!

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