Happy Holidays!

Not much has been going on in my world. Two of my husband's three sons came up from Atlanta to visit us. They arrived the day after Christmas, so we had our big turkey dinner on Saturday. One son went home on Sunday because he had to work on Monday. The younger son is still here. Will go home at the end of the week. I am getting my fill of violent video games and heavy metal music. The son lives for junk food and sweets. He's in for a eye-opener here. Yesterday, I served as the sous chef and I had him make the pizza -- homemade crust and toppings. Today, he is making spaghetti. Not a lot of junk food this week.

I usually take down my Christmas tree right after Christmas, but I like this tree so much, it is still up. I hand crocheted snow flakes for the tree and used gold beaded garland and white lights. It's a great tree. This year we spent extra money and bought a high quality artificial tree from WeBeChristmas. The tree is beautiful and the customer service/shipping was great. I know -- it's not green to go artificial, but I figure the tree will be good for at least 10 years which means the price was way less than a real tree and I won't send plastic to the dump for a very long time. I'll probably take the tree down on New Year's Day.

Points to Kroger

Kroger is not normally my favorite grocery store. They are overpriced. But, Kroger is the only local story where I can find Dasani water in the big bottles - the kind my husband drinks. Last Friday, I went to Kroger. While there, I saw a package of Christmas tree ornament hangers (those cheap wires) for $.59. I needed some and decided to just pick them up at Kroger instead of making a separate trip to Walmart.

Later on Friday, in middle of decorating the tree, I opened the package and noticed that there was a price tag on the back that said $2.49. And the price tag was for garland. No way! I checked the store receipt and sure enough, Kroger charged me $2.49.

Now, it's not the $2.00; it's the principle. This morning, I stopped by Kroger anticipating an argument. I had already used the hooks. I just wanted the $1.99 price difference. To my surprise, the woman at the customer care counter, said, "No problem. It was our mistake. Someone put the wrong tag on the package." She proceeded to refund me $2.66 (the total price plus tax). I said, "I'm only owed the price difference." She said, "No, because of our mistake, you were forced to make an extra trip back here."

Very cool. That's exceeding customer expectations and that's a good thing. Think about it. To Kroger it was a piddly $2.00. To me, it was much more. I was prepared to complain, tell others about my experience and never shop there again. I'm impressed.

Heavenly customer service -- the Victoria's Secret way

Last Thursday, we celebrated Christmas. I know most of you were celebrating Thanksgiving. We did that too. My husband and I went to Nashville to spend the holiday with my daughter Katie and her husband Jason. Because they have too many families to see, we have always combined Thanksgiving and Christmas and she sees other family members in December. So, I did the majority of my Christmas shopping early and we opened presents last Thursday.



My daughter sent me an email wish list from Victoria's Secret. The minute I received the email, I went on line and placed my on line order and had it shipped to Nashville so I didn't have to carry it on the plane. Not 5 minutes after I placed the order, I received another email from my daughter saying she needed a different size. I won't even tell you what small size my hot daughter needs now ... more power to the Y and her spinning class.



I got on the phone to Victoria's Secret. A wonderful woman whose name I missed helped me. I told her I was trying to be a good mom and order immediately and it backfired. She said no problem. She called up the order and changed the sizes and said all done. I believe I was in shock. I asked, what else do I need to do ... are you sure ... it's that easy???? She said everything what taken care of. AMAZING! Less then 2 minutes on the phone and she corrected the order. No questions asked. (And, when Katie opened the package, it was completely correct!)



That's the way customer service is supposed to be done. Do your job. Make it easy on the customer. Life is simple. I'll be buying from Victoria's Secret again because they know how to do customer service (and my daughter looks good in the stuff)!

The colonoscopy from hell

Monday I had a colonoscopy. It took me 2 years for my primary care physician to talk me into getting it done. Just routine - I'm getting old :(. I was told by everyone that it's no big deal - the prep (starving yourself and then taking medicine to 'clean out' your insides) is no fun, but then it's over. Then after the procedure you go home and sleep for a few hours, eat and feel fine again. Not me.

Because I take a Rx painkiller for back pain (broken back in 2003, but that's another story for another time), I had a colonoscopy with sedation. I'm not going to go into all the gory details, but Monday afternoon there was no sleep for me - I spent hours and hours expelling everything and mostly nothing out of both ends. This story though isn't about that. It's about customer service -- AGAIN.

After a couple hours my husband called the hospital because something wasn't right. Wake Med Cary Hospital said to call the doctor at Cary Gastroenterology. Next phone call to the doctor. He got a voice mail for the nurse and left an urgent message. An hour later - no return phone call. I told him to call and speak to a live voice. He called the doctor again. This time he spoke directly to the nurse. She said it could be serious and she'd check with the doctor and call right back. An hour later and no return phone call. My husband called again and refused to speak to anyone but the head nurse who listened to the symptoms and sent us immediately to the hospital emergency room. Several hours later, after an IV for dehydration and other stuff, I was feeling somewhat better.

And then on Tuesday morning, the first nurse called my husband and said she received a voice mail from him and what could she do to help. My husband said, "Don't you even remember talking to me live yesterday and then never calling back." I don't know if she's forgetful, incompetent or just too busy, but that experience was NOT acceptable. I talked to their office manager to get my records transferred out of that office. She said she thinks they were just too busy dealing with lots of patients. I asked if they had any other people who had a colonoscopy on Monday and called saying they were throwing up for hours afterwards -- seemed a high priority to me. She finally agreed.

Today I went to my primary doctor - the wonderful Dr. Jennifer Schmidt of Schmidt and Catchings in Cary, NC for a follow-up since I am certainly NEVER going back to Cary Gastroenterology.

Life is returning to normal, but I just don't get it. How hard is it to do your job and provide good customer / patient care?

Does the dentist understand customer expectations?

I went to the dentist today. I'm not a big fan of dentists (bad experiences with braces, etc. as a kid). I seem to change dentists regularly because they just don't connect to me (or maybe I don't connect to them). Anyway, I chose this dentist because when I called their office the person answering the phones was wonderful. She was reassuring and concerned about my comfort level. Now, I get to the dentist and I'm one of those people who share my expectations up front (I find it makes it easier to figure out if you can get along or not). I told the dentist that the way to get me to come back and even consider treatments was to not tell me about the whole hoard of problems I have and how much MUST be done IMMEDIATELY. He was better than most; but, he still came up with a whole list of issues -- who knew that silver fillings you got decades ago weren't supposed to last more than 10 years. What? Are you kidding? So, now I have to have those drilled out and replaced? And you want to do it with crowns? I have one crown in my mouth now and that gives me more problems than any other tooth -- and you want me to get more?

Then, he said since he had taken so long to go over the plan, he didn't feel I should get my teeth cleaned today. I should come back. I told him, if I didn't get my cleaning today I wouldn't be back -- that's the main reason I went to the dentist. I'll give them points. They did my cleaning, and Crystal, the hygienist, did a great job.

I don't understand how come I set the expectations but that didn't matter. If I was the dentist, I would have said, "You have a couple concerns for the future, but for now, I would consider getting a simple filling replaced and then after you're comfortable with current dental practices and with me, we'll talk about a future plan." Since that's not what he did, I did it to myself. I made an appointment to get one simple filling replaced and after that, I'll decide the future.

Guess I have to handle my own expectations. People, it's about the customer -- not about you. If someone tells you how they need to be handled, can't you at least try to meet their expectations?

Now I'm going to do some online research -- do the old-fashioned fillings really go bad after a while?

Going above and beyond at a restaurant

I'm usually the person who speaks up about poor customer service. Today, I'd like to commend Provino's Restaurant in Duluth, Georgia for good customer service. This past weekend, my husband and I went to Atlanta to visit his son and celebrate his birthday. We went to Provino's. The food was good, including those cute little garlic rolls (that were never-ending). Our waitress was just the correct amount of attentive throughout the meal. When we received our check, we noticed that it was not our check (it was much less). We told our waitress and asked for the correct check. She was apologetic and offered us a complimentary dessert to off-set the hassle. Really, getting the wrong check was no hassle. She asked us a couple times if we wanted dessert -- we said no. It really was not a problem. When we paid (by credit card), she came back with the receipt to sign and said she had deducted the glass of wine my husband had. How nice. We definitely did not expect that. We were not upset over receiving the bill. We never would have asked for anything special. But, she did do something to make sure we left with good feelings. And we did. I'm guessing that a glass of house red is not a big expense for them, but look at the result. I told several people about the service and our experience and am now writing about it here. People -- customer service is easy! Thank you Provino's. Based on your service, we'll be back.

My mind is spinning...

Tomorrow is election day and I still have not decided on every important race. I did send an email today to msnbc.com to tell them they had lost a formerly loyal viewer to both their website and tv channel. I'm all about bias, but they have gone overboard. They no longer report, they gush. That doesn't help intelligent people make up their minds. After last week's Obama infomercial, Chris Matthews gushed almost treating Obama as God-like. I flipped to foxnews and Sean Hannity spouted off the same questions I had. It was scary -- Hannity and me thinking alike? I've never voted for a Republican president EVER before. And it still might not happen tomorrow, but I'm not voting for a person just because the mainstream media is overly bias. Enough politics. I can't even have a good conversation with my daughter or mom right now. Thank goodness it will be over tomorrow (hopefully with no recounts, court cases or corruption).

One of my priorities this week (since I am out of work right now - by my choice) is to find a new residential phone company. I'm all about customer service and AT&T does NOT meet my standards. I have a story about my numerous phone calls from AT&T even though I'm on their do not call list. I'll save that for another time -- after the election.

Looking for an easy-going car salesperson

Today I had a little spare time so I headed to the local Pontiac dealer to look at Pontiac Vibes. I've been thinking of buying a new car for quite a while. I don't need one, it's just that I kind of want one. I did work for General Motors for 20+ years, so I understand a little about car dealers. I'm not a typical buyer. I don't need a sales person. I just wanted to sit in the seat to see if it was comfortable. I already did all my research on line. So, a sales person comes up to me and I said I was just looking. He proceeded to talk and talk and talk about who knows what. I said I really didn't have any questions - just wanted to try out the seat and make sure it had automatic headlights (I can't remember to turn the switch off). Then I asked him what his best price was. Of course, he couldn't tell me a price - he just sells -- someone else does the price. He started to ask me for all kinds of personal information. I said no. I told him I didn't need anyone to call me and follow up. He got all riled up and said that's what he did - that's his job ... to sell. I said I didn't ask for a salesperson ... I just wanted the price and when/if I decided to buy, then I'd come find a sales person. He got all huffy. He did get me a price (which I know isn't the best price) and because he got huffy, when I do decide to buy -- it won't be from him.

Why can't I set the expectations for my sale as opposed to a salesperson trying to set them for me?

The future is???

Today, the pitcher is full, but I don't know what's inside. I gave my notice at work on Friday. Even though I don't know the next opportunity, I know it's time to find one. If I continue to go to the same old job every day, I'll never look for something new or go out on a limb and try something else. I know I'm all about employee communications, meeting effectiveness, customer service and good leadership. So, do I do that type of work at a big company or do I start my own business (even in today's economy)? Time will tell ...

On another subject, the Barack Obama campaign hasn't called in a while. Guess they gave up on me. I donated to the Hilary Clinton campaign, so I guess Barack figures I'm fair game. I'm one of those independent undecideds. And, I'm still undecided. I really want to find some reason to vote for Obama - because I really DON'T like 'W', but I haven't found much I admire in Obama. The Obama campaign has called me 8 times - after I ask the volunteer who calls some tough questions, I usually get to speak with one of the 'paid' field organizers. What a hoot.

17 days till I decide.