Customer Service and beyond…

Since 2005 I have been a Customer with Earthlink as my Internet provider. I never had any major disappointments with their Customer Service nor with their Tech Department. But last weekend I almost became a Ex-Customer of theirs, because of the amount of frustration and disbelief that I experienced with them. If it would not have been for 2 people that knew what it means to keep a Customer happy, and resolve my problem, I would have canceled my account with them, and swallowed the cost of an early cancellation of my subscription.
So here a few pointers, that I came up with, that would keep a Customer like me from seeing red and being frustrated and becoming irrate with the Person on the other end of the Conversation.

1. If you are having a bad day, or don’t feel like doing your job or feel annoyed by me calling you, so that you transfer me to another Tech after 5 minutes unannounced, tell your Supervisor you do not want to answer any customer problems and wish to do something else. Your bad attitude in answering the phone or helping a Customer reflects badly on the rest of the Department. I called you, greeted you by your name, and asked you if your day was going good. I always try to be friendly with the other person especially in Customer relations, since I also have to deal with Customers in my line of work on daily basis, and it makes a lot of difference in which way you deal with the person at the other end. I should point out though, that at any other point that I had to call in years past, the Person at the other end is always courteous and friendly. That I must give to them. This was a isolated incident, but nontheless it sets a bad tone for the rest.

2. NEVER tell a Customer that they are incompetent or wrong in typing their Username and Password. Granted there are a few people out there that may do something wrong, but when I repeat the same letters back to you for the 20th time that I am entering and they match up with yours, I do NOT want to hear from you ” You are typing it in wrong”. That will bring my already high Blood pressure close to the boiling point.

3. LISTEN to your Customer. When I explain to you, that the previous tech and I have reset the Modem already 10 times and have taken the next 5 steps and none worked, don’t feel compelled in saying ” Let’s try this, reset the modem”. Makes me believe, that you have turned off your headset and I feel compelled to hit you with the modem and tell you to reset it yourself.

4. Get your Information straightened out. When you have a Customer that has been with you for several years, the screen that you look at should contain the correct and same Information at all times, and not something different from Service tech to Service tech.

5. Information in regards of prices, services should be the same at all times and not change again from person to person. I was told of the cost of a new modem to me was free and only shipping and handling would be my expense, and another person 10 minutes later told me I had to pay almost $80 for a new modem and shipping and handling. Needless to say my Blood pressure went through the roof at that point.

6. Why not train all Service techs to be Level 3 or your highest Level. Why have levels? Shouldn’t or wouldn’t it make more sense to have the best Service techs with ALL of the information and resolutions answering the phone at all times? I rather speak to a Service tech that can resolve my Issue right away because he has had ALL of the training, then being transfered from a Level 1 Tech to a Level 2 Tech and so on, till I finally get a Person that apparently knows what she is doing. Is it so hard to go beyond that? It certainly would save time for both the Customer and the Tech, and the Customer would not scream at your Level 1 or 2 Tech like I did, because they cannot go beyond their script and need to tranfer me to a Level 3 tech. It is not fair to them because they are not given the chance to think outside of the box, and I felt upset for allowing myself to get so angry about it that I screamed at them.

Out of 6 people, 2 made it right by me. One was a Customer Service Person that went beyond his script the next day and made sure I received the new modem for free and even gave me a discount on the shipping and handling after he saw what I went through. And the second Person that helped me to get the new modem to work after I recieved it, was a LEVEL 3 tech, which right away knew what different step needed to be taken to get the modem to work and also helped me to make sure it was working with my router properly. These are the kind of people that I want to talk to at all times, to me that is what valuable and award winning Customer Service is all about. Yes every issue may be different, from minor to hard, that take different approaches, but it would not hurt to be fully trained in all aspects of the job, so escalations like mine are avoided, because if I ever have to go through this again, I will take my Business somewhere else. Thank you.

Little Friday humor

I have my moments of forgetfulness, but the one I am about to tell you about is taking the cake.

Couple of weeks ago, I went to the Gas station to fill my tank up. I went into the Gas station to pay for it, since it is pay first then pump. I hand the Clerk the money, leave the Building and hop in my car and drive off. Took me till the next light just before the highway to realize that my little gas light is still on and that I did not pump any gas.

So I turn around, pull back into the Gas station, go inside and the Clerk looks at me and starts laughing. ” Wondered how long it would take you to realize you didn’t get any gas”. Pretty embarassing for me, especially when there is a line of guys, looking at me and smirking and probably thinking ” typical woman”.

Anyway I got my Gas, but from that point on, if I go to that Gas station and that particular clerk is working, she throws in this friendly reminder: ” Don’t forget to pump your gas”. Thank you very much!

Have yourself a Merry Christmas

Christmas is almost here. And while you are juggling getting last minute gifts, baking and decorating and making everything festive for the family, I hope you are able to take a minute and reflect on the good things that have happened to you over the past year. In uncertain times like these, it is hard to remember the things that you do have, because the bad things that may have happened to you are overshadowing the good. The economy being a mess, our troops fighting for us in other countries, many friends loosing their jobs and subsequently their home. It makes it kind of hard to remember the better part of your life.

Here are a few things that I am grateful for this Christmas:

It’s been a year now, since I had major surgery and had to spent the pre-holidays in the Hospital. This year I am grateful that I get to spend it here at home. I am grateful that I get to have another Christmas with my family.

My kids. I am so very blessed to have kids, that have grown into such wonderful young adults, with everything they had to endure while growing up, the odds were against them and they have beaten them.

My Job, it may not be a lot and it may be at times nerve wrecking, but I am grateful that I can still provide for my family, when many others cannot.

A roof over our heads. It may not be a lot, but it is still home.

Friends. I am grateful for the many friends I have, that care and are there for me when I need a helping hand. That will listen when I need to talk, that have a good advise, and that I can laugh with.

These are things that I am grateful for this Christmas, and no amount of presents can replace them. And I am certainly going to try not take any of them for granted.
So from my house to yours, have a merry Christmas and enjoy the little things that makes it all worth while.

Out of the mouths of kids

Saturday I had to make a quick run to our local Party Store, were you can buy decorations and invites for Birthday’s, Weddings, well you guys get the picture. I was unsuccessful in finding a invitation template online suiting my need so I had to look for them at a store.

Anyway after I found them I proceeded to the check out and as I was waiting in line, a Dad behind me had found the novelty items and picked up a pair of goofy looking glasses. Silver with wings on the side, the kind you expect Elton John to wear, just a little smaller. He asked his Son if they made him look like a alien. His Son could not have been much older then 8 years old turned around and said ” you look like a idiot” and continued to bug his mother.
Okay, needless to say I had to turn around, bite my lips, look straight ahead in fear of busting out laughing. But I had to turn back around, as the Dad looked at me, and I just let loose. He started laughing and goes, well I asked. And I replied, that was your first mistake and continued to laugh through the check out and out the door. It made my day. The moral of the story, don’t ever ask your young kid for an opinion in public unless you are ready to be humiliated by your own child.

Some Privacy please

You know, the saying is, that when you are married for a period of time you get comfortable enough with your Spouse to share the Bathroom with him/her without any regards of what you are doing at that particular time. Well I hate to say it, but when I was married I never felt compelled to spent ” Quality time” with my then husband in the Bathroom. So maybe the so called experts need to re-visit this topic and re-evaluate their opinions.

But nowadays it seems like, I have lost any kind of privacy when it comes to me being in the Bathroom. Take for instance last weekend. I decided to take a bath in my midget bathtub, no offense to the short folks reading this, but my bathtub is made for 3 feet people and they gotta be skinny. I got claustrophobic while I decided to relax, because of the inability to stretch out or even move my arms. But that is besides the point. As I was saying, I was taking a bath, and in comes Puppy Ayla. She is smart, she knows how to open doors now. So she is right there with her face hanging over the Bathtub taking in the sights so to say and checking out the bubbles. Wonderful dog, no fear of the water. Next up is Tika, my daughters dog. Well she hates Baths, so she just hung out by the door. But wait that is not it, my daughter decided that it was time for us to spend some quality time together and told me to close the shower curtain so she could join me in my adventure of the midget bathtub and tell me all of her thoughts of the day and rummage through some products on the shelf. Helllooooo!! This is supposed to be me time, my time, my time to relax and get my head back to normal and not be afraid of being closed in. The only thing that is missing was the Cat. But he missed all the action since he was sleeping in a newly found spot a shoe box, he is bigger then the box, but that did not bother him, he is not claustrophobic.
Shower time I have an audience waiting for me, getting dressed is an impromto invite for making sure I dress myself correctly, I decided to ask for fashion advise, one woof is good, two woofs is bad and I am thinking of charging a fee now, but then what would I do with the doggie bones.

So my privacy has been non existent. Closed doors just get opened or barked and meowed at. So I just go and invite the whole crew with me and save myself the chaos that starts if I am not visible. Thinking of getting a hotel room when I want to be by myself, but then there be a 16 year old with 2 dogs and a cat looking for me to make sure I dress myself correctly.

Vacation time

Yes I am on vacation. A vacation that I actually look forward too, even though it is spent with 130 kids for 5 days and other Band Parents that chose to do the same. So you might say, that I am crazy. Vacation means no work, relaxation, good times.
Well we don’t look at it that way. Yes we do work, yes we have 130 kids to watch over, but we get to see these kids come to together as a Band, we get to know them better and we enjoy them. Yes, sometimes we get to a point were we say kids are icky, but if I personally look at the Seniors this year, I can go back and remember them when they started as Freshmen. And it brings up a lot of memories and it makes you proud and sad in the same time. For me this year it is bittersweet. Alex is a Junior, and next year she will be a Senior, a point I thought in years past she would not be, she tried to quit band several times, but the Directors and I would not let her. If we would have let her, she would surely regret it next year.

Anyway, we also have fun. The group of Chaperones that goes, has a great sense of humor. If you don’t have that, then you are at the wrong camp. Kids look at us and think we are weird. Directors have denied knowing us, and also threatened to sent us home if we were not to ship shape up ( of course they would not do that) or even joined in. And we also get yelled at from the Podium to keep quiet, kids love that when they Chaperones get told to knock it off.

It is always amazing, to see the kids take a piece of music and charts and get it all together. The talent they possess is absolutely astonishing. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer for some to realize what it means to be in the Big Red Marching Band and the Tradition that comes with it and the responsibility until they walk out the doors, march down the road to the football field and see the crowd that they have to perform for. Then it hits them..WOW…this is what all that hard work was all about. And it is even sweeter when they walk away with Trophies from a Competition.
The hardest part is when we loose some kids, because they choose not to continue with Band and quit. Lot’s of kids in this program don’t have the support system or structure at home, and every year we hear it over and over at the Senior Bon Fire, that this Band is their family, that this is were they made best friends, and helped them through their problems they have to face in their Lives. That this made them strive for better grades, to make them a better person, and when you hear this coming from someone that came in with a defensive attitute, thinking they know it all better, you know that something was done right and you hope they stay on the right path.
So yes my vacation time is spent at Band camp and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Go Big Reds!

Got a present

My daughter went to Cedar Point for a couple of days and returned yesterday. Well the good daughter that she is she brought me back a present. I always tell the kids not to buy me anything, I rather see them have a good time with the money they get from me or they bring themselves, but she did it anyway. See how much she is not listening?
Anyway, my daughter has been reading my blog here, and well she likes it. At least that is what she is telling me. But one of the blogposts triggered her impulse buy.

Remember awhile back I wrote about the disappearance of my coffee cups, and how I realized my Mom was the guilty party in this, because she threw some of my older mugs out? Well welcome the new addition to our household.

Going to love drinking my morning coffee from that one!

I marked the day red on the Calendar

So here I am with 2 driving Teenagers, well my daughter is almost legal to drive, she just has to take her Drivers test and then she is fully licensed. And you always hear the horror stories from other Parents, of how their kids take the car and bring it back home with an empty tank.

So yesterday I let my Son keep the Car, so he could run some errands and take care of a few things that he needs to get done before he returns to Campus in a couple of weeks.
He went shopping for a few new clothes, got his Instrument fixed at the High school, went to a bike store to turn his bike in to get repaired and so on and on.

At 4 pm sharp I walked out of work and there he was waiting for me. Nice! Did not have to call him and ask him if he forgot to pick up his mom at work. And then get this!! ” I put 10 bucks of gas in the Car”. If I wasn’t sitting in the seat when he said that, I think I would have fainted. $10 he put in, of his own money. WOW. I was amazed. So that is when I marked the day red on the Calendar to remind me of it.

But needless to say I spend more on him after, because we went back to T.J Max for a couple more things he wanted and I paid for it. It wasn’t too bad, it was stuff on sale, so he didn’t break me.
But I can say, when a Parent tells me that their kids never put Gas in the car, that my Son did!

New addition to the family

Yes, we have a new addition. Her name is Ayla and she is a 8 week old Australian miniature Shephard/Chocolate Lab mix. My daughter decided I needed something to keep me company with, and got me the puppy as a surprise.

At first when she told me that she got a puppy, I was not really happy about it. Frankly I was mad at her. I don’t want another thing to take care of. But when she came home with her, I was like oh my God. She is such a cutie.

We have had her for a week now, she is getting the Potty training idea now, she stands on her hind legs by the front door and whines to be let out. The one thing we still have a problem with is that she has not taken to the cage yet very well, that she stays in at night. She will be alright for a couple of hours, but then starts the howling and crying and carrying on. I am hoping after this week, it will be over and she is used to it, we are a sleep deprived family here.

Our other Puppy  Tika, has after 2 days accepted the new puppy, and now they are playing together. Trust me Ayla has no fear of the bigger dog, she jumps on her and races after her just like a full grown dog would.

Our cat well, he hasn’t taken to her yet. But he will once she is done with the Puppy stage, he did the same with Tika. Right now he just bats his claws at her,when she gets all over excited and tries to play with him.

We will loose the rabbit though. But its for the better. We have a friend who’s relatives have a farm and they breed Bunnies. And since our Bunny wants to get it on with the Cat all the time, it would be a great place for him to  excercise his sexual freedom. He will have a pen to run around in, and not be cooped up all day in a cage like here. So it will be better for him and we can always visit him.

I will post every so often an update of Ayla and her little escapades growing up.

A Bleep on PBS

Yes I was watching the Antique Roadshow the other night, and as always it is interesting to see what people find and have as heirlooms, and it makes you wonder if you ever come across anything that might be worth any money.

So this Lady had a painting that she wanted appraised. It was her Mother’s and it really did not look like it was something you would hang in a Art museum, couple of Boats on the Ocean, I could paint the same honestly, but probably won’t achieve the same amount of money then this painting did.

Anyway, the appraiser was telling her this was this Artists early work, he just had started out, because his paint strokes and stuff have not been refined, and since he turned out to be a great Artist later on, his Rookie Picture is worth about $100,000 to $115,000.

And there came the Bleep. It was so funny, it was not a long Bleep, it was a normal Bleep to cover up probably 1 word which was if I would guess Shit. She continued to sit calmy in the chair and shook her head and smiled.

Now I had to start laughing to myself, which frankly I do quit often, and pictured myself finding out I have a great piece of art there and it is worth a large sum of money.  Well there would be bleeps for about 5 minutes straight, and I would not just sit there and look at the thing. I would be giving high-fives to the audience, hugs, and celebrate. I’d be clutching the Painting or whatever it is , and not let it out my sight and would make sure that everyone in that room knows that I got the money.

What I am looking forward too is the Episode that they will have on in January, of the person that just had something appraised at $1.4 million. I just read that online, it is the largest appraisel this show has ever done. I would like to see what he did when he heard the amount. Pass out?