File this one under consumer relations ...

Take a look at this for a dynamite technique for sending your customers down the street: http://www.gadling.com/2009/02/24/united-crew-its-time-to-serve-drinks-to-the-idiots-in-coach/ It brings to mind the old adage, phrased in the vernacular of East Baltimore, "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all." Or, in other words, make sure your public address system is turned off before you start mouthing off things you may regret.

Another good, simple, quick assist to help strengthen customers' allegiance:

This incident occurred a few weeks ago in, of all places, a Super Walmart. I had, and still have, a new kitten and was in need of an extra bowl or two to keep him in water and food while he acclimated to our place and the new routines. So while shopping for my weekly routine items, I took a look at the pet section of the Super Walmart, but what I wanted wasn't there. The store had just undergone a complete remake of its product layout and I thought maybe the item I desired had gotten left behind or just wasn't carried any more.

Just in case, though, I asked a young man stocking nearby. He asked for a description -- a plastic, two-dished container that the last time I had bought had cost maybe two or three bucks -- and said he would be back after checking "in the back." While he was gone I looked around, found a few items I could use. It wasn't more than a few minutes and the employee arrived carrying an entire box of the things, enough for a couple of animal rescue outfits, asked me how many and what colors I wanted, waved his magic Star Trek automatic price-scanning sidearm and gave me a current reading on this week's price. I was impressed. And pleased. So was Binford.

Good to see the Post Office is back up to speed after the holidays ...

I was wondering what had happened to a bill that usually rolls in toward the latter part of every month. It is due on the first and I like to pay it on time. This month I waited and waited and finally drove down to the North Valley to pay it in person a few days late. I thought I had misplaced it. I do that sometimes. They all look alike and I put them in piles and then can't find them when it's time to write the check.

Well, gosh darn, our Post Office was holding on to it for me, bless its heart. When it finally arrived on the 14th, the envelope showed a Dec. 30 postmark. That's more than two full weeks to move a letter partially across a relatively small city like Albuquerque. It is also about two weeks after the bill was due.

There was a day not so very long ago, and some very recent, when I could drop a letter in a mail box in Albuquerque and it would arrive at its destination the very next day. That was a fairly normal expectation. Two entire weeks, can you believe it? I can't.

I guess I should be grateful I got the letter at all.

A few weeks earlier I opened the mail box and pulled out the contents. Every piece of mail in there was intended for my next door neighbor. Nothing was for me. I delivered their mail to my neighbors and a few hours later their son brought over a few pieces of ours that had been misdelivered to them. That was nice; we got to chat and compare notes on how often we are winding up these days doing the Post Office's job for them. Then another few hours later our neighbor to the other side came over with some more of our mail. God only knows if we got it all, or if it is still waiting at yet a still unknown neighbor's house.

I frankly think it is nuts to have people trying to deliver the mail who can't read at least the numbers that make up addresses. I can't think of any other possible cause that would lead an employee to being unable to place a letter with an address on it in a box with the same address on it. Unless they just don't care.

Others' experiences (Keep them coming!)

Take a look at http://www.walletpop.com/specials/best-and-worst-customer-service?icid=200100397x1216904308x1201105948 for some other shoppers' experiences. If I were a shop executive I would be checking sites like these regularly, and then turning around and checking my enterprise.

Thank you?

Whatever happened to the gentle art of the apology? You make a mistake, you say you're sorry. Right? Not any more it seems. It looks like apologizing for your error is now viewed as some sort of an admission of guilt rather than a statement that attempts to ameliorate a wrong. A Christmas or two ago my daugher gave me a gift card from REI. As always, I waited a while to try to use it and when I presented it to the cashier she solemly handed the piece of plastic back and told me that it had no value. Impossible, I said, laying out the facts that the card was a present, worth so many dollars I was told, adding that this was from my daughter, not just any old gift giver. Sarah is an REI member, I said, and so am I.

So what are we going to do about this situation, I asked? Basically nothing, the cashier responded. She was busy checking out other patrons (and they had either money or real gift and credit cards) and my problem was between me, my daughter, and maybe the higher-ups somewhere within the labyrinthe of REI. I do not recall any mention of an apology for the situation. I was the problem, trying to pull a fast one with a fake gift card. I felt embarrassed and confused.

So later at home, I asked Sarah about her present. Fortunately she had saved her receipt. Then I telephone my REI store and asked to talk to someone in management. I outlined the problem and asked them to help solve the situation. They asked for the information they needed from the receipt, warned me that it would be perhaps as long as two weeks before they would know if the card had value or not and that they would get in touch with me by such-and-such a date. That date came and went and REI still hadn't called, so I called them and asked for my management point person. Oh yeah, she said, my card was worth what Sarah had paid for it and all I had to do to make use of that value was to wait until the management person managed to write up a statement to that effect and send it off to me. Shouldn't be too long. A few days later the statement arrived, I took it to REI and bought something with it (but not the item I initially wanted because it had already sold out in the interim). Never during the whole, irritating scenario did anyone at REI apologize for the embarrassment or delay or cumbersome, time-consuming problems they and their gift card system had created.

Would I even think of purchasing a gift card from REI again? Never. Most of the time these days, I don't even consider going into the store, in which I own a membership.

Pleasant assistance

Just the other morning, I was roaming the Lowe's near Corrales, north of my part of town, nothing in the basket that I use partially as a walking assist because as always I had forgotten an important measurement that I would have to return home to get before returning to make my purchase. (Ah, it's a complicated life these days.) A young staff person busy uncrating paint cans on their way to the shelves looked up from where she was working on the floor and asked if I needed any help. It wasn't one of those queries sparked by the store's anti-shoplifting handbooks (Let them know you are watching!) but seemed a genuine attempt to provide assistance. I didn't need any help and told her so along with a thank you for asking. There was none of my normal irritation at the other kind of query.



The exchange, simple, honest, appreciated, and quick, left me feeling good about the sales clerk, her interest in helping me if I needed it, even though she was obviously busy, and Lowe's. Much better, for example, than another somewhat similar exchange a few months earlier. Then I really needed some help to find what I needed. This time I was told by the Home Depot staffer that he didn't know (and the way it felt to me, didn't care) and to find someone else. He was busy. It is that feeling that I still feel all these months later that helps me choose where I go to shop.

Life, of course, is not always a bowl of cherries ...

Mixed in with the good, as always, are the bad shopping experiences: The electronics giant who fails to send you your promised rebate and then claims you did not provide all the paperwork. In fact, at one point you are told that no rebate was ever offered for the mp3 player you bought your wife for Mother's Day. B___ s___! You've already received the companion rebate offered by the store where the purchase was made, so you know your request was correctly packaged! You search for days and days, propelled mostly by irritation, but you can't locate the copy you made of the receipts you sent in.



Another shocker comes when a young sales clerk answers your query about the price on a jacket you found on a 40% off sales rack by taking the item from you and walking away without an answer. In fact, without even a word. When you ask him again for the price, he says the item is no longer for sale. Research, he adds, will have to be done by senior staff, and maybe the jacket will pop back up for sale later in the day, maybe tomorrow. It's a 40-mile-, almost-one-hour-long round trip from store to home and gas is running at just over $4 a gallon. You want the jacket now, not at some indefinite time in the future. Just tell me how much.





So what can you do? Among the many possibilities, the first effort ought to be to issue a strong protest. Do it verbally and instantly in the store. Keep your cool, watch the profanity, don't use threats or anything else that might get the cops called or lessen the effectiveness of your position, but let the sales staff know how you feel about what has happened. Do it in a voice loud enough for nearby shoppers to hear. Ask to talk to a manager. Get her or his name and telephone number to use when you get home. Let everyone within listening distance know that this experience has significantly diminished the company's usefullness in your view. Establish quickly and strongly that until the problem is resolved to your satisfaction you are no longer a customer of this business. Some follow-up tactics to use when you feel business has failed its part in a transaction will follow soon.

Have you had similar experiences? Please share them! Whether good or bad, if you remember them, they are worth mentioning. If we had businesses, we would want to know how our customers felt about dealing with us. Let them know.