October 5th, 2009

Small != Tall

I love being in Starbucks, waiting for my order, when another customer asks for a small coffee.

Starbucks Cashier: Hi, what can I get for you today?
Customer: A small coffee please
Starbucks Cashier: A Tall coffee?
Customer: A small coffee (a little sternly)
Starbucks cashier to Barista^®: One Tall coffee

So would it have killed the cashier to let the customer use the generally accepted term for the smallest amount of coffee you can buy? Perhaps after being ignored this will be his last time visiting a Starbucks.

Make customer service the #1 priority at your company and your customers will come time and again (and likely bring a friend).

August 20th, 2009

An open letter to Neil Mellen, President of Town Fair Tire

[Sent via US Postal Service on 8/20/2009]

Jared Stenquist
CampusLIVE, Inc.
9 East Pleasant Street
Amherst, MA 01002
August 20, 2009

Neil Mellen, President
Town Fair Tire
460 Coe Avenue
East Haven, CT 06512

Dear Neil,
I wanted to take the time to provide feedback from a recent visit to your West Springfield location. As a business owner myself I make it a point to offer easy ways for our customers to provide feedback. Since the invoice I received from Town Fair Tire requested my input at the bottom, I felt I should oblige. I rarely take the time to write letters – only in circumstances of really great or really poor service. Hopefully my time writing will help out future customers.

I made an appointment for 8/6/2009 to have four new tires put on my car. I arrived at 11am to meet my salesman – Dave. He was pleasant enough. I could tell he was knowledgeable. We ended up deciding on a different pair of tires than requested, mostly because he said you didn’t guarantee Goodyear tires – Toyos were the way to go. I’m not sure if this is because you really don’t guarantee them, or because the Toyos were $25 more per tire.

The process of choosing between tires was in my opinion, meant to be extremely confusing. I expected this from a tire salesman as that’s the stereotype. I had hoped to be pleasantly surprised. In an archaic method, Dave spit out 5 different options on a calculator in less than a minute, and tried to explain each, in about 5 seconds. With (25) dollar values per printout and no line item description next to each, they were near impossible to understand – and I’m 25. I can’t imagine what an elderly person goes through.

Suggestion – Why not walk customers through tire options on the computer screen and explain what each item is. It’s easy, and customers won’t feel like you’re just confusing the hell out of them to get them to nod their head. Maybe even some diagrams – what is a front end alignment? What is a rear “thrust” alignment? If your customers learn something while they’re there I bet they’ll be inclined to return.

I had an appointment for 11am, but expected to wait, as most auto shops are very busy. I asked Dave for a rough estimate on the waiting time. He said from start to finish, 90 minutes. For all the work being done I didn’t feel this was bad. I killed some time next door at Staples doing some office shopping. I returned at 12:15pm to find (now one hour after I paid) that my car was still sitting out front, untouched. I remained patient and waited another 30 minutes. The car was still not touched – the only one sitting in front of the bay for over an hour.

I’m a very patient guy – extremely patient I would say. What really got me, was that while I was sitting on the bench out front waiting for them to start my work, there were (5) employees, whistling at or what we could refer to as “hitting on” a female customer who pulled up in a jeep out front. That’s right FIVE! Once they hit 18 minutes I had to go find Dave to see what the deal was. 5 employees x 18 minutes doing nothing = 90 minutes they could have worked on my car. And to top it off, an employee walked out of the front of the shop and yelled to the (5) saying something along the lines of “YO! You boys still off the clock yet?” to which a resounding “NOPE” was heard.

Dave just gave a little chuckle when I mentioned his (5) stellar employees who still hadn’t touched my car now 1 hour and 45 minutes since I paid him $646.00. Another 35 minutes of waiting and someone finally noticed my car (the only one parked in front of the bays).

Suggestion – Maybe you need a manager or some sort of person in charge who makes sure cars don’t sit for 2 hours before they’re seen. Maybe install a timer like that have at McDonald’s, Jiffy Lube, Dunkin Donuts Etc.. that shows the vehicle waiting the longest. There must be some way to do this. Anything to keep your customers from waiting 3.5 hours for a tire change.

I have one more thought that may help your company in the long run. A conversation with my father about how my new tires looked gave me the thought. He asked where I took my car to get the tires done. I told him Town Fair, to which he replied – “I’m surprised they didn’t make any attempt to even wipe your rims down. I went to Direct Tire and they even cleaned my wheels thoroughly”

I thought about it and he was right – Not only because it would look like you guys were “Going the extra mile”, but because cleaning the rims makes the tires look better! If I see my car come out of the bay with shiny tires and rims, that image will stick in my head for next time my tires go. This is why I go to AutoExpress in Amherst, MA – unlike Jiffy Lube, they go the extra mile and vacuum my carpets. I know I need to do a better job cleaning my rims, but I guarantee you that giving your customers rims a quick once over for 30 seconds a rim will impact your bottom line in a very positive way.

I thank you for taking my feedback. I hope it will help your business in some way.

Sincerely Yours,

[signature]

Jared Stenquist

CEO/Founder
CampusLIVE, Inc.

jared.stenquist@campuslive.com
413.259.6777

June 2nd, 2009

Verizon and Asurion worked out well

I was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly my phone replacement went yesterday. After hiking Tuckerman’s Ravine on Saturday and getting hit by a rain/hail storm, it seemed that my Blackberry wasn’t happy about the hike. The main function buttons were nonfunctional.

I took the phone to the local Verizon store who let me know that my account was just over the 1-year warranty period from RIM, but that I could get a new phone overnight since I had insurance on it.

The process involve going to Asurion’s PhoneClaim website and filling out some basic information. After paying my $50 deductible online I received immediate shipping confirmation. This morning UPS delivered my new phone.

I’m really happy with the quick turnaround. Sometimes insurance is actually useful.

February 16th, 2009

Bank of America Still Sucks – Re-Opens Account after 2 months

After many (20+) problems over the past year with Bank of America, I decided to close my accounts. Instead of doing it over the phone, I went in personally to insure that it was handled properly. I visited one of the bankers and emptied my accounts and asked for them to be immediately closed. The banker complied and gave me all the cash from my three accounts and assured me that they were all closed. With three – zero balance receipts in hand I headed back to the office.

To double check that indeed my accounts were closed, I logged into each e-banking account i had. Each time, the system alerted me that no accounts were attached to the account. Success! Or so I thought…

Today I received 2 overdraft notices from Bank of America stating that an electronic payment had failed and that I now had (2) $35 overdraft fees. It turns out this was one of the auto-payments i had set with Staples for our company credit card. I forgot to update my banking information on the Staples account. Even after 2 months of my account being closed, BOA re-opened my account and let two NSF overdrafts go through.

Now I have to make my 21st trip to the local BOA to reverse the fees and re-close the account again. Unreal.

January 7th, 2009

Comcast continues to wow me with their service

After moving to a new house in September I decided to try going without cable/Internet for a few months at home. I’m at the office 9am-7pm typically anyway, so how much time on the Internet per day is really healthy? I gave in this week and we ordered new service online. Of course it hasn’t gone smoothly.Problem #1: There is no listing of what channels come with what packages online: Simply options between Cable+Internet, Cable+Internet+Phone etc… How hard would it be to have a channel list here. Was I getting 15 channels of 150? I was forced to go to the local Comcast center and get this basic information (and they looked at me like I was dumb and couldnt use the website).Problem #2: Dishonest installers and out-of-continent-support: We put my girlfriends cell number on the account since I had already used my number for my office cable. We setup an appointment window online with a service rep for “1PM to 3PM EST”. I leave work at 12:45pm and pull in my driveway at 1:01pm. Yes I was 1 minute late, but I’ve never had a service guy arrive at the exact minute of their appointment. I wait around until 3:30pm and then call 1800 Comcast (Aka India Support Services) who tells me my installer must have been busy at another customers home and that he/she will come as quickly as possible. She asks if she can change my installation window to 1pm to 7pm. I say “Sure, what the hell, I already left work whats another few hours of waiting?”.Fastforward to 6:30pm when my girlfriend gets home. She’s as annoyed as I am and says Comcast left her a message at 1:01 PM saying that nobody was at our house, so they were leaving.  Now the “hilarious” part about this is that the person who called her was not the intaller. It was a service center/dispatch rep. This means that the installer had to call some number, let them know we werent here, and then this woman called. My excellent detective skills lead me to believe the installer was here before 1pm. Probably 12:58pm, and didn’t see a car in the driveway so he left. My girlfriend calls 1800-Comcast at about 6:45pm and somehow connects to an american who explains to her that there is no record of us having our appointment window changed and that nobody was coming to install that night. GAAAH!!! We rescheduled for 9am-11am this morning. I have my eyes peeled in case these Comcastholes pull into my driveway quick at 8:58am and then leave.Dear Comcast: Get on the ball.