The SoapBoxers

My daughter is 19 months old. She has a quite a few toys, some of which are pretty cool – such as a rocking eelphant and a stuffed dog that can sing a bunch of songs (incredibly, the dog is still on it original battery, in spite of the fact that it is constantly turning itself on). Most of the time, however, she will eschew these toys in favor of her favorite non-toy items.

Whenever I am lying of the floor, she loves to crawl across my legs repeatedly. Sometimes she will just lay with her torso across my legs. She’s perfectly content to stay in that position until daddy’s legs fall asleep – or even longer.

She also likes paper. I don’t just mean wrapping paper or other colored papers. She also loves plain white printer paper. We can’t even leave paper loaded in the printer, because she’ll take it out and try to play with it.

My daughter eats these little Gerber dinners in a box. They are essentially a miniaturized TV dinner. She absolutely loves playing with the little box the meals come in.

We have coasters on the end tables. Well, we try to have coasters on the end tables. We have little fabric coasters and the thirstystone coasters – she loves all of them.

We try to keep the remote control out of her reach, but if it gets left too far toward the front of the end table, she’ll notice within seconds and grab it in an effort to change the channel to something better.

She’ll leave the cordless phone alone for long stretches, and then suddenly will be grabbing at it constantly until we put it out of her reach. She had attempted to dial a few times, but has not yet successfully completed a call.

She also loves to get into the phones books – particular the big yellow pages. The handful of takeout menus near the phone books are even greater prize.

Hey, you can see through them, and they make cool noises when you hit stuff with them. What’s not to like?

It’s a cliché, but I sometimes wonder why we even bother to buy the toys. She would definitely be happier with the boxes.

I began college in 1993. Holy cow, that’s more than 15 years ago … how time flies.

Anyway, back in 1993, the world wide web was in its very infancy. The number of web sites were a tiny fraction of what is available today. The sites that did exist were mostly text based, with occasional pictures.

During this time, I became familiar with Mosaic (the precursor to Netscape, which was in turn the precursor to Mozilla and Firefox). However. Most of the time, however, the actual computers on campus were occupied. I would often hang out in little rooms that had some dumb terminals that would allow me to connect to the university’s UNIX network. However, the functionality of these terminals was purely text-based activities. I could check email, chat online on IRC (on a channel with the friendly name of “love2chat”), and even surf the web. It wasn’t pretty, but it was functional.

In the fall of 1994, I became disappointed with the lack of information about the country music group Alabama on the web. I took it upon myself to launch a website. In 1994, this was a lot more work than it is today. After entering some cryptic UNIX commands, I eventually had a web site. I went to work. The first thing I did was to create a discography that listed every Alabama album. I gave a short review of the album and rated each song on a star scale (5 being the highest, I believe).

Over the next couple of years, this became a labor of love. With the assistance from Sly in the computing center, the site grew and attracted thousands of visitors per month. Eventually, the web site was migrated to its own domain (alabamafans.com) and Sly and I became full partners on the site. We had a email list of people who shared memories and opinions of the group. We even had some song snippets in a new format called “MPEG-1 audio layer 3”. The format was not universally known at that time, so we had links to sites where people could download software to play these files. MP3, as it is now known, has become a bit more popular over the years.

From a financial perspective, the timing was horrible. Hosting fees were much higher than they are now, and we weren’t able to get donations through Paypal – because Paypal did not exist. We poured hundreds of dollars a year into what was essentially free advertising for a very successful band. Was it worth it? Certainly. The interaction with other fans over the years was a great reward. My memorabilia collection grew, as a few folks sold things to “the guy who runs the site.”

The crowning moment, though, was the Illinois State fair in 1997. I had just moved to Illinois after graduating from college (and have since moved back to Iowa). I learned that Alabama would be at the fair. A couple years earlier, a guy who worked with Alabama saw the site, liked it, and told me to come backstage if I was ever at a concert. I gave a note to a security guard (and crossed my fingers) and he relayed it to the guy. Within minutes, I was back stage.

Although I didn’t get to formally meet Randy, Teddy, Jeff, and Mark, I did get to meet several of the musicians who played with them. I was in the middle of the stage chatting with people shortly before the concert was scheduled to begin.

As the time of the concert became imminent, my friend said something to the effect of “hey, I bet your seat is in the nosebleeds. I can find you something better.” He pulled up a stool on the side of the stage and I sat there – mere feet from the stage – during the entire show. Kenny Chesney was the opener and Alabama had a great show.  Jeff Cook changes instruments a LOT, by the way – he passed by me every time he needed a different one.  Afterward, my friend gave me the drumsticks that were used during the show.

What ever happened to the alabamafans.com website? It no longer exists. Eventually, Alabama, like every other organization, had its own official site, and my site was redundant – but it was a lot of fun while it lasted.

A few months ago, our natural gas detector’s alarm went off. A guy from the utility company was quickly out to the house to take a look. Within about a minute, he had deemed it to be a false alarm. At that point, however, he did not simply leave. He poked around the utility closet and began giving suggestions (which were appreciated). At one point, he noticed water under the water heater and recommended having this checked out very soon. This was the weekend, so I kept an eye on things. I noted that the spot under the water heater was dry about 90% of the time. The odds of it being wet at a time when I was looking into the utility closet were not good. If the guy from the gas company hadn’t noticed it, it probably would have been too late. I absolutely hate cleaning up water messes.

There was a sticker on the water heater, recommending calling a particular business for service. It was a pest control business, which definitely seemed odd. However, I have seen business doing some very unusual things as a sideline, so I figured I’d give the guy a call, on the off chance that he was the correct person to call.

Not surprisingly, he was not the correct person to call. He got quite a chuckle out of the fact that his sticker was on the heater. He did recommend another local business. He had recently had his water heater replaced, and he had been happy with the service.

I called the water heater guy. He told me that, most likely, the water heater was shot. This was not a huge shock, and since it was probably as old as the house (15 years) it was probably time to bite the bullet and buy a new water heater. He indicated that he could sell me a heater and install it, or I could purchase a heater elsewhere and have him install it. I asked for a price quote for 40 and 50 gallon heaters. He gave me the quotes and strongly recommended the 40 gallon heater for my family of three. I tend to get a good vibe about a person’s honesty when they try to sell me the less expensive product.

I decided to buy a heater at a local store and have the guy install it, as it was a bit cheaper that way. I made some measurements and compared them to the specs for the 50 gallon water heater. I should have just barely enough room.

The guy came to do the installation. He nearly fainted when he saw the cramped quarters of the utility closet (there is absolutely no wiggle room, which seems like a rather poor design). He grabbed a tape measure, and much to my dismay, he declared that I am a half inch short on space!

So I go back to the store, and buy the 40 gallon model. The installer came back the next day, and before long, I have a perfectly functioning water heater. The installer had a very pleasant demeanor and shared advice and stories with me as he worked.

Less than a week later, my neighbor asked if I like the job that this guy did. My neighbor’s water heater also bit the dust. I gave a glowing recommendation, and the water heater guy soon had another happy customer.

This is a great example of how someone is rewarded for providing high quality customer service. This guy turned one original customer (the pest control guy) into two more customers by simply providing good customer service.

Since I know there are a couple of local readers, I’ll give the business a free plug : it is Hawkeye Sewer and Drain.

I got a phone call last night. Here is the gist:

Me: Hello?

TVG: Can I speak to Melonie?

Me: Who? [wanting to verify that I heard them correctly]

TVG: Melonie.

Me: Oh, you mean MeloDy. Is this a telemarketer?

TVG: No, I’m not a telemarketer. I’m with TV Guide.

Me: We’ll resubscribe when we feel like it.

TVG: Can you put her on the line?

Me: We will resubscribe when we get around to it.

TVG [in a demanding tone]: Just put her on the line.

Me [in an agitated tone]: No. You’re not going to tell me what to do.

TVG: OK, I’ll just call right back.

Me: If you do that, you’ll be in trouble.

TVG: Trouble? What kind of trouble?

Me: Yes. I’ll file a complaint with the state Attorney General’s office.

TVG: What sort of complaint?

Me: Harassment by means of repeated phone calls.

TVG [laughing]: How do you even know who I am?

Me: You already told me you were with TV Guide, moron.

[I hang up]

I’ll admit, the moron comment was unprofessional

However, let’s break this down the other side of the conversation.

1) Make an effort to get the customer’s name right.

2) This was the second call we have received in the last few weeks regarding our TV Guide subscription. It expires in August. When we got the first call, we told them not to call back – that we would just renew manually when it got close to renewal time. Yes, we understand that there may be a price increase in the future. We’ll take that risk.

3) Don’t demand to speak to someone in my household. You do not have the right to speak to them. If you’re a law enforcement professional, I will listen to your demands. If not, I’m going to decide who can or can’t talk to. That’s just the way it is – the person who answers the phone is a gatekeeper. (Note: I did know, for a fact, that my wife didn’t want to take this call. If this was the sort of call she would want to take, I would have given it to her, of course.)

4) Don’t lie about being a telemarketer. You’re trying to sell (market) a subscription renewal on a telephone. Tele + market = telemarket.

5) If you don’t think the FCC or AG’s office can track you down specifically, you’re wrong. Call logs (external as well as your employer’s internal logs) can be used to determine exactly which telemarketer made a specific call. Keep that in mind the next time you feel like getting nasty with a customer.

6) Oh, hey, guess what? In the course of this call, you managed to put a really bad taste in our mouth about TV Guide. Honestly, the product has gone downhill recently, anyway. The listings have gotten very generic (“NFL Game” instead of listing the teams, for example) and the new larger format of the magazine has been a change for the worse. The onscreen guide on our TV (free with our digital cable subscritpion) is considerably more accurate than TV Guide anyway. We plan to let our TV guide subscription lapse when it expires. My wife has been a subscriber for 10 years or more.

Golden rule of telemarketing: don’t annoy your existing customers.

My wife was not rude and didn’t provoke this, so it was very bizarre and unprofessional.  How do these people keep their jobs?

I wrote up a nice 300 word summary of the problem and submitted it through TV Guide’s “contact us” function.  I suggested that they retrieve the call logs for calls made to our number and listen to them (if they record the calls).  I also suggested that firing these people might enhance the customer experience.

There are plenty of fine kiosk merchants at malls. The calendar people are great – you poke around looking for calendars, stop occassionally to ask where one is located, but your calendars, and leave. Essentially, an ideal customer experience.

Then there are the stalker merchants.

These tend to be lotion sellers. They will stray far from their kiosk in an attempt to lure customers (women) in. At first, my wife and I were a bit annoyed by them, but simply altered our path so that we veered sharply toward the edge of the mall walkway to avoid them. We were walking literally a foot from the edge of mall walkway (right next to the “regular” stores). The message really should have been quite clear – we were not interested in buying products from these folks.

They began to stalk us to the edge. One one occassion, there was a mild verbal altercation.

What kind of crazy people do this? If I am actively trying to avoid you, engaging in harassing behavior is probably not going to turn me into a customer.

That is when my wife discovered an interesting fact. The mall office actually did care about this. Not only that, but there was specific language in the merchant leases that forbid this sort of aggressive behavior, with fines for violation.

If you encounter this sort of behavior, fight back.

– Call the mall office, or visit them in person. The office is usually tucked away in a hidden corner of the mall (obviously, the mall operators don’t want to waste the prime retail slots on their offices), but it should be on the directory.

– If multiple people were affected, multiple people should complain. It is great to say that five people were in the group that was harassed, but having five different phone calls will leave a sttronger impression.

– Describe the incident accurately and honestly. It should not be necessarily to embellish your story, and these embellishments could get you into hot water. Stick to the facts.

– Describe how this may affect your future shopping habits. If there is a competing mall (with different management) in your metro area, the suggestion that you may shift shopping to that mall may hit home with the mall operators.

– If you continue to experience the harassing behavior, call back. Keep track of dates and times.

I was at the mall today. As I veered to avoid the lotion people, I realized that they were no longer there. Perhaps the merchant simply decided not to renew their lease … but I like to think that the mall non-renewed them because of their behavior.

I once had a credit card through MBNA. I loved this card. It was an alumni card that proudly displayed my alma mater.

Then, Bank of America bought MBNA. Suddenly, things got bad. The web site functions no longer worked like they should. In particular, paying the card online became much more difficult. Many times, it didn’t work at all. Other times, it process the wrong amount (generally the minimum payment instead of the amount of the bill). I was double checking what I was doing, and clearly this was the fault of Bank of America. News stories at the time pointed to problems they were having with integration – apparently I was a victim.

One month, we didn’t get a bill. We didn’t notice until the next month, when we got a bill with the $29 late fee.

Typically, a credit card issuer will give you ONE freebie late fee. You simply call, and they will waive the fee.

This was not the case with Bank of Ameria. Not only did they refuse to waive the fee, but they refused to escalate our calls to a manager, and even hung up on me once (for no real apparent reason – I wasn’t using abusive language or anything, I was simply demanding to speak to a manager).

Finally, after repeated calls, we managed to get the fee waived. Honestly, I can remember exactly how this miracle occurred.

However, I was sick of Bank of America by this point. I cancelled by card. OK, we ran a fair amount of purchases through the card, so they lost a few bucks in transaction fees. No big loss, right?

We have our mortgage through CountryWide. As you know, CountryWide has been purchased by Bank of America. We are refinancing our mortgage on Monday (shaving 3/4 point off our rate). We are switching lenders. We didn’t even consider CountryWide/BofA as an option. We simply don’t trust Bank of America at this point. With all the problems we encountered with the credit cards, we have fears that they won’t handle the escrow properly or will make other errors.

Does anyone want to guess how much this will cost Bank of America over the course of the loan? It’s a rather large amount … certainly much larger than the $29 fee they fought to keep. If we had encountered positive customer service during the credit card debacle, we would probably be keeping our loan with CountryWide/BofA.

I got a call from a telemarketer last week. It was one of those calls where you can chop the interest rate on your credit card. I decided to tell the caller that they were in violation of the “Do not call” list and that I would refer subsequent calls to the attorney general’s office – so I hit the button to talk to a human.

Then the call got weird.

I hear a woman in the background. “Can we get some soy sauce with that? A lot of soy sauce. We both like soy sauce. Can we get like ten each?”

The conversation goes on like this for a bit – clearly she is using her cell phone to order lunch while she is supposed to be answering calls. Eventually, my one year old daughter makes a sound in the background. The call realizes what has happened and focuses her attention on me in the only way possible.

Yep, she hung up on me. Hopefully this was one of those calls that is being recorded for training purposes.

My wife and I were at Target this weekend and decided to check out a GPS navigation system they had on sale.

After trying to find them in electronics, we are directed back to the massive and glorious automotive section.

We get back to automotive. Sure enough, several GPS units are on display. Sort of. The guts have been taken out and replaced with a piece of paper showing showing a navigation route. It reminded me a bit of the fake TVs and computers that furniture stores use as props. Full color, of course – they spared no expense.

The strange thing, though … is that the store had taken the precaution to lock them down. Certainly, the temptation to steal a plastic GPS shell with a paper insert would simply be too great for most thieves.

We are former subscribers of a local newspaper. The paper is so-so. The comics are solid, the sports section is pretty lackluster.

Ever since we started subscribing, we have been fighting a carrier issue. The carrier launches the paper toward our front steps with an accuracy that would remind you of a young Mitch Williams. On the rare occasion, the newspaper does land somewhere on the steps. More often, it lands in the bushes, or on the driveway, sidewalk, or lawn. Interestingly, we subscribe to the Sunday edition of a larger paper. The Sunday paper carrier manages to hit the step almost all the time.

After repeated calls to the circulation department, with repeated promises that the carrier would do a better job, we finally gave up. The lack of action prompted us to cancel the paper. We got our refund, so everything is good.

Except for one small thing. We’re still getting the paper. It’s still being delivered to the lawn, driveway, and sidewalk. Woodland animals are still living in fear of the paper boy.
We’ve call two times in the weeks following our initial cancellation call to let them know that the paper is still being delivered.

In a world with no free lunch, it appears that we have found a way to get a free newspaper delivered to our residence. Or at least near our residence.