So the job-related weird stories continue: went to the Eagles thursday night and end up helping out Joe Walsh's guitar tech/road guy, whoever he was. Got swag for my efforts. OK. One of Walsh's (he's a transplant Jersey boy for those that didn't know...Montclair High School) friends comes down for the show and we get to talking. The friend is former USMC, has a bunch of friends that are restoring a Nam-era chopper. Long story short, I gave them a bunch of ideas for fundraising, and I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up asking me to coordinate an event.

In other news, the Devils Do is potentially not exclusive to FT any more. I asked my mother if she wanted to go, since one of her FTer friends has shown interest offline. She asks when it is, and then says to hold another 40 tickets past what we need so she can schlep them around to the Rotary clubs that she oversees. Could be a rather big thing.

I'm still going to be shocked if you manage to get a block of seats for that game...

ARGH. I went with the anniversary gift from Tiffany's (instead of the Wii). It still hasn't showed up, despite paying for the super-duper-insanely fast shipping.

So, I call up to find out what's going on and I found out it hasn't even shipped yet.

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: :mad::mad::mad:

... anybody want to sell me a Wii?

Do they have it in stock at the store in Manhattan? I'm not sure how I'd get it to you but I could go pick it up this morning on my way to the airport. For my sister's wedding we went to get cuff links for the groomsmen at the Manhattan store and they were sold out. I had them call the Chicago store and put them on hold there and picked them up the next day when I got to Chicago for work. The look on the sales guy's face when I asked him to call a different store 700 miles away was classic.

I'm going to pick it up this afternoon from the store in White Plains.

I felt like I was dealing with the MTA. It shouldn't take an hour to get some sort of resolution and I shouldn't have to keep saying "no, that won't work" to get them to figure something else out.

If I was the head of customer service at Tiffany's I'd just go ahead and put in my resignation today. Because I would be the most ineffective person in corporate America. There would be no appreciable difference. Except maybe less coffee consumption.

They often hold seats back for battlefields on peak day/time flights on BWI-IAH-BWI, like Sunday nights, Monday mornings, and Fridays. Even BWI-CLE (the one mainline flight that still exists, naturally) sometimes goes to all battlefield on Mondays and Fridays.

What about the executive suite of USAirways, or does that just go without saying? :p:D

Are they still around? :confused:

I need a drink.

apparently for the moment.

I have a call in to the President/CEO/GM of the team because of the team's poor handling of my complaint in January. My camera almost got me thrown out of the game, despite a vague and unenforceable photo policy. I mentioned to his assistant that I'm not calling Group Sales until my 6-month-old complaint is resolved. When someone from the Devils calls me back, I'll mention casually that I'll be a happy fan again if the process of those group seats is made much easier for me because Boss Lou said so. I don't mess around. :D

You really would think that a company such as T&Co. would have their proverbial droppings together when it comes to service, and they do if it's on the front end. Their back end is terrible. My girl's bracelet was supposed to go out for cleaning and be back in 7-10 days. Try a month and a half. The recptionist at the Tiffany's in AC stopped using a greeting when I called...it turned into "Hi, Mike, we don't know anything yet." I get relentless when I get cranky.

That comparison is sadly not too far off. Except one literally does sell $hit.

I'm going to use that line! :-:

I just did a quick google search of "Tiffany's customer service" and the oh-so-reliable interwebs are littered with tails of half-rumped customer service. Shipping delays abound, as do long hold times and ineffective customer service folks.

Save for the occasional make goods, people (surprisingly) seem generally very unhappy with Tiffany's. This is very surprising to me. Granted, hardly anyone ever posts about transactions that go well/right, so this is of course a biased sampling. But still. Word of mouth is a mother.

I've done the blue box before and I don't remember anything going wrong. Who knows why it went kerflooie this time.

Honestly, if I was Tiffany & Co. I'd take a long, hard look at my business processes. Simple steps could go a long way. My problem with them should have never reached the point it did if an empowered and effective (well trained) customer service rep. had picked up the phone.

When I worked for Hyatt they beat us over the head during orientation with the acronym HEAT for dealing with customer service issues.

H - Hear the guest - let them explain (don't interrupt)
E - Empathize - Yes sir, Mr. Guest, if I had inadvertently eaten a cockroach that was in my Cobb salad, I would also be extraordinarily angry between my bouts of violent vomiting.
A - Apologize - Mr. Guest, I am personally sorry that this has happened, and I will do everything I can to rectify this situation.
T - take action - even as a waiter in a restaurant I was encouraged to call the rooms manager and tip them off that I overheard a guest complaining about a stain on their bed spread. And, that person would make sure they got a replacement up there along with a bowl of fruit (which costs the hotel, what, $2?) and a personal apology. That simple, proactive step, headed off a major problem and the customer was generally very happy with how everything turned out.

It worked [almost] every time. And it's so simple. We were also trained to never use the word "no" (which made for some very awkward talk-arounds).

Effective customer service costs so little, but can provide so much value.

If anyone questions the validity of that statement take a gander at US' losses this Q compared to CO. Also, check out Sprint's stock price relating to their hemorrhaging of customers.

The occasional make good didn't cut it for me. They comped the cleaning and gave me these little vials of men's cologne that were impossible to open. I tried holding the vial and twisting the cap with my Leatherman. The chrome scraped off and the cap didn't move.

Feel free. You've made me curl into a ball from laughter a few times on here, so I'm too happy to pay it back.

The sad part is that Tiffany is at such a rarified place in their industry that they probably feel they don't need to address the service issues. They probably think that people will keep coming as long as the doors are open. They are right to an extent. If Tiffany wanted to improve service, they could also cancel the licensing deals with Paloma Picasso and Frank Gehry. Their stuff looks awful, and the sales reps shouldn't have to defend that crap.

Tiffany's agreed to refund the "expedited shipping charge" for me. This is a really generous offer, considering that the package hasn't even left their warehouse in the Dirty Jerz and therefore, it never shipped. :rolleyes:

In other news I find it amusing that the front man of BNL drives a Prius. Something tells me he doesn't have a million [Canadian] dollars.

Drop your pants and let the smoke filter in gently.