…and how you can too (and why you should)

When the phone calls and email don’t work, take it to twitter – a lot. Lather rinse repeat. Fan the company on Facebook and decorate their wall with your discontent. Wait for the phone to ring.

I’ll be getting my Weezer Snuggie in the mail in a couple of days absolutely fuh-ree.  Just what everyone needs in Florida in the summer – a blanket with sleeves.

OK, it’s a silly indulgence. It’s not a matter of life and death. But it was meant as a light-hearted gift for my Weezer-loving husband for Christmas. I received the message from the merchandising company the item was on backorder. I was given a reasonable timeframe for order fulfillment that would get the thing here by Christmas.

When that didn’t happen, I didn’t fret. Our anniversary was coming up. That came and went, then his birthday, then I ran out of occasions – and patience. Of course, during this time I made contact with the company.

I was told I could cancel the order. That pissed me off. So I took it to the streets, as they say.

The person handling their Twitter account feigned shock and horror at my predicament and promised a customer service representative would be in touch. Cue tumbleweeds.

I thought I’d wear them down with tweet frequency. This only seemed to bring down the signal to noise ratio, and the company tweeter didn’t reply anymore.

I don’t like to get nasty. I really don’t. But a consumer has to have a reasonable expectation their money is worth something to the company on the receiving end of it.

Snuggie be damned. This was about principle now.

So I did the thing that finally worked. I became a fan on their Facebook page. That’s right. A fan, although I couldn’t have been less than a fan. This gave me carte blanche to post anything my little heart desired all over their wall.

I said something like yeah, you’re a rock and roll shop. But you can’t expect your clientele to be so stoned they don’t recognized when they’re getting dicked around.

Long story short, a representative called me and explained about some problem with PayPal payments not going through on their backorders. I dunno. Sounds like it’s not really my concern. And it sounds like something they should have aware of months before and contacted me about it promptly.

What I do know is he offered to send my order immediately – and without cost. I couldn’t have been more thrilled than if Weezer had showed up on my front lawn for an afternoon jam. Well, maybe that’s a stretch. Truth was, I felt a mix of vindication and sheepishness. I was raised to be nice, and I shy away from confrontation. Don’t believe me? It’s true. But I also demand a certain respect as a consumer. And you should, too.

Companies: Do not let your relationship management get to the point where your customers try to talk others out of using your services. And with the instant-response mechanisms offered by social media at the hands of anyone competent enough to click a mouse, do not underestimate your customers’ complaint prowess.

Consumers: You’re in charge of the transaction. It’s your hard-earned money. I don’t care if it’s a blanket with sleeves or a Nick Cave doll. If you want it you want it, and you want it like, right now. Use the tools so easily at your disposal.

Just like Mia did:

Just like Dawn did:

Just like all these other people did. Are you paying attention, Sprint? Hmmm? Are you?

Have you brought your customer service issues to the Internet? We want details! In the comments, please.

OK, so this is only really the second in this occasional series. See Number 13: Forgiveness for the first. You’ll notice the irony in the sequence here in a moment.

Whoops, indeed!

I learned a lot from my dad. He built a successful business from scratch with a lot of hard work, long hours, and a boatload of invaluable assistance from my patient, T-crossing mom.  His business delivered a quality product, uncompromising after-sale service and an honest deal every time. However, he also had been blessed with an innate sense of marketing psychology. He bought a small pickup truck and had it stenciled with the company name. He then had the number 11 painted on the side.  He knew he needed his company to seem bigger, more-established, than it was.

Sprint could learn from him, too. Of course, they are a big company. A really big one. As such, they need to take extra care to look like they have their duckies in a row lest they find themselves in the midst of a colossal PR disaster. Like the one they find themselves in this week.

I’ve alluded before to the “the medium is the message” wisdom that’s ingrained into every aspiring advertising writer. If you want to look like a professional company, your advertising medium can’t be tacky, poorly executed, cluttered or insult the reader. Shouldn’t that be the case with the company’s product?

Sprint is a communications company. Their corporate communications platforms should embody a commitment to service, quality and – one would think – uptime.

Since Sunday, it seems, Sprint’s Web site has been down while their IT department busily toils away at an update  ostensibly designed to improve customer service and communication. It’s now Wednesday morning. And the site is STILL DOWN.

I had a little temper tantrum, and tweeted two messages in a row expressing my disdain. The reason I knew about the outage is I received a payment due notice by email. Evidently, collections activity at the company is functioning without a glitch. And I understand a Web outpost has been erected to facilitate new customer sales.

However, my favored method of payment is not working. Do you think Sprint will mind if I wait until their site is up and running and I can take care of the small matter of the fee? Of course, I can always call. However, actually calling Sprint, and talking to one of those associates after navigating the phone queue – well, have you read any Dante?

After years of working his business, my dad eventually didn’t need to try to look bigger, because he was – and on his own merits. Sprint could try to act a little smaller in this case.  Such huberis, Sprint, to not care for every detail of your update and effectively alienate your established customer base!

By the way, my third tweet was an invitation to other cell phone companies that could craft a comparable service plan and buy out the Sprint contract. We’ll see what comes of it. If nothing else, social media offers a therapeutic opportunity to complain about being stepped on by the big guys. I don’t know if the big guys are listening to the little guys – but they should.

Got some spleen of your own to vent? I invite you to do so in the comments. Enjoy!

Perusing the endlessly entertaining public forum that is Craigslist a few weeks back, I noticed a help wanted ad that really got me kinda stoked. First, it was for a “Street Level Guerilla Marketer.” Second, it was at an art gallery/tattoo parlor that opened up in our fair city, Fort Myers, a couple of months ago. I had done the neighborly retweeting of their events and had an enthusiam for our local Art Walk event that started in Dec. Last winter, incidentally, seemed the jumping off place for the economic hemorrhage that scuttled our postcard paradise into national headline imfamy and this gallery sidewalk sale seemed a smug nose-thumbing at impending doom.

I didn’t have too much going on at the moment so I just starting pasting something together. Yeah, I have a detailed, crisp-white resume but I thought for art and tattoo and street-level, I’d have to come up with something a little more imagination-provoking. Either the position was filled or the wrong person opened the email (or maybe the ad itself was a type of attention-getting technique in itself. Wish I’d thought of it.). At any rate, I never got an answer. Such is life (such is Craigslist?).

I found a classic tattoo design and worked it into a restaurant menu of my attributes. Take my idea if you want – I got a better job with my good old fashioned resume anyway.

Have you got a creative guerilla resume? I’d love to see it.