Tuesday, March 31, 2009

First Citizens, you get mad props...

I was reissued all of my business cards. Apparently First Citizens had a breech, and immediately sent us all new ones.

That is fine and dandy, until I try to login to www.yourbankmiles.com and none of my accounts work. I had numerous free tickets and almost free tickets on various accounts. I was not happy about this.

Today, I call the number on the back of my card, expecting them to think I am crazy. The first pleasant thing that happened "Press zero to speak to an operator." Seriously? That easy? I don't have to "Press one for English?" only to get someone who doesn't really speak English?

I got this VERY nice woman, after maybe four rings. She knew what my issue was, tried to fix it, had to make a phone call and will call me back shortly. She spoke English. She may have even been in Roanoke (where FC is out of) and spoke southern!

So, today First Citizens, I am tickled with you :)

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Are you kidding me?

Thank goodness today it was released that the Specialty Sleep Association will hold a meeting defining "natural" in the mattress business.

Just yesterday, I was talking to a particular rep, from a particular "S" brand, with a popular natural line up. I've always been known to ask pointed questions, not usually on purpose, but more so out of curiosity. So, I said "If this mattress is so natural, how does it pass FR?" (FR has to do with our fire laws on mattresses). I was expecting his answer to be "A wool sock," because that is how most good natural lines pass. No, he said "With Teflon." Are you kidding me? You must be joking right? The newest chemical that is supposedly killing us, is the SECOND LAYER IN THIS BED?! On top of the NATURAL latex layers?!@ I don't know that I said anything else to him. I'm sure that I just looked at him like he had lost his mind.

It gives me goose bumps to think about it. I will not have this product in my store with the word "natural" on it, when the second layer is Teflon. I look forward to the SSA meeting, even though it is going to cost me an extra arm and leg to stay another day in FL for it (it is right after another big industry event).

I really want to e-mail the spokesperson for this product, that I am pictured with in a previous FT article, and ask him if he knows this. That may just be upturning the applecart, but, I don't know that he would want his face on it if he knew.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Call me a coward if you must,

but if a customer calls me, almost yelling at me. Then gets in to "I NEED TO SPEAK TO THE OWNER." I don't tell them that I am as close as they will ever get to speaking to the owner.

I just told this guy "I don't know how to help you with that right now sir, let me get *sales person* to call you back."

Well, come to find out, he has buyers remorse. He supposedly found the product somewhere else for less (lie, we have MAP pricing on this product, and it isn't marked up. So, if he did find it somewhere else for less, some one is in big trouble). I said "Sir, where did you find it for less?" At which time he yelled at me "I'M NOT TELLING YOU." Ok, right. Because you are not telling the truth.

"Customers are always right." Bulllll. Customers are out for themselves. Customers lie.

I prefer "Take care of the customer."

Anyway, Mr. Customer, you were yelling at the person who can help you the most, and that probably isn't going to work out for you.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

I know a thing or two about food marketing...

I was in the top 20 in the Nation in food marketing in high school. I know how to identify almost every part and piece of a grocery store. Don't ask me how I ended up there, I have no idea. I do know my grocery stores.

Back in the fall, Food Lion did this rearranging of their stores, to make them look more like HT. Well, that is all fine and good, but now I can't find ANYTHING. Nothing. I forget things, because after I tire of searching for them, I give up. Before this disaster, Food Lion's were logical. Now, you get your bread three aisles before your milk that you can place on top to squish it. Beer and toilet paper on the same aisle, as it was before was quite logical. Now there are random toys in the middle of the store. Magazines with the bread, and God forbid you try to find crackers. They are with the juice boxes.

I HAD to go to Food Lion today, because my Surf City IGA doesn't have as many Healthy Request soups as I would like them to. The rest of the time, I go to IGA. Less selection, but much better prices on most things. When you need to buy in large sizes though, sometimes Food Lion is a good choice. IGA is little, it caters to the little consumer, all of us single people who live here in the winter. We don't always need a box of Tide to do 400 loads. When people come in the summer, they don't need HUGE amounts of anything (except sunscreen, but they carry big bottles of that), because they're usually leaving in a week. IGA also does a local's special every week which gets emailed to me. I love it. Today is local day, but I didn't need anything on todays only specials. My other things on special I can pick up later. Two weeks ago honey was on sale, so I stopped and picked up two bottles of it, it made me very happy.

Today as I was standing at Food Lion looking at chicken breast, I thought "I should just go back to IGA. Or I could just boil the chicken off the bone that I have now. No, I'm here, stopping to save $.50 isn't really worth it." I did take note though, I got 12 chicken legs on special at IGA the other day for $3.17, Food Lion had the same thing for $3.70. Uh huh. I do love IGA's meat. They do such a good job, and have never had a meat scandal!

Anyway, Food Lion, your new arrangement is horrible. Drink mixes need to be with beer. Wine, needs to be with beer. Wine also needs to be after the meat, not before like you have it, because I can't pick my wine until I pick my meat. There is too much stuff in the aisles, I keep running in to people. The bread needs to be the last thing you pick up, not the 5th from last. I don't like dairy squished bread. It saddens me that I now have to empty my own cart onto the conveyor, it was so much more customer service oriented before. Now I just avoid you all and self check out.

Whoever you hired to advise you, that you probably paid millions, you could have checked out all the marketing kids that competed with each other for three years over these things. I'm sure none of us would charge you millions. Here is my free million dollar idea that won me a trophy- Put your cookies near the milk. I hate to say it Food Lion, but you would not have even placed with that layout.