Had a business lunch at the Crooked River Grill on Thursday. Melody was our waitress and she greeted us with warmth and enthusiasm. She engaged us in conversation and her interpretation of the menu was nothing short of epic! I had to stop her half way through her explanation of the menu that she’d interpretated as [...]
This past week I did my civic duty by serving on a jury trial in Judge Cosgrove’s courtroom. I’m not here to talk about the case - but rather want to talk about the culture Judge Cosgrove has developed in her courtroom. As part of the case (a wrongful death suit in which a medical practice [...]
The monthly report from E-zine Articles just arrived in my email. Once again – the number one article for the month is one I wrote a few years ago entitled How Do You Define Customer Service. I wrote the article before the economy took a turn for the interesting, when companies were still staffed and [...]
Okay, confession time. I once dated Johnny Bench. Now “dated” is a relative term. * During his final year of baseball with the Cincinnati Reds I attended all of the home games, purchasing a bleacher ticket and sneaking my way down to the seats behind home plate. I’d come early to watch the warm ups and [...]
We are all tightening our belts – physically and figuratively. In a recent edition of Direct Mail News, they provided a chart showing the percentage of change consumers have made in their lifestyle spending habits. Needless to say – only a small percentage have made little or no changes. One area where prices are going [...]
Do you ever get so bogged down with the day-to-day business of …well, of business, that you lose track of the fact that you are making a difference in the lives of your customers? Sometimes a less than satisfied customer can set us off and color what we do and we look in the mirror [...]
I attended a committee meeting last evening at one of the member’s homes. During the meeting the phone began to ring. She excused herself to take the call and was soon back at the table. Again the phone rang and the process was repeated. This happened five times. The rest of us continued talking and [...]
Today is the day we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Our soon-to-be-President Barack Obama has coined it a Day of Service – a day to give back within our community. I remember years ago sitting in a marketing meeting for Pearle Vision – it was in the late 80s and we had over 1400 locations. [...]
How many times do you make a purchase and the cashier says “Have a nice day?” How does that make you feel? I once heard a comedian say “I get stressed when someone tells me to have a nice day. The pressure. I’m doing the best I can to make it a mediocre day.” Someone [...]
