Adventures In Unexpected Customer Service

This past week or so has been wildly interesting, it has probably been the single most emotionally draining period of time I have gone through in quite some time.

But even through it all, marketing and business and such is still on my mind. So, I have a story I would like to share with you all.

The morning of April 16th my wife and I were taking our cat to the vet to be put to rest. She'd rather quickly developed stomach and kidney cancer, and she was pretty old, and would probably not have survived any procedures, and just wasn't handling it very well, so we did what we had to do. Anyways, our vet is/was very nice, and that's what we'd expected. They sent us a berevement card with her footprint in it and such, it was very appreciated.

But that's not the story, even though it fits with the post. We chose to have the cat cremated so that we may spread her ashes in a couple different places, as well as plant something as a memorial and put the remaining ashes under it. Our vet said that private cremation usually will take a couple weeks, which is understandable, because it's a process, and who knows how often they deliver, and so on.

Skip ahead to yesterday (April 23rd) - we got a phone call from our veterinarian, there is a "package" waiting for us at the office. Needless to say it's obvious what that is, of course.

Of all the places to have good customer service, and to make due on a promise better than the promise, I would have NEVER expected an animal crematorium to be such a place. In the wake of a truly horrible situation, you don't think to hope that promises will be kept, and things like that.

I would like to thank the staff at Chippens Hill Veterinarian in Bristol, CT for being so awesome in general, especially at this time. I have no idea where you sent the cat, but they're cool too, in my book.



This was my cat, Abby. She was awesome, I will miss her.


What kind of unexpected experiences have you had with customer service, good or bad? Please share...

Free Advertising For Your Blog! Plug Away!

Alright, here it goes. Several of my friends have done posts that are specifically for their readers to share their blog, or a favorite blog that they read quite often. I have decided to do the same.

First, a non exclusive list of some of my most read blogs:

Shelly Kramer/V3im
Sarah Robinson/Escaping Mediocrity
Scott Stratten/UnMarketing
Random Shelly/I'm Not So Random
Julie Roads/Writing Roads
Social Media 101

I don't want to describe them, because the owners of the blog can do a much better job of it, and I do hope they decide to do so.

Now that you have a partial list of my favorites, lets see what you've got!!

A Chance To Market Myself

I have been given a relatively unique opportunity. Last Wednesday, I was laid off from the retail sales job I had held for nine months. Its unfortunate, and it sucks, but they laid off almost half of my coworkers instate as well, so its not like I was the only one, and it wasn't my fault.

So. The opportunity...I should probably get to that, because getting laid off sure isn't what I was talking about.

I need to find a new job. NEED. There is no other solution right now. The house needs some things done to it, I'm going to have a baby living with me come August, and there are bills to pay. Here I go again, getting away from myself. The opportunity.

I referenced it in the title to this post, I have a chance to market myself. I am my own marketing project, and the end result is not sales, or customer service, or PR, it's a big fat case of brand awareness.

But the question is, does my brand need to change? How much, if at all?

Update: The company that laid me off apparently kept my application for a promotion on file after I was laid off. I filed in the week before, and they're just now doing interviews for the position. Wish me luck.

UPDATE # 2 Had an interview on Monday that went really well. I was very happy with it, and was convinced I'd nailed it. They said they would call me Tuesday with their decision.

They didn't. So I freaked a little, but was ok.

They called this morning, instead. I'm back among the employed. With the same company that laid me off. In a corporate position. For more money. So I got a short vacation for a little less pay and I got to work on my yard and start prepping for baby's arrival. An interesting couple weeks for sure.