The experience was great . They quoted me a price, promised a time, called when it was ready and gave me the quoted price.  Nothing spectacular, but very solid.

However, look at the new sticker in my window:

I don’t know what “Kendall” is, but I don’t see my Goodyear phone number up there anymore.  Next time I’ll need to look it up and call.  The problem with Goodyear is that there are a ton of them and they all have their own name.  I just want the one near me — I don’t give a rip whose name is on the door.  It was very handy to have it right there in my car when I thought about it on my lunch hour yesterday, so that will be more of a hassle next time.

I realize this isn’t a big deal, but it just seems poorly thought-out.  Some manager probably got a pat on the back for saving the company $1.63/year by not printing those themselves and just using the ones from a vendor.  Lazy…

Post from: Bizzo Buzz

Should I get my oil changed somewhere else next time?

It started a few months back.  I went in there to purchase a video camera for a non-profit that I help out, and it went fairly smooth.  The only change was that instead of walking up to a register and paying, you now have to walk down a low row of crap (50 feet?), make a u-turn at the end, walk halfway back, then “wait for the next available checkout”.  They’re pushing the impulse items pretty hard.  I used to really enjoy their fast checkout.  All in all, though, it wasn’t a bad visit.

When my mother-in-law was in town a few weeks later, she said she wanted to get a new video camera.  I knew that Micro Center still had the good deal, so we went there.  It took forever to get some help, and then the dude pushed and pushed (and pushed) for the extended warranty.  We were going to politely decline, but we nearly had to tell him to STFU so we could just buy the thing.  Then they gave her the whole “50 questions” when she was checking out.  We finally told them to let it go, and just let us buy the camera.

The next visit may end up having been my last.  Our church needed a video camera, so I went back for another one.  I walked in with a credit card in my hand and walked directly to the camera I wanted — and it took me over 30 minutes to get out!

Between waiting to find a salesperson, waiting for them to find the camera, then waiting in line for the check-out, it wasted a lot of time.  I should have been their dream customer that day — walk in and pick up a $500 camera, ready to buy.  Uggg.

I hope they’re making a lot of money by cutting staff and pushing the impulse items, because sales are going nowhere but down.

Post from: Bizzo Buzz

Micro Center is heading downhill

We ordered a couple shakes, a coke, and an order of cheese fries to split.  The fries took a long time to come out, but the delivery was very interesting.

“Here are your cheese fries, and here are a plate of fries that are still warm.”

What?  Did he say what I thought he said?  He was right, though — the cheese fries were stone cold.  I’m still trying to comprehend the logic behind that.

We would have complained about it, but it took 10 minutes just to find the guy again, and by then we needed to get our check and go.

We often wish that there was a Steak ‘n Shake closer to our house, but maybe we’re ok without one.

Post from: Bizzo Buzz

Did you want your fries to be warm?

“WORD OF THE MONTH: SPLOST III REFERENDUM”

Now, I can understand why the school is pushing SPLOST.  It’s a proposed 1% tax to help give more money to the local schools.  But is that really their “word of the month”?

In case they had mistakenly forgotten to remove the top line from the marquee or something, I checked the other side and it was exactly the same, so it seems to be intentional.  I had expected the word of the month to be something like “respect” or “freedom”, but I guess I’ll be helping my five-year-old with “SPLOST III REFERENDUM”.

That’s pretty dumb.

Post from: Bizzo Buzz

Word of the Month: SPLOST III Referendum

Flu season is coming and we wanted to let you know that we have flu shots and FluMist available now.  FluMist is indicated for healthy individuals 2-49 years of age. We will offer parents of our patients FluMist this year.  Please let us know when you schedule your childs appointment if you are interested.  It is not recommended for people with asthma.  Flu shots are indicated for individuals 6 months and older.  Please call or send us an appointment request through our website to schedule your appointment.  Thank you and we look forward to seeing you at your next visit.

Please log into your account, go to the My Patient Page, choose My Preferences, and select No Communication to opt out of future commnuications.

If you do not wish to receive this kind of communication from East Cobb Pediatrics, you can choose to opt out of it by logging in here (was linked) to change your preferences.

I thought it was missing some very key pieces.  To start, I had no idea who it was from until I saw the opt-out info at the bottom.  I’ve certainly never heard of “medfusion.net” before.  Also, it mentions that we should “call us or send us an appointment request through our website…”, but doesn’t provide the phone number or website URL.  Granted, I can look those up if I need them, but that’s just silly not to include them.

I thought it might be helpful to suggest some changes for future e-mails.  I hit “reply” and sent them a short message with some thoughts.  It bounced right back.  Apparently “messaging@medfusion.net” is just a dead address.

We’re big fans on ECP.  They take great care of our kids and they do a nice job.  They just might want to work on their e-mail skills.

Post from: Bizzo Buzz

Pitiful e-mail from East Cobb Pediatrics

We buy these kinds of things from time to time, but this is one that we’ll certainly avoid.

Post from: Bizzo Buzz

Banzai Wild Waves Water Park is apparently a huge rip-off

The problem is that this has become a rare experience.  More often than not, I’ll have to walk quite a distance to find an employee, only to wait in a line that is three or four deep.  It’s sad.

A few other recent Home Depot experiences:

• I was back in the lighting section, which happens to be (apparently) near the break room.  Employees kept streaming by, but most would either avoid eye contact, or give me a brief “hi” and briskly walk by.  The ones that I was actually able to engage with would promise to find me someone, but it never happened.  It was a fun time.
• I was there on a Saturday morning, and the store was packed, as is often the case on Saturday mornings.  They had about 3/4 of the checkout lines open, but each one was still really long.  To take advantage of this, they parked an employee at a table behind us to pitch HD credit cards to us.  WTH?  Get out from behind that stupid table and work at a register!  It made them look really dumb.

So why are they closing stores?  Blame the economy, blah blah…no!  Their customer service now sucks.  It’s a sad cycle that I’ve seen happen too many times.  My friends and family have heard me rant about the awful customer experience at a few stores, and they’ve all since gone under (at least ours have): Office Max, Media Play, K-Mart and Comp USA.  I don’t imagine Home Depot will go out of business, but they’re sure following the same trend.

It’s caused by a vicious cycle that is hard to break:

• Things are great
• We need to raise profits even higher, so we’ll cut back on staff
• Reduced staff, so sales drop (bad customer experience)
• We need to recoup those lost sales, so let’s cut back on staff even more
• Sales drop further…

Some of them (K-Mart and Media Play in particular) were almost hilarious.  I remember once in K-Mart just getting frustrated and just yelling out loud for someone.  It didn’t help.  Now that K-Mart is a Sears, which for some stupid reason doesn’t have an auto center.  Isn’t that the point of having Sears?  It’s right across the street from an awesome Target, so this Sears is dead meat already.

I’ll still continue to use Home Depot, but not as much as I used to.  I’m a home-fix-it novice, and need help when I go to the store.  If getting help is a big pain in the butt, I’d just as soon skip it.

Post from: Bizzo Buzz

Why is Home Depot closing stores?

Tonight we ordered them again, but they pulled a Krispy Kreme on us — “sorry, but we’re all out of those”.  It’s not as bad as the Krispy Kreme situation (that would be like Pizza Hut running out of pizza), but it was still pretty lame.

However, Pizza Hut stepped up and I have to give them credit.  Here’s what they did:

1. We ordered online, and they called almost immediately to explain the situation.
2. They quickly offered to replace the dunkers with cinnamon breadsticks.
3. They gave us about 10% off for our trouble.

The food arrived quickly, at the lower price, and the cinnamon sticks were pretty good.  I’m still a bit disappointed that they weren’t prepared enough for this, but I commend them for fixing the situation quickly.

Next time you order from Pizza Hut, get the chocolate dunkers — if you can.

Post from: Bizzo Buzz

Pizza Hut: When promoting a new product, try to keep it in stock

In the drive-thru, we ordered a dozen glazed doughnuts and a coffee.  “Sorry sir, but we’re out of glazed doughnuts.”  What?  This is a Saturday afternoon (3:45ish) — how could they be out of doughnuts?

So I asked the next logical question — “how long until more are ready?”, figuring it would just be a few minutes.  Nope, that’ll be an hour and a half!  At that point, we simply left and went to the ghetto Sonic up the road.

It kind of reminds me of the McDonald’s near our old condo.  I’d often grab breakfast there on my way to work, and twice (about a year apart) they ran out of Coke.  I always thought that was crazy, but I think this Krispy Kreme trick is far more insane.

What’s the worst “we’re out of that” that you’ve ever encountered?

Post from: Bizzo Buzz

Krispy Kreme without doughnuts is like Burger King without burgers

It’s been at least six months now, and the only change is that they boarded up the windows and barricaded the entrance. What’s up with that? Why doesn’t Taco Bell clean up this mess? It reflects VERY poorly on their brand.

Post from: Bizzo Buzz

Taco Bell in ruins