Consumer Watchdog

EDITOR’S NOTE: We like to wish a hearty newsletter welcome to our newest staffwriter, Lex the Lemer. Lex will be our consumer watchdog (so to speak), keeping an eye out for specific examples of both good and bad customer service. We hope all of you will welcome Lex. And keep your eye out! The store he shops might be your own.

We’ve all survived the holiday season and I learned there was no better gift this season than the gift of love. Here are a few hints for a healthy new year:

Drink plenty of liquids.
Always warm up your Volvo for at least three minutes.
Eggs! Eggs! Eggs!
Moshing and more moshing. If you can’t shake it, at least wiggle it a little.
The customer in front of you probably feels just as tired and run down as you do. Remember it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile!
Your shift is not over until Elvis leaves the building.
The constant beeping of your store’s cash register will eventually drown out those annoying voices inside your head.

JOTTINGS: On the coldest day of the year, I drove past that balloon palace on Snelling Ave, Aardvark Balloons. Outside their store flew several silver balloons. From past experience I know my balloons go flat in the cold weather, something having to do with helium’s freezing point. So Lex the Lemer wants to know how Aardvark kept their balloons afloat in the bitter Arctic air?

Lex’s most pleasant shopping experience: I was in Kinkos awaiting my order to be processed, when a lady dropped a heavy packet on one of my paws. Ouch it hurt. She didn’t say a word, just mumbled a low toned apology. Just as my faith in humanity was sliding that long sled line down the slopes of spiritual bitterness, another elderly lady approached me. "Can I ask you a question?" she said curiously.

"Sure," I said with all the surety of the most mature lemer.

"Why don’t your gloves have fingers?" (I was wearing my biker gloves, the ones sans fingertips.)

"When I drive I like to feel the steering wheel and gearshift," I said.

She accepted my reasoning as well thought out. Our Harold and Maudish conversation turned to customer service. She told me of previous frustrating experiences with the store we sat in.

"I brought my Doctorate Theses here to be copied and they missed three whole pages," she said. "I wrote to the president of the company ad he made sure they re-did it without charge. But don’t you think whoever was making the copies would check to see they were doing it right" It is so hard to get good help these days. I just was at the University of Minnesota hospital and had an electrocardiogram done. They gave me a video tape and it was defective. They didn’t even apologize. Is that right?"

Lex the Lemer doesn’t think so. It’s one thing to create a dissatisfied customer it quite another to mess with their heart.

Till next time… Happy New Year!