Jason Crowther’s Blog

The local paper had an interview with local Badwater Ultramarathon finisher, Todd Baum.  Job well done!  I can only dream of an accomplishment like that.

Got a call from the local MDA office saying that they would like to arrest me to help raise some funds for their 2007 Lock-Up program. I said, sure, why not. So, they slapped a $1200 bail figure on me and said they’d be in to arrest me at work on May 15th.

Please give me hand and help bail me out. I set up a microsite (with an easy to remember URL) here:

http://getmeout.jasoncrowther.com

with more information about the program and a link to my donation page.

Jerry’s Kids count on your support. Please donate whatever you can. Its really easy and will only take a minute. Every little bit helps!

I’m real quick to point out when I get bad customer service and a little slow to point out when I get service above and beyond the call of duty. One company that continually surprises me with excellent service is A La Zing. They sell excellent pre-made meals perfect for birthdays and holiday gifts.

A while back we sent a meal package to Sandy’s brother in Arizona for his birthday. Unfortunately, he and his wife to be were out of town. The delivery guy ignored the instructions on the package not to leave it and drove it with on their doormat. After a few days of baking away in the Arizona sun, the meal was ruined. (Note: the meals are shipped in a styrofoam cooler with dry ice. They’re good for a day or two at room temperature during shipping.)

He called up A La Zing customer support to see if they could do anything. Astonishingly, they said they’d send out a replacement package right away, even though it wasn’t really their fault. No questions asked. Wow!

For Christmas, we sent Sandy’s borther an A La Zing gift card. After you purchase the card, they email out the details to claim the gift. Unfortunately, a few minutes after I made the purchase, I got an email saying that they were unable to charge my credit card and to give them a call. So, I gave them a buzz.

They picked up promptly and were able to quickly fetch my order details based on the the confirmation number that I gave them. The first person I talked with was only able to provide me status about the order. She said that I’d have to talk to the customer service department to get the charge straightened out and gave me their hours and number. So, I called the second person.

Again, they promptly picked up and pulled up my order. They said there was no obvious reason why the charge failed, so they’d try it again. While confirming my info, we figured out that the month of the expiration date of the credit card was wrong. Whoops, that’s what I get for making purchases before that first cup of coffee in the morning. They said the second charge went through fine and that I was all set.

Fast forward through the holiday week and we talked to Sandy’s brother and he said they didn’t receive the A La Zing email. Doh. No problem, I called up customer service again. Again, they promptly and politely pulled up my record. When I said the recipient didn’t receive the email, they said not to worry and that it happens all the time (which I tend to believe due to junk email.)

I asked if they had a problem with sending the email to me rather than the original recipient so I could confirm that I got it and I would just forward the email myself. They said that was not a problem. I gave them my email and they resent the gift card. I was able to confirm its reception before hanging up.

I know it seems like a lot of hassle with the multiple phone calls above, but I was still very pleased with the way that they handled the situation. Each time I talked with them, I came away with a good feeling that the problem at hand was fixed. I wish that the other businesses I deal with could be as good to work with. Job well done!

After recent trainwrecks in the Customer Service departments when dealing with Time Warner Cable and Sprint PCS, I happy to report a good customer service experience. I don’t wanna make it seem like all I do is bitch about crappy service, I wanna make sure to hilight when customer service does work.

The DMV catchs a lot of flack for long, slow moving lines and less than helpful reps. But, in my recent experience, I had zero wait time and very helpful service. Sandy and I are still working on getting her car stuff transitioned over to new post marriage status. This included stuff like insurance, title, and registration. The insurance part was pretty much as I expected. A little time consuming but not too painful. I expected the DMV stuff to be a giant hassle.

After find the appropriate forms on the their website (which is laid out pretty well), I was a little confused on just what I needed for documentation. The first time I went to the DMV, I explained the situation and they let me know that I was short one item on the required documentation (a copy of Sandy’s license).

Since Sandy had to make her own trip to the DMV to renew her license anyway, I wasn’t at all put off by the missing document. When we made it back to the DMV last night, Sandy went in start renewing her license while I removed the plate from her car. When I walked in, her number was just being called. So, I headed over to the window with her.

I knew technically, this is not the way to do it, because the front desk person directs you to the appropriate service person for the action you’re doing (one person handles renewals, another handles registrations, etc.) The service person we went to called me out on trying to cut the line with the registration stuff, but quickly said she was just kidding. I said that I didn’t wanna cause her trouble and would go back in the queue. She insisted that it wasn’t really a problem and said that if she go caught doing the registration, she’d just say the front desk misdirected me. She handled both tasks perfectly.

So, 10 minutes and $100 later, everything is legal again, cool!

Did you know that you can add search types to the FireFox search gadget? I never noticed the add engines item at the bottom of the search list. There are a ton of other handy searches available. I added amazon.com, cddb.org and m-w.org to my list. Very Handy!