Vario Creative Blog

Boston live 1988.

Janine Jansen and The Lark Ascending

Happy Fourth of July!

For those that didn’t know, I’m due to give birth at any second now. I’m still playing the waiting game but will post as soon as this baby makes an appearance. My apologies for now having more postings as of late. I’ve been stuck on bed rest per doctor’s orders!

Live in Japan. I love this song so much, it’s even my iPhone ringtone!

Sad to say that today Tim Russert died of an apparent heart attack. Great commentator and moderator. I’ll miss watching him and getting his point of view on all of the political shananigans that go on today.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/obit_russert 

Just the other day I came home, turned on the TV to watch the news and nothing happened. Meaning, the TV didn’t turn on at all. It just sat there, staring blankly at me as I stared at it, trying to figure out what was the issue. Power was on in the house, circuits were fine… only thing that didn’t work was the TV.

My husband got home from work, ready to watch the ball game and  was horrified when I told him that the TV was broken. It’s only 2 years old so it shouldn’t have just crapped out at that young of an age. So we cracked open the back of the TV only to find out that the bulb had broken and shattered.Okay, I figured. We’ll just head up to Best Buy where we bought the TV and get a replacement bulb. Worst case scenario: They’ll have to order it but we can go a few days without the TV. No big deal.

Fast forward: We’re standing around at the TV counter waiting for a free sales associate to help us with rectifying our situation. They were pretty busy for a weeknight. We were patient and waited our turn in line.After about 20 minutes of standing there waiting for the sales kid to finish up (and being completely verbally abused by the customer in front of us) it was our turn. I asked him about the replacement bulb and he looked at me like I had three heads. He called over another associate to help me and when I asked this guy about the replacement bulb, he flatly said, “You’ll have to order it online, ma’am. Sorry I can’t help you.”

Ummm… I was speechless. Wait a second… isn’t it your job to try and help the customer and not put their problems back onto them? Could you have told me what it was that I was supposed to find on my own? I had the actual bulb with me but this guy didn’t have a spare moment to try and explain what it was that I should be looking for. So off I walked, disgusted and bummed out by my poor customer service experience. It’s not like I expected Best Buy to do cartwheels for me. I simply needed someone more knowledgeable about TVs to help me figure out what I needed to purchase. We spent $5000 on this TV a couple years ago. I suppose I had greater expectations for their customer service then to just send me on my way with no other information. 

So we left. Distressed and disappointed. Until I drove by a Tweeter store that was still open. I said to my husband, “Maybe they’ll have more information to help.” And so we pulled in.Talk about a completely different experience from the big Best Buy store. We walked into this Tweeter store and three very helpful salesmen were falling over themselves to research the part, find it online and write down every last bit of information that we need to order the piece. They even gave us the phone number and URL for the site that we needed to buy the replacement bulb. And they didn’t stand to make a dime off of the sale. And, it took them literally 3 minutes to give us the information we needed.

My point in all this: Going a little further with a customer can make all the difference in the world. Giving them a positive experience will ensure them coming back in the future for their needs. I know I’ve switched my preferred vendor status. I’m not going to put my faith into a Best Buy from now on. I’ll stick with Tweeter if I need to make an electronic purchase. They went the extra distance for me and helped me out of my situation. Cheers to Tweeter and jeers to Best Buy. 

Sad happenings in the world of Vario Creative.Our beloved American Bulldog, Pongo (a.k.a. Moofasa) has passed on to greener pastures after 13 years of being a most wonderful companion. A great dog – a faithful and loyal friend who will be greatly missed by all that knew him.