Recently I have been thinking a lot about loyalty and what guides my purchasing decisions as well as where (and what) make me loyal or disloyal to those decisions.

On Tuesday night, I went to dinner with my mom for Downtown Restaurant Week.  It is a great opportunity to dine at a restaurant downtown cheaper than the usual fare.  We both have been looking forward to this for a while and I hope we make it a tradition.  This year we chose to dine at the Top of the Riverfront, a restaurant that “rotates” the dining floor so you get a 360 view of the St. Louis skyline as you eat your dinner.  The view was great, the food was fine, but the service was about as bad as I can remember in a place of that caliber.  We were finished dining and had to wait close to 45 minutes to get our check, which leaves a sour impression in your mind.

First impressions mean a lot in relationships, but sometimes the last impressions stick with you even longer.

Later Tuesday night, I went to a concert to see my favorite artist, Joshua Radin.  I had made plans to purchase a shirt and picked one out online but was really disappointed when the shirt I wanted wasn’t available at the show.  I would get over it, but I was hoping to take home a souvenir from the show (and save on shipping).  Towards the end of the show, Joshua was bantering about the new genre he made up to classify his music, whisper rock.  He explained about it and said he thought it was such an interesting concept that he made a shirt about it and explained it.  Right then I made the decision I was not going to leave without my souvenir and that shirt was now more desired than the original one.

Letting someone into your head makes then feel more comfortable and every type of relationship more worthwhile.

Every year the students of Notre Dame create a shirt and sell it to fans and students.  It helps out the student fund and is another tradition I have every year.  This year I received my shirt and the first time I wore it, I had a sticky blue spot on my upper arm.  It wasn’t a huge deal, but I did have to scrub and pick it off in the shower.  I sent an email to the ND bookstore, just saying how I was a loyal customer and wanted them to sell the highest quality stuff since I hold the University in the highest regard.  I was not desiring my money back or anything, just wanted to let them know the situation.  I never received a response back thanking me for bringing it to their attention, or apologizing.

The only thing worse than not handling a situation at all, is to handle it wrong.

My new phone has a proprietary USB connector, and all that was included with the phone was an adapter from mini USB to the proprietary connector.  It worked fine, but I didn’t want to have to take it off (and possibly lose it) when I needed just the mini USB cable.  I bought the cheapest USB cable on ebay and spent a total of around 4 dollars with shipping.  I wasn’t expecting much, but got the package that contained a USB cord and a cd-r that wasn’t labeled or anything.  The CD was in broken English and all I could figure it was trying to get me to install a driver.  The cord never worked, and I sent a couple emails back and forth to the customer service department, with them eventually believing me that the cord may just not work, so they sent out a new cord (at no charge to me).  Today I got it in the mail, and the new cord works flawlessly.  I am sure on my transaction they lost money, and I knew what I was getting into by purchasing the cheapest cable I could find.  But at the end of the day I have a positive feeling about the transaction, it very easily could have had a poor resolution.

Sometimes it is worth it to just make the situation “right”, no matter what that means.

Anyone that knows me knows how important my dog is to me.  She is my best friend, and has greeted me in my best times, and helped me through my lowest.  As a result of that, she is spoiled rotten.  One of the things that is completly unecessary that I do for her, is to send her to the groomer.  I drop her off at Petsmart and she gets the full treatment, brushing, bathing, teeth, the whole nine yards.  I love when she smells good, and she seems happy as well.  I have been taking her for over a year to the same store, and today they called and left a message on my phone reminding me that it is around time to make another appointment.  From the message I could tell it was the same message delivered to everyone and the caller was just going through the motions to get to the next call, but more disconcerning for me was the fact she kept calling my dog, Morgan, “HE”.  Morgan is a ambiguous name, but she has been there quite a few times, knowing her gender would be the least they could do.

The only thing worse than not handling a situation at all, is to handle it wrong.

Filed under: Thoughts, thejasp by thejasp
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Perfection is far from a concrete entity, I believe it to be a dynamic almost fluid ideal. For example, when I direct the news, I have never had a “perfect” show. I don’t think that I ever will, in fact I don’t think it is possible. Most people who actually try to obtain “perfection” eventually come to a realization that it is a completely subjective entity and although generally always striven to, generally will never be obtained. I don’t think I actually want to think I could do a perfect show, that means that my tolerance for mistakes has reached a ceiling and can go no higher.

I hope I never am at a point in my life when the pinnacle is static, I desire to always be bettering myself as well as my interpretation of “my best.”

I hope you do the same.

Filed under: Thoughts, thejasp by thejasp
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Here is something that consumers don’t understand.  Although you may think it logical, consumers don’t.

My gripe:  Internet sites of big box retail stores are viewed as entirely different entities of their brick and mortar counterparts.  For example, I found a sport coat I liked on macys.com a while back.  Not knowing my size and everything about the jacket, I wanted to head to the physical store to take a look at it before choosing a wrong size or finding out I didn’t like the way it looked on me after a purchase on the webiste.  The price difference from macys.com and the actual store was significant, and it took considerable negotiation for the manager to match to the price on their own website.  This seemed illogical to me considering I think of macys.com and the actual Macy’s stores as two branches of the Macy’s brand, but still the same entity.  A similar experience today happened at Best Buy. I had a reward zone coupon as well as a 12% off coupon so I decided I would buy a lens for my DSLR camera I have been eyeing for a while.  It was cheaper on bestbuy.com than the actual store, so I figured I would price match it, then use the 12% off coupon, and then my reward zone certificate.  It certainly seemed like a complicated transaction, but nothing out of the ordinary, and I would still be paying more than I could get it on the internet (before the tax I was charged at the physical store) and the “iffy” at best Best Buy return policy (especially on items like camera lenses).

It turns out after ringing out the transaction, realizing it was more than I had figured it, and speaking with a Customer Service rep I could not receive the price match to bestbuy.com as well as the coupon because bestbuy.com is considered a “competitor” buy the brick and mortar store and therefore she could not price match to a competitor and then use a coupon.

Whatever corporate mindset decided this policy, it would be best to think of how customers like me view the experience.  We desire to have a seamless interaction between the retail store and the website, you are not “competitors” you are both entities that fall under the umbrella of the “brand.”  If I get frustrated with how poorly a website is designed, I hold that not only against the web entity, but also the retail branch as well, they are one in the same in my mind (and I will be willing to venture a guess a lot of people’s minds as well).  Similarly a bad experience in a retail store leaves me feeling sour towards the entire brand as well, which includes the web entity.

Corporations (and anyone with multiple branches of the same brand) need to rethink the mentality of interaction and focus on a holistic approach to customer satisfaction and total branding.  We live in a society now where the extension of the internet is critical, but on top of being critical it needs to be congruent with your overall business plan.

I am a very small fish in the consumer world right now, but I am not the only one who relies on all avenues of research before making a decision.  If I choose your brand, don’t disappoint me by fragmenting your entire brand and shrugging off your other branches as “competitors” because doing so will only cause more people to actually head to a real competitor.

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Every day we are learning something. Lately I have been trying to learn as much as I can about things that I find to be stumbling blocks in my life. Some may seem juvenile or self-centered but I struggle nonetheless.

At the pinnacle of my mental roadblocks has always been my self esteem. I have always been good at something, but never great and never thought particularly highly of myself. In my eternal search for “happiness” I tend to always find myself lacking. This confidence and self-esteem problem isn’t something that can be solved in a week or a month, but requires a series of changes in my outlook towards the world, work to understand more about the reasons I lack the self-esteem and how to better deal with those problems and a focused effort to improve the areas of my life I am not currently happy with.

In this process of betterment of myself both mentally and physically, I am constantly reminded of one phrase. If there is a way to distill and generalize everything I have learned so far, I could say “Just Do It.” That silly slogan from Nike speaks volumes about just about any mental stumbling block you can approach.

Sure for the past month or so it has sucked going to the gym for 2 hours a night. It sucks not going out with friends on the weekends and partying all night long. Sometimes I wish I was just listening to the new Jason Mraz CD in the car instead of an audio book about psychology and subconscious persuasion. But I learned something, if I intend to obtain the goals I have set for myself, I need to do this and I have already taken the first steps. Getting the ball rolling is the hardest part, but it isn’t the only step.

Just Do It. Such a simple motto and yet fundamentally the solution to our problems.

If you don’t like the way you look in a swim suit, you have to go to the gym and eat better. Just Do It.

If you feel that you lack confidence and knowledge in some social situations, you have to learn how to address it and practice it. Just Do It.

If approaching a group of girls you don’t know terrifies you to your core and you feel you have nothing valuable to say to them, you need to learn about those types of interactions. Just Do It.

If it wasn’t obvious, those are some of my stumbling blocks and it takes a good deal of work to get through them, but I am learning that at the root of every challenge is the 1^st step and the only way to start the journey is to Just Do It and take that step.

Filed under: Stylelife, thejasp by thejasp
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