Given the fact that Crest has 13 different varieties of toothpaste for humans, in some strange way, it makes sense that Eukanuba would have dog foods formulated for specific breeds.

I went to Petsmart tonight assuming I’d return home with a couple of 40 lb. bags of Iams adult dog food for our 7 year old boxer pictured above. But as I was browsing the premium dog food isle I noticed a bag of “breed specific” food for the Labrador retriever from Eukanuba. I looked around a bit more and found a smaller bag for Yorkshire terriers. I thought to myself that it makes sense to make a food specific for Labs but Yorkies? The CEO of Eukanuba must own a few Yorkies.

As I was about to head over the Iams section, I noticed two bags on the floor with what looked like a picture of a boxer. I picked up one of the bags, and sure enough, it was food formulated for a boxer!

I loaded both bags into the cart, rounded up my two kids who were scaring the crap out of a chinchilla and headed to the cashier knowing that I’d fallen for the old market segmentation trick.

The $41 bag of Boxer dog food

I took my two youngest kids to Quiznos tonight for dinner. We entered the store at 8:35 pm and they close at 9 pm. When the lady took my order I told her I’d hurry and be out by 9 pm. She said, “Oh, don’t worry about”.

After I paid for our food, divided the food between kids and filled cups of root beer I sat down at the table to eat. A couple came through the doors at 8:50 and walked up to the “Order Here” counter. The woman customer ordered a sandwich and the Quizno employee said, “I take it that’s to go since we close in 10 minutes”.

The woman who ordered was surprised. She waited a few seconds and then said, “Well, am I supposed to eat it in my car?”. She was offended.

This is a good example of poor training or just bad customer service. This is what happens when your employees don’t comprehend the long term consequences of bad service. How do your employees treat customers that come into the store near the end of the work day? Are they treated with respect or run out of the store like this couple?

My 2 year contract with Verizon wireless comes to an end at the end of this month. Last week I received a text message from Verizon saying that I’d receive a free month of service if I signed up for one more year. I’ve been happy with their service so I decided to make the call. Instead of making me speak with a CSR they could have extended my contract by allowing me to reply to the message or by going online.

So I called this morning and spoke with a women who gave me the run down on the offer. She was quick and to the point. When I agreed to extend another year she said, “I’m going to go away for a few minutes. When I do you’ll hear the details of this offer”. I said, “OK”, and then began nearly 3 minutes of legal speak and disclaimers and early termination fee descriptions and other stuff you’d typically find in the fine print.

When that finished, the women came back on the line and told me my service had been extended and she was happy I’d chosen to stay with Verizon.

I applaud Verizon for telling me about the details, fees, and restrictions of my plan. But I’m surprised they would be a customer on hold who is about to re-up his service worth at least $1500 over the next year. You might recall how difficult it can be to leave a car dealership. The sales people will do anything they can to keep you there as they understand the chances of you return is slim. I’m surprised Verizon would take a chance of putting a customer on hold to listen to all these warnings. I wonder how many customers just hang up and call back to cancel their service?

My mother-in-law arrived in town last night. Our kids always look forward to visits from the grandparents. And I look forward to a few hours of free baby sitting! I hope she doesn’t read this.

Last night she asked for some help with her new Sony computer. It’s a gorgeous wide-screen laptop that she purchased at Costco running Windows Vista. It’s a fantastic machine. Except for one problem: It’s chock full of crapware.

I spent about an hour removing so many AOL programs and icons and toolbars that I lost track. It makes me think that the good people at Sony don’t give a hoot about the customer experience. This laptop has all the latest hardware yet it was very sluggish because of all the crapware that auto-starts and then takes up home in the system tray. Can you think of another device that costs well over $1000 that comes bogged down with a bunch of junk? I liken it to buying a new car that comes with two flat tires, sand in the gas tank and a bumper full of stickers advertising products I’ll never use.

From experience I know that Vista doesn’t need any help in running sluggishly. I was able to remove most of the crap and her computer is running better today.

Can anything be done about this problem or are margins so small in this industry that we can expect this type of behavior going forward?

Update: Dell now offering some machines without crap software

I went to Target today to find a remote to replace one from our DVD player that went missing this past week. This was after much frustration trying to get my Yamaha receiver remote to recognize codes for the Philips DVD player.

Target had a number of Universal remotes and each was priced based on how many devices it could run.

Run 3 devices – $8
Run 4 devices – $20
Run 5 devices – $25
Run 6 devices – $40+

Target also carried a fancy $100 Harmony remote that had so many buttons I wouldn’t be surprised if it could control my washer, dryer, air conditioner and sprinkler system. It would have been worth the Franklin if it had been able to control my kids.

I couldn’t find one that worked a single device for $3 so I went with a Philips branded model that works three devices. It’s not fancy but the buttons are much larger making it a lot easier to use than the cheap remote that came with the DVD player. It was sealed in that nearly impossible to remove clear plastic crap that requires those strong kitchen scissors I can only use when Kim isn’t looking. Once I finally extracted the remote and installed two batteries, I was ready to program it to work my DVD player.

I figured this should be about a 2 minute process. I was wrong. The instruction booklet that came with the remote was about 16 page in length and included a fold-out section listing the codes for various devices. The instructions said to push a button until a red light turned on. Then, I needed to “quickly” press the desired device (DVD in this case), wait for the remote to blink, enter in the four digit code, press the up or down arrows “many times” and then hit the “Mute” button to program that code.

I read through the instructions a few times and found the list of possible codes, memorizing the first on the list. And then I ran into a problem. I couldn’t find the Mute button. I looked and looked before turning to the front of the manual and looking at the diagram of the remote. I quickly found the mute button right in the middle of the remote labeled with only a capital “M”. Maybe they should have said to press the “M” button instead of the “mute” button.

I tried the first code. Nada. I tried the second code. Nada. And so it went until I came to the last code on the list. I sat there on my couch prepping myself for the drive back to Target to return the remote. Heck, I figured I might as well buy a new DVD player for $50 and call it good.

But I went though the process: Button, light, button, code, arrows, and finally “M”. I stretched my arm in the direction of the DVD player and pressed PLAY with my thumb.

Bingo! It’s alive and working! Now my kids can get back to watching Scooby Doo. I need one of those chains you find at the bank attached to the pens to attach to this remote. I wonder how long this remote will last?

Whenever I visit a Starbucks their employees are doing one of three things:

1. Taking my order
2. Making my order
3. Cleaning

I’ve gone into a Starbucks and ordered a hot chocolate and granola bar. One person takes my order and money. Another person grabs the granola bar and another person starts making the hot chocolate.

Starbucks employees act like they are happy I decided to do business with them. They are friendly and efficient. When I was in a store a few weeks back, I sat at a table and noticed the three employees behind the counter weren’t hanging out, but were cleaning the counter and the bakery display. Another employee was sweeping away debris just outside the door.

Contrast this with a grocery store I visited last week. As I approached the check stand, I noticed only two were open yet each line was quite long. Just glancing around I noticed two employees swinging keys around while chatting and another three guys stocking shelves. The impression I was given was that my business isn’t very important. It’s especially frustrating when a business makes it difficult or time consuming to give them my money in exchange for a product or service.

Auto service departments are notorious for this. They make their best customers (those willing to spend more money servicing their vehicle at the dealer) stand in a line to sign papers. Then, once they have gone through that audition, they go stand in yet another line to pay.

Many websites are just as bad. I can think of several examples of finding the product I want to buy, but getting so frustrated with the registration or check out process that I gave up and moved on. Amazon is one of the few that gets this right.

No wonder I do more business with Amazon and Starbucks than their competitors.