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?