Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

I’m taking a page from Gary V’s playbook today and looking on the bright side of things.  I’ll be on 9 planes in the next 10 days.  I’m heading out to San Francisco for TechCrunch 50 with a 36 hour layover in Los Angeles to see some west coast friends.  I get back next Thursday morning after a red-eye and then get back on a plane Friday to go to Boston for 1 wedding and 1 wedding shower.

So what I want from you are some good travel experiences.  We all like to bitch & moan about cancelled flights and delays and shitty hotels and rude cab drivers.  I want some positive stories.  Tell me about that flight attendant that made your day.  Or the time you got upgraded to a suite at a hotel for no reason other than you gace a friendly smile to the person on the other side of the check-in desk.  I know those stories are out there, we just never hear enough about them.

You may remember the book “Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!“. Well, it was my favorite as a kid and now I read it to my son Conner as much as possible; in fact I almost know it by heart. To make a long story short, the sneeze of a little bug causes a chain reaction for the community which involves worms, turtles, cows, farmers and a circus parade. Don’t worry, this DOES relate to us as innovators and early adopters. As a member of one of these two categories we are most likely in another group which Seth Godin frequently refers to as Sneezers, an individual that is likely to spread an idea. So, as a Sneezer, what do we have affects on?

About a week ago we had a birthday party for myself and my son (we actually have the same birthday). About an hour before the party I went to pick up my son’s first birthday cake, a giant head of Elmo. We were all excited, it really is for the adults because the kids have no clue. We chose to go with a local bakery in Knoxville called SugarBakers. They don’t actually have any bakers on staff so we communicated with one of their contractors. All we needed to do was pick the cake up by 4pm and pay SugarBakers. Well, I did my job (I was there at 2pm) and the contract baker did her job (she baked the cake and brought it to the store), but when I arrived the cake was missing. Turns out that somebody else showed up that morning expecting an Elmo cake from a different contract baker. I think you know what happened, yes my cake was given to them with Conner’s name on the cake. The only employee in the store that day was unable to help me saying, “That’s between you and the baker.” That kinda pissed me off because she was the one that gave my cake away. I left the store thinking I needed to make a cake shaped like Elmo (HA, not a chance). Before I left I wanted the employee to know that I would do my best to spread their business tactics throughout Knoxville doing what I know how to do, talk to people and give my honest opinion. I was ready to get home to start blogging and commenting wherever possible. I was ready to go. But things changed. The owner called my wife apologizing for everything saying he would do everything possible to get us a cake ASAP. He came through and the cake was free. So now I need to change my tone. SugarBakers came through. While the employee at the store did not handle the issues correctly the owner really cared and wanted us back. I will go back to SugarBakers for our next Birthday and you should too.

Now you didn’t get this far to just hear about our cake issues. The idea for this post came at our first Knoxville Tweetup lunch. We had a great turnout, 13 actually. With a table like that we expected gratuity to be added, however a 18% service charge AND a 18% gratuity was added. None of us really challenged it, but it brought up the comment of “Don’t piss of a Sneezer.” I believe this is really true, in fact one member of the lunch agreed saying, “They don’t really know who we are when we walk in.” Not that we should be treated like Food Critics, but businesses need to treat everyone like they can affect tomorrows customers. Only a small group of businesses think this way.

So, how have you affected a business good or bad because of service that was rendered to you? Do you know of others that spread their thoughts about a business so much that it was accepted by other communities and what affects did these actions have on events days, months or even years down the road?

Are you a coffee drinker? Is it just a morning thing or an all day gotta have it thing? More importantly, where do you buy your coffee?

I was spoiled when I worked in Manhattan. The best coffee around was from the coffee cart outside my building on the 36th and Broadway. He was only there in the mornings, and was replaced with a roasted nuts guy around lunchtime. Sure, occasionally I bought a donut or cruller, but the real appeal was the coffee. I almost always had to wait in line in the morning to get my coffee, but the speed of which it was poured and placed in a brown paper bag was so quick that you didn’t mind if you had a half dozen people in front of you. Starbucks was a place I went in the afternoons to get out of the office if I needed to have a clandestine meeting or to do a phone interview. Dunkin Donuts was for weekends or if I needed to sober up a bit on the train ride home out of Penn Station.

Then I moved to Tennessee. I was astonished to find out that there was only one Dunkin Donuts in Knoxville. I wasn’t expecting to find street coffee, but I thought America Runs on Dunkin Donuts. Apparently, not in the land of the Hot Now Krispy Kreme. It seems like Pilot gas stations fill the need for blue collar workers morning caffeine while Starbucks rules the roosts for the cubicle crowd. Coincidentally, my morning commute takes me on a road that has both the one-and-only Dunkin Donuts along with a Starbucks. Some mornings Dunkin Donuts does it for me, other mornings I feel the need for a triple grand non-fat caramel machiatto. (I don’t like it “skinny” because the sugar-free caramel flavoring has too much of an aftertaste for me. ) I was fine with the 2 on the go options, along with starting to brew more coffee at home in the morning while I actually eat a real breakfast on my couch instead of something quick in the car or at my desk.

A few weeks ago the Dunkin Donuts closer for renovations. The building really needed it. It looked like a building that had been converted to a Dunkin Donutsinstead of actually being built to house one. It wasn’t until this morning, when they reopened, that I discovered the real difference between Dunkin Donuts and everywhere else. Instead of going through the drive through, I decided to park, get out of my car, and check out the inside of the newly refurbished store. It was clean, it was bright, and more importantly, everyone working behind the counter had 1 thing on their mind - speed. My coffee and muffin were in front of me, delivered by 2 different people, before the cashier, a 3rd person, even handed me back my change. While Starbucks closes down its stores for an afternoon to talk about refocusing on the customer, this Dunkin Donuts was actually doing something about it.

They’ve got great coffee that’s cheaper than Starbucks, but they don’t have their own social network yet. They’ve got a bigger selection than Krispy Kreme, with the breakfast sandwiches and bagels. At least the one here is really focused on their customer service. They’ve certainly come along from here. In spite of their choice of celebrity spokerperson, is Dunkin Donuts poised to take over your morning ritual?