Comcast customer service is an oxymoron. The monopolistic cable giant is one of, if not, the worst examples of poor customer service. In fact, I'd put Comcast right at the top of my all-time "rude, indifferent and boorish behavior" rankings alongside TSA agents, NJ Transit conductors a...

Dear Mr Bezos: Let me tell you how, earlier today, you lost me as a customer – forever. A month or so ago, on Amazon's website, I pre-ordered the second and third book in the 10-book series, The 39 Clues for my nephew. Book two, One False Note, was published on December 2, 2008. It was my nephew's...

Guest post by Sahana Jayaraman To: SahanaFrom: Holly Green Last night my buzzer rang and from the lobby I heard a voice, “Sahana, you have a floral delivery.� I paused for a minute, thought about the date… “No, it isn’t a special occasion, isn’t my birthday…� I ran downstairs to see ...

Andy Sernovitz’s blog’s name says it all, and definitely reflects my response to reading this: Damn, I Wish I’d Thought of That! , especially in his post Instant Word of Mouth for Restaurants. From our experience doing blogger outreach and blogger gift-giving, this is on-the-money advice you s...

I've long believed that the executives of a company should be the ones who answer the customer service phone rather than minimum wage employees with no power to actually solve a problem. And, since I ran a company called Rent-a-Kvetch in the 1980s, handling complaints for customers who'd been wronge...

Stanley Bing's blog about the inadvisability of apologizing makes some smart, savvy and, as always, funny points about a recent tempest in a teapot at Maxim Magazine. In a nutshell, Bing argues that Maxim management called unnecessary attention to a blunder by publicly apologizing for it. Lots of Bi...

I've been a Fresh Direct customer since 2002, spending tens of thousands of dollars on weekly orders averaging $125. Sure the prices are high, but they're competitive. After all, this is New York City. They bring good quality groceries to your door in a two-hour time slot. And you used to be able to...

How'd you like to get a follow-up to an e-mail originally sent in July of 2006? I was ready to simply delete the pesky and unsolicited spam when it occurred to me the Who's Who organization needed to be made aware of the image-impact its snail mail-like e-mail was causing. What business waits 20 mon...

That's a snippet of a five hour Google chat I had until 3 a.m. because of the kindness of Andrés Bianciotto, a friend I know through social networking. He generously and skillfully helped me recover from a spam attack by PR Week and their email consulting firm, Adicio.com Adicio and PR Week offered...