July 2, 2016

►    Events during the next couple of weeks:

         July 4:  CLOSED ~ Happy Independence Day.

         July 9-10:  Customer Appreciation Days: Free Gifts with any purchase, while they last.

         July 13:  Pool School 103 ~ Pool Care Lite, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM.

         July 16:  Mia’s Birthday:  FREE birthday cake in the coffee shop, while supplies last.

►    Customer Feedback:  A customer with the last name of Dugan rated their general shopping experience as Excellent.  “You had your outdoor furniture out and displayed weeks before any store we shopped in MA.”  Sales help and communication were rated Excellent.  Operations was rated Bad.  “Warehouse quickly loaded our set on the back of the truck and we felt rushed to leave (no one waiting), and it turned out that one of the boxes was probably top heavy.  Should have been more forward, flew out of the truck on I-93.  We would have secured it differently had we loaded it ourselves.”  They would recommend us to a friend.  What can we do to improve?  “Warehouse could be more interested in being sure customers are comfortable with loading before they drive away.”  What do we do really well?  “Good selection and price range.”

►    Advertising, specials, and promotions continue from last week:  “Hot Mid-Summer Clearance Sale”

►    Remember, we’re closed the Fourth of July.  Have a great day.

►    We no longer park behind the store on weekends – at least until Memorial Day weekend 2017.

►    FREE tickets to the Fisher Cats vs. the Bingingham Mets, Sunday, July 10, 1:30PM.  Section 104, Row E, seats 5 to 10.        Leave me a note by July 5.  Take 2, 4, or all 6.  See the sign in the lunchroom.

►    Gloster Furniture will be providing lunch on Saturday. The meal will be from Chicken-n-Chips.  It is the last of the vendor-provided lunches for the summer.

►    From Anne-Marie: Just a reminder that since I’ve increased the time interval that the registers automatically log off, every cashier should be sure to log-off when they walk away from a register. I’ve seen some strange things on my audits, that lead me to believe that people are not logging off.

As some of you may know, I have updated the firmware on the Spin Labs in the Waterlab. The recent change has made it necessary to unplug the spin labs every morning, and re-plug them in after starting up the four computers.  I have been working with LaMotte technicians on fixing this.  I was told this morning by their head technician that this cannot be fixed.  It is happening due to the fact that we are still on Windows 7.  We cannot upgrade because RetailPro and some of the other programs we use will not yet work on Windows 10.  Lamotte says I can’t restore to a previous version as other features will not work properly.  I’m sorry for the inconvenience.

►    PLEASE stop stocking on any step of the pool steps, except just the BOTTOM STEP to keep kids off.  That leaves the rest     open so that we can sell the steps.

►    Reminder – we actually have labels from Wal-Mart (HTH) and Namco (Blue Shield) in a book at the Parts department.  It is with the other books, and is marked “Other Brand Chemical Comparisons”. It has the label, and an explanation on our closest comparison, and (generally) how much stronger ours is.

►    We have added Olhausen shuffleboard special order prices to the program book, right after the table prices.

►   All in a Day’s Work from the Reader’s Digest:

When my coworker answered his phone, the confused woman on the other end asked, “Who is this?”  “This is Steve.  With whom did you wish to speak?”  After a pause:  “Did you just say whom?”  “Yes, I did.”  The woman replied, “I have the wrong number,” and hung up.