November 7, 2015

►    Customer Feedback:  Customer Bob H., from Merrimack, NH stated that his general shopping experience with us was Excellent.  Did any of our team members do an unusually good job?  “Everyone that I dealt with was very professional and always very friendly.”  Sales help, operations people, communication, and product performance were all rated Excellent.  He would recommend us to a friend.  What do we do really well?  “Your team was very good.  We bought two grills in 2013.  One was a present, and one was for us.  We ended up with a temporary grill while someone moved.  We didn’t need two grills on the deck so we held off on picking up ours.  Unfortunately, we didn’t pick ours up until November 2014.  Thank you for holding it for us.”

►    Advertising, promotions, and special continue from last week:  “Entertain at Home”

►    Make sure you know how to take a reservation for the Private Hot Tub Trade-In Sale, after we close, on Wednesday, November 11.  If, of course, my mailing works and anyone wants to come!

►    We had 20 One-of-These Awards this month; 8 for customer service.  Finalists were Corey, Kristine, Mia, and Jim.  Owner’s Choice was Corey, and the Drawing Winner was Paul.

►    I raised the value of the One-of-These gift certificates to $75; hoping that would increase participation in the awards.

►    All chlorine deposits and refunds were good in the past two weeks.  There were some questionable warranty items without names, but not enough to track or deduct from bonuses.

►    Welcome Connie Spencer, who has been our temp Bookkeeper for a couple of months.  We have agreed to buy out her contract in mid-December, and she will be staying on as an employee then.

►    Congratulations to Stephanie and Allison for making the University of Marquis Honor Roll as of November third.

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

Earlier this year, sports editor Robert Cessna received two emails from an irate reader.  The first excoriated him for leaving out the fact that the Texas A&M women’s basketball team was playing that day.

“We seriously need more attendance,” she wrote, “so how in the world does our local newspaper not mention that?”  She wasn’t through.  “There are words sufficient to show how irritated I am, but I chose not to use them.”  She then signed it, “Upset Reader.”  Soon after, Upset Reader sent her second email:  “Sorry.  I was reading last week’s paper.”