Rules of Customer Service and being a Good Customer I decided to take the week after Christmas off this year, as I usually do. This has become an annual tradition to help me recharge my batteries and get ready for the next year. This year, as usual, I got a raft of gift cards for Christmas and this week I went to brave the horror that is after Christmas shopping to look for some bargains. This year, I have taken a ton of pictures. In fact, nearly 5000 pictures since I got my new camera. Just this Christmas alone, between my camera and video camera I created over 10 gigs of content. I decided to go into a chain of camera stores, Henry’s. This chain has a huge selection and while I got my camera at Vistek, my gift card was for Henrys. Admittedly I am not the world’s greatest photographer (big shocker there) but I still have a lot of pro gear and am getting better with it all the time. I usually keep my camera on auto focus and let it do the work. I went to go look at lenses, and quickly felt belittled by the clerk who wanted to show off how much more he knew about my camera than I did. I was in the shop and probably would have dropped nearly 1000 bucks on a new lens had the clerk not made me feel like I was a 10 year old. There I was, a customer with a 200 dollar gift card to spend in this shop and he couldn’t close the sale. It got me thinking about good customer service. On the flipside, customers can be rude and belligerent themselves. They lie, and manipulate in-store policies to get something that they probably shouldn’t receive. During Christmas shopping I had to tell a fellow customer to stop being a dick when he berated a clerk for something that was clearly not her fault. This is a set of rules I have developed for both customer service and for the customer to follow: Rules of Customer Service Don’t belittle the customer – It is your job to know more than the customer. That said, don’t make them feel like they are 5 years old. You need to be relatable, helpful and human to the customer. Work on behalf of both the customer and company – You need to operate for the best interests of both the customer and your company. You are the liaison between both groups and will earn a lot of loyalty and esteem if you try to find creative solutions to...
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I wanted to surprise my family by bringing home my brother in-law (Bryan) and his Girlfriend (Shannon) for home Christmas. They moved away to Nova Scotia 10 months and the family last saw him 6 months ago when visiting. No one had any clue he was coming home for the holidays. This was the video I shot of them coming home to celebrate the holidays and the surprise when everyone found out he was home. Note: Michael Buble didn’t give me permission to use the song, I hope he understands. He seems like a pretty cool guy 🙂 This video was created purely to share our Christmas...
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The holiday season is a feast for the senses. A split-second exposure to the scents of baking gingerbread or fresh pine can send us back to the child-like rush of anticipation and excitement that always seemed to surround Christmas. Similarly, the shimmer of Christmas lights on fresh-fallen snow, with breath rising in frozen clouds to a star-scattered sky always fills me with wonder. My analytical adult mind could easily be distracted with thoughts of electrical safety and wondering how much the hydro bill is going to go up, but that never seems to happen. We all build holiday traditions around these sensory inputs. All of these smells, sights and sounds work together to make the season special. We continue traditions begun by our ancestors before us, and we make new traditions as lifestyles and technology evolve. Movies are a relatively recent addition to the cultural repertoire, but many have already become engrained as “holiday classics”. However, this is a bit of a debated topic. It seems that everyone has their own ideas of what constitutes the “perfect” holiday movie. With that said, Joseph and I have our own ideas about which movies truly are holiday classics. So, without further ado, here is our list: The Muppet Christmas Carol – most people seem to put some version of Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas story somewhere on their list of holiday movie classics. Whether it be the Alistair Sims’ black and white version, or the technologically-driven Jim Carrey edition, this tale of redemption and Christmas spirit strikes a chord in many of us. I, personally, absolutely love the 1992 Jim Henson edition, with Michael Caine as Scrooge. I think that the humour and songs really add to Dickens’ storytelling, and in my family, it’s not truly Christmas until we’ve seen this together. A Charlie Brown Christmas – this one is Joseph’s favourite. The true messages of Christmas (love and salvation) shine through the rudimentary animation and simple dialogue and songs. Although short in length, this movie really does have a lot of Christmas spirit. I know that the soundtrack also ranks highly on many people’s lists of “Christmas favourites”. Die Hard – this may not make most people’s lists of “Holiday classics”, but Joseph and his brother have a standing date every Christmas Eve with the couch, a bowl of popcorn and Bruce Willis. While it may seem a little strange to go from a group of charming animated characters singing around a small, sad little Christmas tree to “Yippee-ki-yay motherfuckers”, it is just this kind of tradition that makes Christmas celebrations special and unique to each family. So although I don’t...
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Christmas soon approaches and we are all getting our holiday decorations ready. I truly know Christmas is right around the corner when it is time for us to get our tree. My wife and I moved out of our parents’ homes over 7 years ago, and going out to find a tree each year is one of our favourite traditions. Although, I will say that as much as we love getting a tree, there have been many times when the set-up of said tree has led some some very “animated discussions”. Animated discussions aside, we have so much fun doing it and love seeing the final product. Now to the issue at hand, real tree or fake tree? I have always advocated for a real tree over a fake tree. Now the question? Why one over the other? 1. I like the smell of a real tree There is nothing quite like the smell of a real tree. Christmas, in my opinion, is always about senses, whether it be the smell of cookies baking, the sight of lights twinkling, the sound of singing, or a hug from someone you haven’t seen in a long time. As I write this blog, I am smelling the a beautiful real tree and it brings back memories of Christmases past. 2. Real Trees are better for the environment There is a lot of conflicting information on this, but when I look at the facts I can’t see how fake trees are better for the environment. Now, without this devolving into a point for point discussion of the pros and cons of why real trees are better, I will make a few quick points. First, anything made in nature versus in a factory will likely be better for the environment. Nature is pretty amazing at making things, whether it be food or trees for Christmas. I can’t see how we could make it more efficiently than nature could. There is something about shipping a man-made tree half way across the world in a cargo container that just seems wrong. 3. The experience of going out to get a tree For those that know me, I am really big on experience. I do like the destination but I really love the journey. Going out to get a Christmas tree is always a fun experience. Whenever I pick out a Christmas tree with my wife we turn into discerning experts. Like a expert jeweler evaluating a fine jewel or a wine lover swirling a glass of wine around, we are serious about our trees. Realistically though, that all goes out of the window when we see a tree and our...
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