Keira Did Great Her First Week of First Grade

Written By:  Andrew & Becx

We're very proud of Keira. She had a great first week of First Grade. Her teacher, Mrs. Mathur, really likes Keira and she told us that Keira jumped right into the classwork the first day of school. She said Keira participates and she is doing very well with all the assignments. Here are scans of the classwork Mrs. Mathur sent home with Keira on Friday.

Wrong Number Calls

Written By:  Andrew Eide

Do you know what I find really amusing? Well, okay, I mean what I find really annoying? Wrong phone calls to my home.

I do not understand how I receive so many wrong numbers on my home phone. I’ve had this phone number for over two years. Here is what happens with these wrong number callers.

The phone rings and I answer it. The caller is asking for someone who does not live here and who has never lived here. I inform the caller that they have dialed incorrectly and they need to check the number they are calling. At this point one of two things happen.

The first is that they will apologize and then immediately call my number again and ask for the same person again. For the second time I inform them they have dialed incorrectly. They apologize for a second time and then immediately call my number again and ask for the same person again. At this point I have no patience left and I inform the caller about the extremely low level I.Q. they possess. Usually I never receive a call from that person again.

The second is that they will argue with me. I have callers who mis-dialed and got my phone number by mistake say, “I know (name of person) is there! You put them on the phone now!” So I have to inform this obviously insane person that nobody by that name has ever lived her or had this phone number. So they can demand all they want but I cannot produce someone who has never existed here. Often they will counter with, “Well this is the phone number they gave me!” At this point I have to inform the caller that just because someone gives them a phone number doesn’t mean they gave them their correct phone number. There is the possibility that the person you want to talk to knows what a complete moron you are so they gave a fake phone number to avoid your dumb self!

I then inform the caller that I have their number written down, from Caller ID, and that if they continue to call me when they know they have the wrong number, I will contact the Police and my Attorney and prosecute them for harassment. I don’t receive any further phone calls from these people.

Poor Customer Service - Specific Comments

Written By:  Andrew & Becx Eide

Today we are going to talk about what we classify as poor customer service. We will post additional topics during the month of August to give you specifics on poor customer service but today we are talking in general terms.

What constitutes poor customer service? Actually it depends on the person receiving the service whether they determine if the service was poor or not. Everyone has a different view, and tolerance level, on the service they receive.

For instance you go to a fast food burger restaurant and you order a burger with the specific request that they do not put pickles on your burger. If your burger is delivered with pickles on it then that, in our opinion, is poor customer service.

Andrew’s mother use to go to a burger restaurant in San Leandro called Jerry’s Burgers. She always ordered the same thing, and she frequented Jerry’s Burgers often, so most of the clerks knew her desires. Andrew’s mother would always order two plain cheeseburgers, plain as in no condiments, no tomato, no lettuce, no pickles, no mayonnaise or mustard or ketchup, just a plain cheeseburger on a plain bun. Most of the time the cheeseburgers would be delivered with all sorts of condiments and other items on the burger and she would have to return it and tell them to redo the order since they got it incorrect. That, in our opinion, is poor customer service.

When you go to a major chain department store or grocery store, and you need customer service but you are unable to find anyone to assist you that, in our opinion, is poor customer service. In this case we are talking in excess of five minutes searching for someone to assist you.

You take your car to the dealership for regular scheduled maintenance and it includes a routine oil change. When you get home you notice oil leaking out of your engine onto your driveway. You have to get back in your car and return to the dealership. They check and find out that the mechanic who changed the oil on your car didn’t replace the plug tightly so the oil was leaking out of your car’s engine. That, in our opinion, is poor customer service.

You get the idea what we will be talking about this month. Most of the specific items will be from Andrew’s personal experience. He has promised he would mention only the type of business, and not the actual name of the business or banking institution, to avoid problems with them complaining about our articles.

Keira's First Day Of First Grade

Written By:  Andrew Eide

Keira asked me to allow her to make a short video to quickly discuss her first day of First Grade. Here is what she said:

Poor Customer Service - General Comments

Written By:  Andrew Eide

There are three things I have low tolerance for: lying, stupidity, and poor customer service. Poor customer service is usually the result of people being lazy or stupid or a combination of the two. Either way my tolerance for poor customer service is low.

I run into poor customer service constantly. I try to consider numerous factors when evaluating poor customer service. The person may be new to their job and they are still learning. I cannot be hard on them as I have been new in jobs and I understand it takes time to learn the correct procedures.

Another factor I consider is that the person providing the customer service was provided incorrect information from someone else in their organization. In that case it is not the fault of the person providing the poor customer service; it is the fault of the person providing the information to that person.

Here is a personal example. I used to work at a Rehabilitation Facility as Part-Time Evening Receptionist; working Monday through Friday from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. In addition to data entry in the patient computer system, I answered phones, greeted visitors, and provided information such as which room their patient was located in, and the direct phone number to their patient’s room, if a direct phone number was available.

I hate receiving poor customer service but I hate giving poor customer service even more. I was not the person who made up the patient room phone number listing. This list was prepared by the Maintenance Department. The list was usually about 75 percent accurate. When I took over Receptionist duties in the evenings I would look at this phone list and notice one-fourth of the numbers have been modified. For instance, most rooms have two patients in the room, one in Bed A and one in Bed B. One-fourth of the numbers on the patient phone number listing would be modified to indicate that the phone number for that room and Bed A is now changed to that room and Bed B. The phone number for Bed B is now changed to that room and Bed A.

Several times per shift I have relatives of patients call and I give them the phone number for their patient’s room and bed. They call back a few minutes later and tell me when they called that number, which I gave them; they reached the person in the other bed located in the room. Now I have to give them the other phone number for that room, which usually reaches the correct patient in the correct bed. Then I have to modify my room list to indicate that the numbers got switched back to the original numbers again.

Trust me that I will have one day where Bed A and Bed B phone numbers got switched and I noted it on the phone listing. The next day I find out that the phone numbers, which I switched the day before, are now back to the original numbers for Bed A and Bed B. Now I have to get the white-out and modify the list back to the original numbers.

The usual reason is that when a patient discharges room, the patient remaining in the room wishes to switch from Bed A which is by the door, to Bed B which is by the window. The Nurses and CNA’s make the bed change. Instead of moving the patient physically from Bed A to Bed B they move the entire beds including the phone for that bed. Therefore they move Bed A to the Bed B position and move Bed B to the Bed A position. Instead of switching the phones so the phone number for Bed A stays with Bed A, and the phone number for Bed B stays with Bed B, they just move the entire bed, phone included. Now you have Bed A’s phone plugged into Bed B’s phone jack and Bed B’s phone plugged into Bed A’s phone jack. Now my list is incorrect and due to someone else’s error I am providing poor customer service and I am not happy about it. The very next day the Nurses or CNA’s realize their mistake so they unplug both phones and switch them to the correct jacks. Now the very next day my phone listing is incorrect again and this explains why the phone numbers on my list reverted back to the original phone numbers for that room and the beds.

The other problem I have is the other Receptionists who rotate with me often do not update the Master Patient Listing we prepare in MS Word to reflect room changes, admissions, and discharges. So I take over the Receptionist duties and I am giving out room numbers and phone numbers to callers which are often incorrect. Without having the patients who admitted on the list or those discharged from the facility, it is possible to tell a caller that a patient is not in the facility when they really are, or that a patient is still located in our facility when they have been discharged. It isn’t that the other Receptionists don’t know that a patient changed rooms or admitted or discharged. They are fully aware of this information they are notified in two different ways. One way is that an e-mail goes to all persons within our facility giving this information and the Receptionist receives these e-mails. The other way is to log into the computer system for managing patients and on the very first page you have the Dashboard which lists every patient activity entered into the computer system. Also in this patient management system you can run a report with all activity for any period of time and it lists the following data:  patients admitted, patients discharged, and patients who have changed rooms. Therefore there is no excuse for the other Receptionists to leave me with so much incorrect information all the time.

My solution is that every time I assume Receptionist duties I print an alpha listing of all patients. I check the list to ensure that patients pending admission have been added to that alpha listing. I run a Dashboard listing and a Patient Transaction Listing and modify the main list based on the changes which have taken place. I then run a listing, from the patient computer system, of all patients, sorted alphabetically, and compare every entry against what I have on the listing prepared in MS Word. I usually find 2 to 6 errors daily.

This month I will be ranting about poor customer service. I will give you personal examples of customer service errors which directly affected me. I am not making these customer service experiences up…they are real and they really happened to me.

Keira's Trip To Bunten Road Park Today

Written By:  Andrew Eide

I took Keira to Bunten Road Park in Duluth, Georgia today. I like this park as it is new having been renovated about 8 months ago. Although it is a distance to get there and back being the nice park that it is makes it worth it.

I'm sharing a few photos from the park visit here. Finished the day at home with a Knumbskull Cherry Slushy from Race Trac convenience store.

Having What You Need

Written By:  Andrew Eide

One of my complaints, which is in the category of poor customer service, is going to a store which should have what you need, but they either don’t carry, or they are out of stock, on that item. Allow me to give you a few examples.

You see commercials on television from home improvement stores. They each claim they have what you need in stock and they each claim they have better customer service than the other home improvement stores. So you drive over to the one who brags the most in their commercials only to find out they do not have the item you want. I mean, come on, you need a home improvement item, you are in a home improvement store, and the store that bragged the most that they have everything you want in home improvement items, then you find out they don’t carry that item. So you drive around to several other home improvement stores until you find one that carries the item you want.

So you fully understand my rant here I am not talking about some totally obscure, never before heard of, home improvement item. I am talking about items that nearly every home uses but these stores don’t carry that item. That is poor customer service.

The same concept applies to major department stores, whether they are high-end department stores, or one of the discount department store chains. They brag about their inventory of items that everyone uses and when you go there they don’t have the item you use and want. This causes you to have to travel around until you find the department store that does, in fact, carry the item you desire.

The worst offender is Toys R Us. They claim to have the largest selection of toys of any store in the world and the lowest prices. My personal experience was during the 2011 Christmas season. We were looking for toys, mostly dolls, for our daughter and other relatives in the Philippines. The selection of toys and dolls at this major toy store was pathetic and extremely expensive. We ended up storming out of this store and we went next door to what I would call a discount department store. They had every toy and doll we wanted and at an extremely good price.

I know I ask too much to have truth in advertising, and I am never going to get it, but at least I try. The job of these advertisements is to deceive you and get you to spend your money at their store. What they seem to not realize is that when they lie to me, stating they have what I want at a good price, then I go there and they don’t have what I want, and what they do have is extremely expensive, they have lost a customer and usually permanently.