May
15
2011
Who thought this was a good idea?
Clear, blue, and white are the expected colors for packaging water. Maybe a green.
But yellow? Even with the JDF tie-in, yellow is just not the right color for water packaging!
Mar
7
2011
This is my kind of promotion!
I love it when a business gives something back. It may not turn into cash in the pocket right away, but in the long run it’s golden.
My friends at Tire Tires Tires in Sioux City and Sioux Falls are serious about being good citizens.
They just recently delivered their last “Angel Car” of the year. This was a promotion with a local radio station, a charity, and their community.
The radio station got listeners to donate vehicles for struggling families. As you can imagine, most of those vehicles aren’t coming off the showroom – in fact, they usually are vehicles that need some work to bring them up to safety standards. Plus, being located in the Upper Midwest, they need to be extremely reliable so they will make it through the harsh winter.
Tires Tires Tires has, for the last couple of years, done the repairs for free. Parts, labor, everything. For a several dozen vehicles. And they ate every penny.
I was there last fall when a family came in to pick one of the vehicles. They turned the key and it started up like it was new. The family definitely was in need of reliable transportation, so it was a very nice moment.
So here’s what they’re doing now…
They’re giving out two $1000 scholarships to students who will be graduating this spring. Plus another ten $200 scholarships to “runnerups.” Students have to live within 50 miles of one of their stores, be of good character and have a safe driving record.
Cynics might think they’re in it for the media attention
But when you look at the bills for fixing all those cars, the cash for these scholarships, and a lot of time administering the promotion, they could easily buy ads in their markets that would get them more immediate business than these promotions. But there’s a little more to it.
Doing the right thing has a way of leveling things out
Anyone who hears about it and has a friend with a kid about to graduate is going to pass the word. They’ll talk about it at work and they’ll chat about it on Facebook. Not a lot, but just a little.
And when one of those people needs new tires, or the check engine light comes on, hopefully they’ll know who they can trust to treat them right.
Oh, and people do notice – in fact their National Trade Magazine, Tire Review, named them North America’s Best Tire Dealer just a week or two after they were given “Local Best” awards in a local consumer survey.Lynn McColley does Small Business Web Site Design, Local Internet Marketing and Email Marketing for Small Businesses. Are you seeing a trend? If you’ve got a small business and want to grow your business on the web, call McColley Marketing Media at 480-704-4286.
My friends at Tire Tires Tires in Sioux City and Sioux Falls are serious about being good citizens.
They just recently delivered their last “Angel Car” of the year. This was a promotion with a local radio station, a charity, and their community.
The radio station got listeners to donate vehicles for struggling families. As you can imagine, most of those vehicles aren’t coming off the showroom – in fact, they usually are vehicles that need some work to bring them up to safety standards. Plus, being located in the Upper Midwest, they need to be extremely reliable so they will make it through the harsh winter.
Tires Tires Tires has, for the last couple of years, done the repairs for free. Parts, labor, everything. For a several dozen vehicles. And they ate every penny.
I was there last fall when a family came in to pick one of the vehicles. They turned the key and it started up like it was new. The family definitely was in need of reliable transportation, so it was a very nice moment.
So here’s what they’re doing now…
They’re giving out two $1000 scholarships to students who will be graduating this spring. Plus another ten $200 scholarships to “runnerups.” Students have to live within 50 miles of one of their stores, be of good character and have a safe driving record.
Cynics might think they’re in it for the media attention
But when you look at the bills for fixing all those cars, the cash for these scholarships, and a lot of time administering the promotion, they could easily buy ads in their markets that would get them more immediate business than these promotions. But there’s a little more to it.
Doing the right thing has a way of leveling things out
Anyone who hears about it and has a friend with a kid about to graduate is going to pass the word. They’ll talk about it at work and they’ll chat about it on Facebook. Not a lot, but just a little.
And when one of those people needs new tires, or the check engine light comes on, hopefully they’ll know who they can trust to treat them right.
Oh, and people do notice – in fact their National Trade Magazine, Tire Review, named them North America’s Best Tire Dealer just a week or two after they were given “Local Best” awards in a local consumer survey.Lynn McColley does Small Business Web Site Design, Local Internet Marketing and Email Marketing for Small Businesses. Are you seeing a trend? If you’ve got a small business and want to grow your business on the web, call McColley Marketing Media at 480-704-4286.
Mar
3
2011
Followup Note To Norton/Symantec
I think I need to apologize about the rant on Norton Anti-virus and their attempted theft of subscription time.
I now believe it very likely isn’t intentional – it could just be total incompetence!
Since uninstalling the product – and refusing to fill out the “why are you leaving us” survey that requires me to hand over all rights to use anything I say, along with the right to use my image, name, etc – I have been receiving these scary emails informing me in huge letters that I am not protected from every possible catastrophe, but that I can click a button to return to the fold and receive my protection for just $69.
That email has no opt-out provision.
Which could be against the CAN-SPAM act. I’m sure they would claim that it’s a tech alert/product warning and not a sales letter. Although I think a competent lawyer could ruin that claim any day of the week because of the “click here to buy” button.
So I contacted them to force them to remove me from their list.
And despite the fact that they were “experiencing higher than normal traffic loads,” I kept the chat window open for what seemed like 20 minutes before getting a response.
The support agent made some snafus – like asking me for the serial number of my product (uninstalled and therefore unavailable) and telling me he was sorry that I was having problems with my product – I wasn’t, and I had already informed him the problem was stopping the emails. In the end he told me he had eliminated my name from the email list and asked if he had fixed my problem. To which I said, “I don’t know – you say it’s fixed so I’ll take you at your word.”
I get an email moments later asking me if all was well or if I would like to email a supervisor.
Since no-one has ever acknowledged my charges of attempted theft, I sent an email with a link to my blog post where I explained the whole story. (See my blog post about why I no longer am using Norton Antivirus).
That was three days ago.
This afternoon, my telephone rings with a caller ID that says 800 Service. I expect I’m about to be telemarketed, but instead find myself talking with a nice woman with an Indian accent. I can only assume it’s the middle of the night where she was, but I don’t know.
She goes through a spiel about how much they hope that I am happy with my experience with Norton and telling me that she had, in fact, removed me from any email lists that I was on.
And then it happened.
As she was closing the call, she informs me that the call might be recorded for training purposes.
My thoughts have now changed.
Dear Symantec. I apologize for saying you were trying to defraud me in regards to the time left on my subscription when I installed the next year’s product. Despite the fact that it happened two years running.
Telemarketing interfaces are incredibly easy to program. You display the comment you want your telemarketer to make, then provide buttons for the telemarketer to indicate what the called person said. Then you provide their next comment.
The part where the telemarketer says, “this call may be recorded” comes at the beginning – not the end! It’s to allow the person you called the right to opt out of the call – or at least to know that their words could come back to haunt them.
I now have come to believe that you can’t even program a simple telemarketing interface, let alone fix a bug in your program that costs customers up to 15% of their annual subscription service.
In fact, I now wonder how much protection you actually provide. Given the programming incompetence shown above, how could I expect you were actually qualified to offer protection from viruses in the first place? Perhaps that’s why my new protection found 5 viruses on it’s first scan.Lynn McColley hates telemarketing, but is incredibly good at creating effective Small Business Web Site Design, Email Marketing Blasts, and helping clients to get higher search engine rankings. Want a little more bang for your marketing dollar? Call Lynn at 480-704-4286.
I now believe it very likely isn’t intentional – it could just be total incompetence!
Since uninstalling the product – and refusing to fill out the “why are you leaving us” survey that requires me to hand over all rights to use anything I say, along with the right to use my image, name, etc – I have been receiving these scary emails informing me in huge letters that I am not protected from every possible catastrophe, but that I can click a button to return to the fold and receive my protection for just $69.
That email has no opt-out provision.
Which could be against the CAN-SPAM act. I’m sure they would claim that it’s a tech alert/product warning and not a sales letter. Although I think a competent lawyer could ruin that claim any day of the week because of the “click here to buy” button.
So I contacted them to force them to remove me from their list.
And despite the fact that they were “experiencing higher than normal traffic loads,” I kept the chat window open for what seemed like 20 minutes before getting a response.
The support agent made some snafus – like asking me for the serial number of my product (uninstalled and therefore unavailable) and telling me he was sorry that I was having problems with my product – I wasn’t, and I had already informed him the problem was stopping the emails. In the end he told me he had eliminated my name from the email list and asked if he had fixed my problem. To which I said, “I don’t know – you say it’s fixed so I’ll take you at your word.”
I get an email moments later asking me if all was well or if I would like to email a supervisor.
Since no-one has ever acknowledged my charges of attempted theft, I sent an email with a link to my blog post where I explained the whole story. (See my blog post about why I no longer am using Norton Antivirus).
That was three days ago.
This afternoon, my telephone rings with a caller ID that says 800 Service. I expect I’m about to be telemarketed, but instead find myself talking with a nice woman with an Indian accent. I can only assume it’s the middle of the night where she was, but I don’t know.
She goes through a spiel about how much they hope that I am happy with my experience with Norton and telling me that she had, in fact, removed me from any email lists that I was on.
And then it happened.
As she was closing the call, she informs me that the call might be recorded for training purposes.
My thoughts have now changed.
Dear Symantec. I apologize for saying you were trying to defraud me in regards to the time left on my subscription when I installed the next year’s product. Despite the fact that it happened two years running.
Telemarketing interfaces are incredibly easy to program. You display the comment you want your telemarketer to make, then provide buttons for the telemarketer to indicate what the called person said. Then you provide their next comment.
The part where the telemarketer says, “this call may be recorded” comes at the beginning – not the end! It’s to allow the person you called the right to opt out of the call – or at least to know that their words could come back to haunt them.
I now have come to believe that you can’t even program a simple telemarketing interface, let alone fix a bug in your program that costs customers up to 15% of their annual subscription service.
In fact, I now wonder how much protection you actually provide. Given the programming incompetence shown above, how could I expect you were actually qualified to offer protection from viruses in the first place? Perhaps that’s why my new protection found 5 viruses on it’s first scan.Lynn McColley hates telemarketing, but is incredibly good at creating effective Small Business Web Site Design, Email Marketing Blasts, and helping clients to get higher search engine rankings. Want a little more bang for your marketing dollar? Call Lynn at 480-704-4286.