PR firm job descriptions always mention a preference for applicants who have worked at another PR firm; here’s why:

1. Customer service: successful firms need intuitive, multi-tasking folks who can manage half-a- dozen clients’ needs, wants and panic attacks at a time—while making each client feel like he is the top priority. Firms are comprised of pros who know how to juggle; the best pros know which balls will bounce and which will break.
2. Billable hours: firms only exist if they keep making money, which means their pros must not hesitate to bill for their time, charge for copies, invoice travel, etc.  Communicators “feeling guilty” about making money in return for their expertise and services will be miserable— and likely, laid off.  We aren’t talking taking advantage of clients here, we are talking being paid for your talent. One of the most difficult mindsets for a firm newbie to gain is a comfort/confidence in billing. A smart firm would much rather you work through all that self-conflict at another firm, before you take up space on their payroll. Read More…

The October issue of HerNashville is online! A little Chic Geek teaser:

Nashville-area business owners, managers, and diligent employees: pay special attention to that customer tapping away at her iPhone or thumbing through her BlackBerry. She just might be Twittering about your customer service (or lack thereof), snapping a pic of your cute bartender or barista, or posting a rating of your business on consumer review websites like Yelp! and OpenTable. Read More…

It’s time for an update! First though, let me say that I’m really sorry I’ve been neglecting my Flackrabbit reporting duties. I realize that if you don’t know about Picalicious, or if we don’t stalk each other on Facebook or follow each other on Twitter, you might not be aware of how much I TOTALLY love DC.

So let me tell you: I TOTALLY love DC.

Over the past three weeks, lots of great stuff has happened for Team Newman; sure, it’s scary – just picking your life up and moving – but it continues to feel right. Everything that we have been stressing or fretting over keeps working itself out. It truly is a blessing.

Things I’ve been meaning to do for years, I’m doing. Like changing banks. There is no US Bank here in DC, so I’ve switched to SunTrust. Let me just say that I’m really, really enjoying their customer service and user-friendly website. I highly recommend them. I even earn interest on my checking account.

I’m really loving my gig. Again, I won’t be going into detail about it on this blog, but I keep pinching myself. I’m very blessed to have this opportunity and I love the pressure that comes with knowing they really took a chance on me, so I’ve gotta deliver. That may sound odd, but I dig it.

Dave moved up last week – and he loves it here. I’m so blessed to have him. He moved his whole life and business up here for me; I don’t know how I’ll ever repay him for that. Thanks, baby! In related news: Dave did Karaoke last week and I have proof! Just had to share.

Georgia is settling in well; of course, she’s got Dave, so she’s got that going for her, which is nice.  However, we are confused about why she’s starting to act like a real dog now. Exhibit A: she lays on the floor at your feet. That’s just weird.  We think the wall-to-wall carpet – that I hate -  is very empowering to her.

We continue to walk around awe-struck that we actually live here. We can walk out of our apartment and buy produce at the farmer’s market, or buy a bottle of wine at the little place across the street, or take the metro to the zoo, or just mosey across Pennsylvania Ave and hear free jazz in the sculpture garden. All without a car.

In other news:

• Team Newman is sad to report that Rebecca is leaving us right when we got here. We are uber happy for her and her fabulous new job in Dallas – but we are sooooooo sad to see her go! Be sure to check Picalicious on Sunday for pics of her going away party.
• Team Newman is happy to report that we have not been completely lost in the city yet, nor have we felt unsafe. You folks seem to be particularly curious about the latter half of that statement. We feel fine here! Swear!
• Team Newman feels obligated to report that it rains a lot here. Like all the time. We’ll be purchasing trench coats in the neat future.

And finally, don’t forget to pick up the June issue of Her Nashville! This month, Chic Geek answers some for your frequently asked questions – check it out!

Okay, I know I expressed a bit of concern about whether SXSW would be this big I Heart Twitter! fest or if I would actually learn something new. No worries! I attended three fabulous panels and a keynote address on Day 2. In all honesty, the speakers most certainly did teach/encourage/motivate/challenge me, so if I had to go home today I would feel like I got my money’s worth.

I very much enjoyed hearing from Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh, his keynote address was packed out and even spilled into three simulcast rooms. The great news about Tony is that he’s relatively young, extremely successful and absolutely understands that THE BEST way to have productive, customer service-oriented, on-message employees is to create a culture that fosters those things.

If you want your customers to be WOWed, as Hsieh does, then you’ve gotta take great care to hire employees who enjoy WOWing folks. And, “fire quickly” those who do not. Nice the hear that Zappos’s priority is creating and maintaining that culture. “If we hire for the culture fit,” Hsieh said, “the rest just takes care of itself.” He also said that Zappos considers money spent on WOWing customers and training and motivating employees as marketing dollars. It’s billiant, in my opinion.

The panel on Internet privacy was also fabulous. It wasn’t so much that I learned new stuff, you already know how I feel about the importance of knowing your online self. It’s was really just nice to have my obsession validated by really smart folks who are just as freaked out as I am about how little the average person cares about what personal information of theirs is floating around on the Web.

Anyway, there were so many great nuggets of geekdom crowding their way into my head that I thought I might explode a little. You can see my schedule over there…except for that Obama/Dean one. I skipped that to hang with hubby. And that’s okay because the keynote for Day 3 is the same Obama Web-ness, so it’s all good. The topics and converstaions spurred many blog ideas for me, so look for those in the coming days!

In the meantime I’ll leave you with this video of Dave stripping down at the trade show to get a cool t-shirt. We do what we have to do, friends:

A few weeks ago when I was in DC I received an email from Equifax.com that said this:

Dear Margie,

This e-mail is to notify you that the following change has occurred on your credit file:

• a collections account was added

I’m sorry, what? Did you say a collections account? Like the kind where I owe someone money and have not paid my bill and so my credit score will drop by 100 points? YES! That kind.

THANK YOU, EQUIFAX. Without your credit monitoring service I pay $8.95 a month for I wouldn’t have had one inkling that my suburb, twelve-year credit history had been assaulted by the customer service champs over at DirecPath (Direct TV installers) – a mistake that took my credit score from the top 3% of the US population to a just-barely-able-to-get-a-car-percentage.

So, I call DirecPath and say “Hi there, I was not even your customer when this alleged non-payment occurred so FIX IT.” Here’s the best part: Turns out that not only do I NOT owe them money, BUT THEY OWE ME $124.

I’ll give you a sec to process this.

I KNOW!

Anyway, after weeks of calling them and crying and stuff their answer was always “not sure how we can help, this is our mistake, but we don’t show you owe any money so, um, yeah.” Then they promise some supervisor will call me. I’m still waiting on that call …

Thankfully, you can dispute any information you believe to be fraudulent or just plain wrong from the Equifax website. I did that about seven days ago. Today I received an email from Equifax saying they had investigated my claim and have found I am not a collections case (I KNOW!) and will strike that negative mark from my credit record.

Still waiting on that DirecPath call…

Folks, sign up for some sort of credit score monitoring. If you don’t look out for your credit score no one else will. It’s 9 bucks a month that could keep you from being denied a car or home loan. DO IT. Do it now.

You can’t afford to have someone’s human error ruin your credit.

It seems like all the cool kids use Feedburner to track their blog subscribers and site traffic, so I thought I’d give it a shot. At first, I was in love! Four days later I’m livid.

The hubby had previously set me up with Google Analytics, which I adore but it doesn’t track feeds. Since Google just purchased Feedburner, I figured it would be intuitive and user friendly. Oh, honey. It was neither for me.

Last week I set up my free account, followed all the instructions and tried to complete it on my own, but had to have the hubby set up my FlackRabbit blog with the Feedburner widget thing.

It was working for a couple of days. It was so fun to track hits in real time and see how many subscribers were clicking on links in my feed. The “site visits” tracker never worked, but I was okay with that as long as my feeds were tracking.

And then today Feedburner wiped all my info from the chart. Gone.

I was already a little miffed at the time (2 to 4 hours) Feedburner takes to send my blog posts to Google Reader. Now they’ve erased my subcribers all together! Quality.

Of course, the fastest way to make me love you is to kill me with great customer service so maybe I’ll just … oh wait. That’s right. They don’t service anyone. No phone numbers, no email, no online form – just forums. Forums that NO ONE from Feedburner responds to. Classy.

So, FlackRabbit subscribers (Last time I checked there were about a dozen of you) could one of you you shoot me a note or comment if you have received this in a feed reader of any type? I can’t tell if my “zero” from Feedburner means you all left or if Feedburner just likes to make me cry.

Thanks! In the meantime, I’ll keep my feed running through Feedburner just to see if it will fix itself – and I’ll re-pledge my allegiance to Google Analytics.

So there’s this thing called “customer service.” Or at least, there used to be. I’m not sure what happened, but a lot businesses don’t seem to care about it anymore.

Oh sure, there was that period in 2007 and early 2008 when companies were boasting that they had the best customer service in town. It was the cool thing to do. Even better, consumers were actually aware that how they were treated mattered. They were demanding great customer service like it was their God-given right and sites like Consumerist were (and still are) all over it when folks were denied that right.

BUT then the economy started tanking and hoards of businesses – from the banks and credit companies, to big box retailers and the local shops – started caring so much about covering their own tails that they declared in one passive-aggressive voice, “screw the consumer.”

Sadly, consumers share in their poor economy-induced stress, so most will suck it up and accept the horrendous service, demeaning snail mail letters or botched loans as par for the current economy’s course.

(sigh)

Look, we are all frazzled by the economy. That doesn’t give you a license to act like a jerk to potential or current customers.

I won’t rant on and on, I just wanted to state on the record that the universal disregard for quality customer service makes me angry. I’m sick of people asking, “may I help you?” when clearly they don’t mean it.