The Relationship

1. Preparation. You obsess with how you look. You practice all the smart things you will say. You think of all the situations that may come up and how you will react. You look in the mirror and ask for council. Ready?

2. The search. You look thought the crowd to find the one that catches your eye. Are they there? Do you settle or move on to somewhere new? While you are seeking your prey you too may be stalked - does someone approach you?

3. The meet. You catch each others eye. Can you keep each others attention? Will you respond to each other?

4. Breaching the wall. You play on every word; laugh at the jokes; add a few more refreshments and you start to reel them in. You are addressing their objections and smoothing out some of the friction but not all because you want to keep them on edge. Just a bit, so you can stay in control.

5. The Score. Nuf said.

6. Dating. You decide there is more to this relationship and start working on it. The feeling is mutual. You grow & flourish by supporting each others needs.

7. Plateau. You think you know everything that is going to happen so you stop trying to impress and start to take each other for granted. You start to focus on yourself and your own needs. No more excitement.

8. The fall. Others start to pique your interest. You are enticed by the opportunity. You start to make subtle changes so you can take advantage of these situations.

9. Break-up. The accumulated baggage begins to weigh down on you so you bail for greener pastures. You just don’t have the energy to save this relationship.

10. Catharsis. You talk about the loss with anyone that will listen - completely ignoring all TMI rules while shifting the blame away from yourself.

11. Dating. You start dating a new one and blissfully think this is the one.

Is this how you treat your customers?

The front lines @ Christmas

Everyone is being hit with the repercussions of the current economic environment. Amex reduced many people’s credit lines because they are trying to protect themselves from the current economic environment. Watch out for the APR. I and a dozen people are in the same situation. Brad Stone interviewed me for the article To Survive, Net Start-Ups Slow Their Metabolism about the impact to Kangalope but we didn't make the cut. It was great talking to him and a bit of an ego boost. Smart Money wants to include my experience in an upcoming story on Behavioral Profiling but they want me to fax over all of my Amex statements to find common behaviors from other consumers. I think not.

I got mad at Amex and decided that if they didn’t want my business then I didn’t want theirs. I stopped accepting Amex, transferred all reoccurring charges to other cards and was ready to say, “Good Bye Amex”.

Karma has an interesting sense of humor. My wife told me that I had to buy all these presents, today! I tried to renew my Amazon Prime membership for the free/discounted shipping but was told my Capital One credit card was declined. I called Capital One and was told my number had been changed for security purposes. They had no idea why I didn’t get a new card or a letter explaining this change but apologized and said I would receive my new card in 7 to 10 business days. So, back to Amex but that charge was declined too!!!! I called Amex to see what was up. They said nothing was sent to them by Amazon and the fault must be on the side of Amazon. So back to Amazon for an hour long hold to find out what happened. I spoke to 4 offshore reps, was disconnected twice and finally got a supervisor who said it will be 24 hours for the charge to go through. 24 hours?

Isn’t customer service great? I’ll talk to my wife and hope I’m not in the dog house.