Don't make the crucial customer disservice error Hale Groves is making. Pay attention! This article can save you thousands and a lot of customers, too.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. Have you heard of a citrus company called Hale Groves of Vero Beach, ,? If not, you must be living in a cave. Their marketing is everywhere and in all places, online and off. They're spending the ransoms of two or three kings on it.

But the poobahs who run the place have made at least one crucial mistake: they haven't tried to order their product.... and as I am here to tell you, the order takers they've got are most assuredly NOT in sync with the hot-shots in the marketing department. In other words, if it is not actually impossible to order some of their tasty product, it is very close to it.

That's why I'm using as today's incidental music The Supreme's great tune "You keep me hanging on" because that's what the folks at Hale Groves have done to me... each and every time I've ordered. You'll find this1966 hit in any search engine. You can play it while you're on hold...

Still, let's get into the right mood for this situation... and what Hale Groves and every other dysfunctional marketing machine needs to do before they irritate too many more of the most important people on earth -- good paying customers like me!

The facts.

My family has been buying from Hale Groves for decades... and no wonder. I grew up in the snow belt they call Illinois... I went to college in the snow belt they call Massachusetts... and when I graduated... having had insufficient punishment from snow, sleet, ice and attendant miseries, I stayed on in the very same snow belt that snuffed the Pilgrims.

One of the things that made it all bearable was Hale Groves and the utterly delectable citrus... and, of course, I love getting the free citrus spoons, too. I have a drawer full of them.

The Hale Groves shuffle.

I like to place my citrus orders, indeed all orders, by telephone. Like a good citizen, I have my credit card out... and the special offer I want; the offer I am sure the order taker will want to make sure I get. Like most Americans I order when deals are good and pass when deals are not. But the great thing about Hale Groves is that they always have an offer... and I am always pleased to consider it. I am a citrus freak.... and pink grapefruit are guaranteed to brighten any day or palate, especially when the temperature is below zero and I curse the day I heard of Harvard and a frigid place named Cambridge.

Order I would, if order I could.

The citrus season begins November 1, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Hale Groves will have a special offer in your hand, an offer so good you wouldn't think of missing it. I want to see that offer... I want to take advantage of that offer IF Hale Groves will let me... for that is by no means a sure thing.

Because memory is imperfect, as I dial the number I find my last run-in with them is not the first thing in mind; instead I am tasting in my imagination their citrus perfection... but first I must pay my dues by holding. It is a rule.

Like all good Americans I hate holding.... not just hate it but despise and disdain it. I'd like a choice... hold forever or allow them to call me back in (so many minutes); techies can easily tell them how many: "Your call will be returned in 7.5 minutes sharp."

Okay, I'm on hold... and second by second I am working up a good head of steam, the better to craft a snide comment that they well and truly deserve. I mean, I don't begin to have the available time I have to wait for a competent order taker to emerge and assist me. Who does?

But my torments have not even begun...

Codes. Colors. Confusion. Choler.

"I'd like to place an order from a mailing I just received." These are the words I am hoping I don't soon regret.

"Do you have the offer there in front of you?"

I do... and I say so proudly, even defiantly because I am hopeful history is not about to repeat itself.

But we are, the order taker and I, about to enter the twilight zone in which the order I want to place... is the order the order taker cannot seem to take. And so The Rigmarole of ordering from Hale Groves well and truly begins, to the growing irritation of both parties.

"Sir, please give me the special order code."

Code, code, find the code.

I have an envelope full of Hale Groves propaganda... colorful brochures... a special letter from their president extolling their many virtues... I do not see and cannot find a code... and what's worse the order taker cannot direct me by uttering such reassuring words as "you'll find the code in big red letters at the top of page 1." Such essential words, calming to both parties, neither of us can find... and this is what that means.

It means some bright folks in the marketing department have not tried to order the product themselves... and have certainly never bothered to train the hapless order takers who are about to feel the sharp lash of my tongue because no one knows who's on first and where to find that flippin' code.

And so we sink into muddle, mayhem, a disordered morass. If this were a dance it would be a tango... and that for an order process is completely unacceptable.

Finally, I say what I should have said at the first sign of trouble. "Why don't you take down my telephone number and call me when you've discovered where the code is?' But my tenacious order taker won't let go, won't do the sensible thing and will not proceed with the matter of doing what we both want: placing the order. In other words getting that code, no matter that neither she nor I could find it, had become more important than satisfying the customer. And that's why this order "process" is such a mess.

But it got even worse...

The order taker, unable to direct me to the code, put me on extended hold while she quizzed her colleagues about the location of that code. No one knew, which meant no one had thought it useful to instruct them on this matter... and so while I smoldered they, with every passing minute, proved that the one hand in marketing didn't know and hadn't bothered to advise the other in the order department, thereby generating bad feelings instead of the satisfied customer both parties wanted.

Again, I advised the clueless order taker to take my number and call me back when she was organized and ready. But the poor woman had been instructed, perhaps with severity, to get the code upon pain of death. And she could not, would not get beyond this trifling matter... and so the matter ended in stand-off, no order, no business, and no future.

Hale Groves will now bombard me for years with sales messages and tempting offers, too, too little, too late. For I have now discovered an excellent product from Del Monte, Red Grapefruit, SunFresh. No hassle. No waiting. Already peeled. And no need to deal with the misnamed order takers at Hale who, when needed, could not have been less ready. Which is why I suggest you try to order what you sell. It could well be your weakest link. Oh, yes, and call me to finish my order.

*** Your response to this article is requested. What do you think? Let us know by posting your comments below.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer http://MyTrafficInjection.comhttp://MyTrafficInjection.com">http://MyTrafficInjection.com>.

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America needs millions of new jobs. This huge undertaking has set our citizens brainstorming. Here are just a few of their ideas... cool!

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. We shareholders of the United States of America, Inc. are deeply worried, perplexed, baffled and, yes, angry about our persistent unemployment rate, which continues to hover around 9%, with no end in sight. Experts, in fact, once so quick to offer their profound economic predictions based on their experience and study of past malaises are now gun shy, having been wrong so often; as a result their predictions are more opaque than ever, seeming to say much, but after explication saying absolutely nothing at all.

Into this breach the brightest and most well meaning folks have entered... unwilling to be patient a minute longer and anxious to show that American people can solve America's problems, even this draining one of unemployment. And so today, we celebrate what our never-say-die countrymen are dreaming up for bona fide jobs in the hopes that you, too, will join the parade and keep those grand ideas coming, timely and in detail.

For the appropriate music to accompany this article, I have selected the theme song of the film "9 to 5" which was released in 1980. Dolly Parton knocked this one out of the park, the bounciest tune ever composed on the unjust, unfair, and unending tricks, twists, and turns of the world of work. Ironically, most of the over 9% of unemployed Americans would positively jump at these jobs today... no matter the drawbacks... such is the level of our national desperation, apprehension, fear, and anxiety and why we need a Grand Alliance of the private sector and the governments of the nation -- local, state, and federal -- to create jobs, jobs, jobs.

Let's start with what some bright folks are doing in the great state of Florida where innovation and new ideas are sacrosanct and held in the highest regard. We must pause and here congratulate state Representative Brad Drake who at the beginning of October, 2011 filed a bill to stop letting convicted killers "get off that easy." His job- creating idea: to use firing squads, or (his far second choice) the electric chair for all those on death row.

Way to go, Brad!

Drake's bill would end the use of murderer-coddling lethal injection in Florida executions. Instead, those with a death sentence would get what every American craves, a choice; being entitled to choose between electrocution (remember, this is his personal second choice because it isn't the expedient that creates the most jobs in this sector) and a firing squad. He prefers the squad, because as a patriotic, jobs-creating American, that would create more jobs for needy Floridians.

Drake, one of those highly valued forward looking Republicans, said the idea came to him after having a conversation with a constituent at a Waffle House over the legal battles associated with the September 28, 2011 execution of Manuel Valle. All that sugar must have gone straight to his brain.

Valle's lawyers tried to stop the execution by arguing that a new lethal drug cocktail would cause him pain and therefore constitute cruel and unusual punishment. But courts rejected this argument and let the execution go forward. Why the coddling, Drake's constituent asked? They're murderers after all. And upon careful reflection this Tallahassee Solon agreed.

Drake is clear that the government is spending too much time listening to advocacy groups and instead should put in place a death sentence that forces convicted murderers to contemplate their fate. Now, Brad's got the bit between his teeth. He wants to make it hard on those murderers; never mind that they are being snuffed by state order. Yeah, he wants them to think about their pending punishment "every morning," as if they weren't doing that already. Besides, this is a great chance for entrepreneurs to get into the act.

Although Drake hasn't said so, I bet he's already thought up the idea of training squads of executioners and renting them out to other states which will, he is sure, come aboard after the program gets started; it's an idea, he reckons, whose time has come. And there's another financial advantage, too; we could rent these squads to foreign governments, more squeamish than we are, and so fill the empty coffers of Florida. This'll cinch the deal that ensures Rep. Drake's civic achievement.

No idea too small!

Our next great jobs-creating idea is also from Flori-duh, the land of ideas, light years ahead of other, less with-it Americans. Eat your heart out North Carolina for not dreaming up this one... this time legalized dwarf tossing.

Clueless citizen that you are, you probably didn't know that Florida's dwarfs are in unemployment lines getting welfare, when they could -- man, woman and child alike -- be doing good service (and sparing hard-pressed tax-payers) by being tossed around like a beach ball during happy hours statewide. Wow! Where do they come up with these really great ideas! Here are the facts...

According to Florida state Representative Ritch Workman, another one of those sharp- witted Republicans who run Florida these days, dwarfs are being oppressed by antediluvian state laws prohibiting them from being flung around bar rooms to enhance the drinking and entertainment experience of playful patrons, now miserable without their exuberant sport. This is a disgrace says Rep. Workman (so aptly named)... and he aims to set things to right and create a bright-shining example to other states which are still in the Dark Ages as far as dwarf tossing is concerned.

Thus, "Retain Rep. Workman for the Working Man", has introduced a bill that frees dwarfs for their destiny while likely shaving a bit off the state's horrendous unemployment rate, a punishing 1.6 percent above the US average... and a disgrace to Florida which clearly needs all the help it can get.

It's the double whammy of tough times for dwarfs getting jobs and the suppression of their God-given right to get tossed if and when they want to that fuels Workman's passion, for he is at once a man of tax-cutting, dollar-saving propensities and libertarian freedoms. As such, liberation of dwarfs everywhere demands his attention. And so he is aiming for nothing less than the overturning of the 1989 Florida law banning dwarf tossing as dangerous and dehumanizing.

But now get this... in an interview with Rep. Workman, published by Bloomberg News and running nationwide October 8, 2011, Ritch Workman said he personally found dwarf tossing "offensive" and "stupid". Still.... "If this is a job they want and people would pay to see it or participate in it, why in the world would we prohibit it?" Why indeed!

Democrats, of course, are irked beyond measure at this bill. They only want Floridians to have "real" jobs and wait patiently until their paladins create some; never mind that that might be years away. Carolyn Fiddler, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, dismisses the matter with a superior sniff. Of course she isn't a dwarf and has a job, too, and is far above the indignity of being passed from hand to hand by ruffians who might, not to put too fine a point on the matter, pinch the lady as she passes. This is, she is sure, yet another instance where Republicans don't get it. But most assuredly Rep. Workman does. He is after all a Man of Destiny, who sees clearly that less can be more.

Dolly was right!

I'm out of space for today, or I'd share with you more of these tales, for I have a ton of them. Suffice it to say people are not just waiting for Washington to wake up and focus on jobs. They're helping themselves and using their brains to create jobs, and we all ought to be glad for that. Unemployment hurts, and wouldn't you rather see folks in jobs they may not love than in no job at all? Maybe such a job wasn't the best on earth, but it did bring home the bacon... and besides I like hearing Dolly Parton sing. She can complain at my house any time she likes and make us believe "Your ship'll come in/ And the tide's gonna turn/ An' it's all gonna roll your way." We still believe this, don't we? Well, don't we?

******* What do you think? Let Dr. Lant know by posting your comments below.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.

Republished with author's permission by Craig Telfer http://MyTrafficInjection.comhttp://MyTrafficInjection.com">http://MyTrafficInjection.com>.

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