Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Who Provides the Best and Worst Customer Service in Cleveland?


What inspired me for this post is an article at MSN.com. People were asked to comment on the worst customer service provider experiences they had...experienced! lol Home Depot and Sprint seem to be hot buttons of frustration for a lot of people around the Country - they were at the top of the list. My phone provider, Verizon, was 8th on the list. Curiously, I have always received good customer service from Verizon. No complaints here. Apparently others do not agree with me.
When Cleveland cable service was provided by Adelphia I honestly didn't have much to complain about. Never had to wait on the phone line for a live person for more than a minute or two. (Although I always loved when my internet would be down, I'd call Adelphia, and the robotic message would be "you can save time by accessing us via the internet...." yes well wouldn't THAT be nice! I digress....)

Now that it is Time Warner however....forget it! If the internet is down, you call and they say we are working on some cable issues please hang up. How do I know they are working on MY cable issues? :-)

One point they make in the article struck a chord with me: if you are providing poor customer service it may be more than your customers who are unhappy...the shareholders/stockholders may not be pleased either. You know what they say: do a good job and someone might tell another person. Do an awful job and you can bet your unhappy customer will tell lots of people. Here is one quote from the article I loved:

"If you want to know how a company is doing, look at their sales," Calloway says. "If you want know how they're going to do in the future, look at their customer service. You can only tick people off for so long."

I can't just do 'bad' service. I have a few places with terrific customer service. Torch Hardware in Cleveland; Ingersoll's Hardware in Rocky River (can you tell I love hardware stores?); Rego's Market, Heinen's.

Just thought you might want to read the MSN customer service polling results. And oh yes, you can add your comments to that article! Peace Out - 3C


Cleveland Homes and Condos Sold In April

It's May 1st, and inquiring minds (mine anyway) want to know how many homes sold last month. I'm starting with Downtown Cleveland and the West Side of Cleveland.

West Side Homes Sold in April: 121
West Side Condos Sold in April: 9

The homes sold ranged from $5,000 (I'm guessing this one needed a little love to be livable!) to $513,000 for an Ohio City Town Home.

The nine condos ranged in price from $30k to $487,500.


Here are some Downtown Cleveland stats: there are 165 units on the market right now. In April:

21 units went under contract
6 sold.

I'm off to do a brokers open at a condo today so I will update more communities later.

Peace Out - 3C