oh well

If someone had to screw up my final four and my shot at March Madness glory, it might as well be the team Wendy and Jill are rooting for.

how to cement my loyalty as a customer

First and foremost, provide a high-quality product at a reasonable price.

Have clear, detailed photos and full and accurate product descriptions on your website.

Promptly answer any questions I have, whether about the product itself or placing a backorder.

When I order nine hundred spacer beads, include a few extras to compensate for the few that will inevitably be malformed.

Use high-quality packets and clearly label each one with the store name, quantity, item description, and item number to make it easy for me to reorder.

Offer a small discount on large orders, but avoid constant mega-sales. (Stores that offer 50% off everything every other week only make me wonder how overpriced their goods are to start with.)

Throw in a little something extra with a large order — nothing very valuable, just a little treat. You never know, I may love it so much that I’ll order more.

Package the order securely but simply, and ship it promptly. Give me the option of low-cost shipping. Better yet, offer free shipping via first-class mail for something that weighs next to nothing. Send me an e-mail when my order ships so I know to look for the package.

Thank you, Artbeads.com, for more than a year of stellar service. I’m looking forward to many more.

%&^*ing spammers

I’ve turned on comment moderation, which I hope will stop the comment spam. Sorry for the inconvenience.

how not to win my business

Be one of the two hotels likely to be decent based on brand name that are close to my home. Answer your phone with a mumble. Listen to my explanation about wanting to see a room this afternoon and to possibly put in a block request for a wedding, then transfer me to sales, where I have to repeat my explanation. Tell me that someone else in sales handles those requests and that you’ll transfer me to their extension. Do not mention that said person is out of town and won’t call me back until the next day, even though I clearly stated that I need to deal with this that day. Be unconcerned that the transferer didn’t mention your out-of-townness and failed to handle the request herself or at least hand it off to someone who was physically there. Mention that you checked your messages yesterday afternoon but couldn’t be bothered to call me back until this morning. Validate the pretty bad online reviews of your hotel (which, in retrospect, I should have checked before even calling). Make me glad I didn’t even have a chance to see a room or have to contemplate sending a nice chunk of business your way.

Police, baby!

My super-secret Ticketmaster location has paid off again. I got there at quarter to ten, joined the line with six or seven people in front of me, and left with two mid-priced tickets at 10:10. Had there not been presales for both Best Buy members and Police fan club members, who took all of the good tickets, I probably could have scored some great seats. (Nothing will ever beat the second-row center seats I got for Sting, though — also obtained by standing in line, although not at that particular Ticketmaster.)

Now, if I get in to the St. John Westshore Festival of the Arts, that will make for one hell of a mid-July.