Outdoor Accolades: Customer Service Gone Bad, One Tough Dog, & Get Off Your Butt

31 July 2007

Outdoor Accolades: Customer Service Gone Bad, One Tough Dog, & Get Off Your Butt

Posted by Darrell under: Blog Posts of Note .

When Good Customer Service Goes Bad

Kristine recently had a bad experience at a restaurant. She used the experience as an opportunity to talk about how you can use a bad situation to provid great customer service. Her post inspired one of my own. You might be wondering “what does this have to do with hunting and fishing?” and my answer is “a lot!” How so? For business owners, dealing with upset customers has a direct relationship with how much time you can spend outdoors. Too many upset customers can mean no time outdoors because you are spending your time looking for a job. Plus, the same principles you use to resolve conflict with customers can work for co-workers, family members, and friends and lead to better relationships. I’ve found that it is much easier to sneak away to the woods if my wife and I are enjoying a strong healthy relationship! Kudos to Kristine for putting a positive spin on a negative experience.

Wolves, Wilderness and Wildfire No Match For Pooch

A 4-year old Australian shepherd/border collie mix traversed almost 100 miles of wolf and grizzly invested wilderness to make it home after being left behind in Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness. I have to give this story an Accolade for three reasons: 1) I grew up with border collies and love those dogs. I still swear they have to be one of the smartest dogs created. 2) My daughter loves dogs and she is going to love this story. I can guarantee that she will be re-telling it to anyone who will listen for the next couple of weeks. 3) For some reason, I can see a TV movie being made from this story, complete with a huge boar grizzly and a pack of wolves chasing Bandit (the dog, and if that isn’t a TV movie name?) through a 60 miles of burning timber (oh yeah, I forgot to mentiont that the wilderness was on fire). Amazingly this dog made it home in less than 48 hours. How awesome is that?

Turn That Computer Off And Get Out Into Your Community

Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. Is the president of an entire company of bloggers telling me to turn off my computer? Yep, and for good reason. Steve suggests several ways to promote your blog, locally, while your computer is off and your away from your desk. I’ll readily admit that his ideas are really good. I’ll probably give a couple of them a try. I have actually thought about printing up some cards with my URL on it. If I followed some of Steve’s suggestions those cards would probably come in handy. Not to mention, Steve had some great ideas for actual blog posts which, again, involved involving the community and getting up off your butt. Read his post and then email him your ideas.