I have to go to the dermatologist regularly these days, because when I was younger I thought it’d be a great idea to lay out in the sun and burn myself to a crisp. Yes, it was stupid to expose myself to lethal doses of radiation, but on the other hand, I had a really […]
I was sitting in a hotel room a couple of months ago when I received the following instant message from a lady I didn’t know: “Mr. Marshall, I believe you have been hacked. Some creep has been messaging me on Facebook, wanting money. I did an image search and found you, and you don’t seem […]
It really isn’t what you say, but how you say it, isn’t it? Not long ago, I received a letter from the Post Office notifying me that it is time to pay my annual bulk rate mailing dues. I was expecting the letter but what I wasn’t expecting was the verbiage it contained: Dear Charles […]
When I walked into the electronics store the other day, I noticed that the customer service rep was talking to someone on her cell phone. I waved hello to her but she turned away from me and continued talking on the phone. I didn’t saying anything to her, thinking that I’d just let her finish […]
Are you customer service driven? I rent cars a lot. I rent them when I’m traveling across the country, but I also rent them when I’m doing events that are 3 or 4 hours away, so that I avoid putting extra miles on my own car. Consequently, I’ve come to know all of my local […]
They say that nature abhors a vacuum, but the truth is it hates all appliances. If you don’t believe me, leave a toaster in your yard for a couple of years and see what happens. Nature will not be kind to it. I live in the South, so seeing yard appliances isn’t that uncommon. There […]
One of the questions I am most frequently asked these days is: How do we hire quality employees who want to work? My answer is pretty simple, really: Always be recruiting. Recently, when I was speaking at a school nutrition conference, I asked for volunteers to stand up and tell me their best customer service […]
For dozens of years modern culture has told us that we can be anything that we want if we just believe hard enough. If you hold on to your Dumbo’s feather, you can fly! If you believe in fairies and clap your hands, Tinker Bell will spring back to life! But (brace yourself) the real […]
See if this sounds familiar. The first of the year rolls around and you say, “Maybe I’ll try one of those New Year’s resolution things this year!” So you tell yourself that you’re going to lose weight, start exercising, read more, or whatever it is that you would like to do. So you go to […]
Not long ago, a young man named Tucker came over to my house to give me an estimate on a home repair. I didn‘t have to talk to him for very long before I realized he had a severe stutter. Every third or fourth word he spoke was accompanied with an awkward pause while he […]
