Michael D. Brown, MBA

Oil prices rose more than $3 a barrel, moving beyond $127 for the first time Friday and putting even more pressure on skyrocketing lofty gasoline and diesel prices ahead. This can’t be real good news, considering the beginning of the summer season is days away.

Part of the rationale is apparently due to the speculation that China’s demand for diesel needed to fuel its power plants would rise even higher in order to deal with the massive reconstruction efforts as a result of the earthquake (certainly our best wishes and thoughts are with China as they cope with this sad event).

I am constantly hearing stories of hard working individuals and families who are struggling just to put fuel in the car to go to work.

At $4 a gallons even the middle class worker is struggling.

What will you do to make it through this difficult time of rising gas prices?

www.TheMichaelDBrown.com
www.FreshCustomerService.com

Chrysler announced an offer that caps the price of gasoline at $2.99 a gallon for three years for people who buy or lease new vehicles from Wednesday through June 2. The offer is based on 12,000 miles of driving per year at the vehicle’s rated fuel economy.

Customers will get a card for buying gas that is linked to their own charge account, Chrysler said. The customer will be billed $2.99 a gallon, and Chrysler will pay the rest.

Actual savings depend on what happens to gas prices over the next three years, but based on the $3.61 a gallon average price reported Monday by AAA, someone buying a 2008 Chrysler PT Cruiser, which gets an estimated 21 miles per gallon in city driving, would save $355 a year.

How likely will this deal make you buy one of the 23 Chrysler cars?
A. Very likely
B. Somewhat likely
C. Not likely
D. Maybe, maybe not

www.FreshCustomerService.com
www.TheMichaelDBrown.com

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said on Wednesday that it would ration the amount of rice each customer can purchase at its Sam’s Club warehouse stores because of recent “supply and demand trends.”

“We are limiting the sale of Jasmine, Basmati and Long Grain White Rices to four bags per member visit,” the company said in a statement. “This is effective immediately in all of our U.S. clubs, where quantity restrictions are allowed by law.”

This was a shock to me, out of all commodities I assumed rice was a staple that was in high supply.

The reason giving for this ration and the alarm bells heard around the world: The price of rice rose to $894 a metric ton, compared to $327.25 a ton average price in the same month last year. In addition the rice harvest have been poor and countries are curbing exports.
With the price of fuel reaching $4 in San Francisco today, a rice shortage and a dollar that’s look more and more like a peso what are consumers to do?

Are you concerned about the implications that this can have on your pocketbook, on your dinner table and your overall welfare?

www.freshcustomerservice.com

This revolutionary and often controversial approach to customer service is the subtitle of my new book, Fresh Customer Service (Treat the employee as #1 and the customer as #2 and you will get customers for life).

My approach to customer service has been featured on a number of radio shows, in national print media, and also featured in a newspaper in India.

But what do you think about this statement?

Fresh Customer Service will be featured at Borders on April 26, 2008 @ 2:00 PM. Be ready to discuss! Here are the details:

Meet the Author: Michael D. Brown, MBA
(Click to register.)

Saturday, April 26, 2:00pm
Borders Bookstore
9595 Six Pines Drive, The Woodlands, TX
Phone: 832.585.0051

www.freshcustomerservice.com

Today Delta Air Lines announced a long talked about deal to swipe up Northwest Airlines for about $3.1 billion. This deal will produce the world’s largest airline and could lead to an avalanche of mergers. I don’t think it’s a matter of if – it’s a matter of when the other airlines will announce mergers.

With the price of jet fuel, labor, a crawling economy, ANGRY customers, massive flight cancellations and the recent announcement of four airlines to leave the friendly skies and Frontier filing bankruptcy more mergers are just inevitable.

Do you think the merger will be a good or bad thing for consumers?

Who do you think will merge next?

I think it will be Continental and United

www.FreshCustomerService.com

Beyond Booked Solid, Michael Port
I had the privilege of hearing Michael speak on Booked Solid last year at the NSA convention in San Diego. Booked beyond solid has been a great follow up read to his dynamic presentation. Michael has woven into this piece of work ideas from some other great minds (Seth Godin and Timothy Ferriss), real life experiences, and best practices. He underpins all of this with a proven system that will aid you in designing a business that works with and for you. He masterfully lays out a plan for helping you design a business that will deliver profits while allowing you time to embark on your personal endeavors.

My coaching clients will have this as required reading starting next week.

www.TheMichaelDBrown.com

Who can you trust with your money/assets these days? The banks, mortgage companies, company 401K plans have all seem to cause people to loose their life savings. Now check this latest story out.

Ameriprise Financial Inc. settled a civil case with New Hampshire regulators alleging that the company’s financial advisers forged at least 96 customers’ signatures.

Ameriprise agreed to pay $3.84 million in fines, investigation costs, and investor refunds to settle allegations that six financial advisers at the company’s Portsmouth, N.H., office forged clients’ signatures to make it seem that undelivered financial plans had been delivered. Regulators say Ameriprise advisers did this to make their sales numbers look higher.

Not only is this bad customer service it’s just plain unethical!

Do you trust anyone with your money or are you going to just put it under the mattress?

www.FreshCustomerService.com

According to Business Week

On Tuesday, Amazon.com introduced Amazon TextBuyIt, a service that lets users purchase items via mobile text messages. The same day, Citibank began a public testing of a service that lets cell phone users transfer money among accounts.

I am all for using technology to speed up my shopping experience. I cringe when I have to go into a brick and mortar store, for I know I will be waiting in line, or they may be out of what I am looking for.
Would you feel comfortable send payments via your cell phone?

www.freshcustomerservice.com

Aloha Airlines said Sunday (March 30, 200 it will halt all passenger service after Monday (March 31, 2008), basically bringing to an end the airline that has transported passengers to Hawaii for over 60 years.

Aloha, which filed for bankruptcy for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 21, couldn’t keep up with the rising fuel prices and fierce competition a casualty of fierce competition and rising fuel prices. The airline said it will stop taking reservations for flights after Monday.

“We simply ran out of time to find a qualified buyer or secure continued financing for our passenger business,” said Aloha President David Banmiller in a statement. “We had no choice but to take this action.”

Aloha said tickets for flights after Monday will not be honored. It said it is working to have United Airlines accommodate passengers with tickets for Aloha’s mainland to Hawaii flights. It hopes to seat those with interisland tickets on Hawaiian Airlines.

Aloha has canceled Monday flights from Hawaii to the West Coast and between several cities in California and Nevada. It’s last day for interisland travel will be Monday.

Aloha advised passengers who don’t want to fly another airline and who want a refund to contact their travel agents or credit card companies. Those who paid by cash or check may file a claim in bankruptcy court.

The shutdown will affect about 1,900 employees.

WOW, so an airline can just give a one day notice to it’s paid passengers and employees?

Should airlines be required to give at least a 30 day notice to it’s paid passengers and employees?

www.FreshCustomerService.com

The CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz revealed a laundry list of “saviors” for the struggling coffee giant.

During the annual meeting on Wednesday Howard made it clear that he was not going to go down without a fight.

Here are his suggestions for breathing life into the company:

New espresso machines- They will put in high-tech espresso machines in all U.S. stores. This shorter and faster machine will make the customer experience better.

New coffee ground fresh- The coffee used to make the daily drip coffee will come from fresh ground beans.

Networking site- In an attempt to pull the younger crowd into the doors, they will launch mystarbucksidea.com. This site will be used to get ideas and chat with customers.

Loyalty cards- The Starbucks Rewards Program will initially offer free extras to customers. I am not sure what happens after the “free period”

French-press coffee- A special French press machine will offer individual cups of brew

Green connection- They will do more with Conservation International, including making a financial commitment.

Giving the tough economic situation, do you think the “saviors” will save the coffee giant? Or should they just drop the price of their products?

www.FreshCustomerService.com