Engage in PR

Going through our move to Austin we are dealing with a ton of different vendors and people:

• Movers
• Realtors
• Charities picking up our furniture
• Buyers of our goods at yard sales (thanks Lisa and Liz)
• Mortgage Brokers

In many cases we are dealing here with some fairly heavy emotions and in other cases some relatively large sums of money (e.g. mortgage debt). I’ve actually been able to use a built-in barometer to tell me when one of these entities is communicating well or not so well. It’s my back! Yes, my back. Every time I’m talking with one of the above I see how I feel when I stand up. For example:

• Talking with the moving companies…back tightens and I can’t stand up straight.
• Traveling around with our realtor in Austin looking at 72 homers in 100 degree weather…back feels perfect.
• Having a confrontation with the charity worker picking up our donations…it is as if a million microbes shaped live knives have started to live within my lower back.

You get the point. The reason is very simple, the folks who are not physically hurting me (in this instance I’m not using hyperbole) have been consistently emailing and calling me with information. Not once did our mortgage broker nor realtor surprise us with something they needed last minute. Each conversation, whether online or off, has been pleasant because they not only know what they are doing, they empathize with the situation that you are in and tailor their communications to help.  In fact our realtor in Austin, the great Sam Archer (to your right), should be given a medal for the attention and service he has shown my wife and myself (sorry Sam, this link-love and hopefully referrals will have to do).

Those that have caused me pain however not only fail to communicate, they give you the WRONG information, when they give you the right information they don’t let you ask questions and they don’t CALL YOU WHEN THEY ARE GOING TO BE LATE!!

Why do I have time to write this during a very hectic day in my life? The moving company is now three hours late AND not answering their phone. Oh god my back hurts!!

–Kyle Flaherty

This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.