Peaches and Powerful Customer Service
It’s Friday evening, and my wife decided that it was time to let grandma take care of our teething baby so that we could go pick peaches and get away for a few hours. Given that most of my Fridays are spent right here, in front of a computer, trying to figure out how we’re going to get through the next week, I cheerfully went along to spend the lovely summer evening with her.
Picking peaches was great–we talked to the owner of the small orchard for awhile about what to look for in a good peach, and I of course asked about proper picking technique (which annoyed my more experienced wife). Anyway, we picked our peaches, drove to their house to pay, and had a short conversation about finding something to eat in the nearby small town. The daughter who weighed our baskets was pretty sure we could go to the cafe on Main Street, so we paid, thanked her, and went on our way to find the restaurant she had described.
As we were driving, I got a phone call from a strange number. It was the owner of the orchard calling to tell us that she had heard we were looking for something to eat and her daughter had been unsure if the cafe she had recommended really was open. So the owner took it upon herself to call all of the restaurants in the tiny town to check their hours. Sure enough, the recommended cafe was closed, but the next door pizza place would be happy to stay open for us if we were already on our way.
Wow. Talk about amazing customer service. Both businesses went out of their way to work together to accommodate us out of town strangers for no good reason. We weren’t asking for anything special and we weren’t spending much money at either place, but both made an incredibly strong impression by making a small and inexpensive but valuable (to the us, the customer) extra effort. It made me want to give them even more of my business and promote them to everyone I see for the rest of the picking season.
Pretty powerful stuff. I sure hope our company is doing one-tenth as well in serving our customers.
Oh, and if you’re anywhere near Whitewater Kansas, be sure to stop at Entz orchard off of Hwy 196 and Webb road, and then head down to Whitewater Pizza for dinner….
Flint Hills Design Launches fhdMail
Today we’re proud to introduce fhdMail, a new email marketing campaign manager from Flint Hills Design.
We’ve been doing HTML email campaigns for a while now, and they’ve been great. But, being the perfectionists that we are, we started wondering if there was a better way. And so we created fhdMail.
We invite you to read about why fhdMail is better than your standard email campaign delivery service by visiting the website. But we’ll give you one concrete reason why fhdMail is better right now: the cute, furry little prairie dog character that we’ve affectionately named Flint. I mean, who wouldn’t enjoy being greeted and guided by this fun little guy in the midst of serious marketing work?
To learn more about how Flint and fhdMail can help your organization do effective email marketing, give us a shout. We know you’ll enjoy it.
History and Vitality
A recent trip to Phoenix, Arizona provided me with a very interesting contrast to life in North Newton, Kansas.
Phoenix felt like a place with way too much money that grew far too fast. Companies sprung up all over the place but were firecrackers then fizzled. Acres upon acres of car lots seemingly overflowing with the latest and most expensive models sitting full but lifeless, abandoned. Endless office buildings with for sale/lease/rent signs posted on all sides, competing for space with the ancient saguaro cacti relegated to narrow patches of immaculate landscaping. It made me wonder why we try to force so many things that seem unnatural and out of place with the environment.
For the marketing purposes of my trip, it made me realize the importance of highlighting a good company’s history and vitality. Those companies which are doing good work and thriving, even in this down economy, would benefit from not hiding this fact. Likewise, companies with long histories and scores of satisfied customers might benefit from making their history known. They should be proud, and their customers should be proud, that the products or services they sell were valued in the past and still are today, despite all the economic ups and downs…
The Great 2009 Flint Hills Design Koozie Giveaway
Thanks to all of you who came to our gathering after Bethel College’s Fall Fest football game. We appreciated having each and every one of our guests, and enjoyed the chance to hear more about what you are doing and share some of our work with you. We are also glad for all of the feedback and brainstorming that took place–some of you provided excellent ideas that will definitely influence our work in the future.
What Are You Talking About?
For those of you who have no idea what we’re talking about, we decided to have a little party. We invited around 150 of our close friends to come check out our new building and see what we were working on. We sent out the invites through nicely designed HTML emails and by creating a Facebook event:
HTML Email Invite
Facebook Event Invite
Tracking and Reports
We also decided to track the activity generated by the process, and then turn that into a very brief report that we could give to interested attendees, to show one aspect of the work we do.
Tracking Report
We had such a great time that we’re planning on making this an annual event, so if you weren’t able to make it hopefully you can join us next year!
Joel Krehbiel Joins Flint Hills Design
We’re proud to welcome Joel Krehbiel to Flint Hills Design!
After graduating from Bethel College (KS) with degrees in mathematical sciences and physics, Joel went on to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to earn a Masters of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering degree. He then spent a year in Monteiro Brazil, working with the Mennonite Central Committee’s Serving and Learning Together (SALT) program.
Joel brings an amazing analytical mind to the Flint Hills Design team, and will be in charge of taking our web analytics work to the next level. He will also be working to help us to design more effective marketing campaign strategies, structured for easy measurement and analysis.
