Inspired to by Mike D’s Vonage story, Austin writes in a hot tip for all of looking to pole vault low-level CSR and reach the Valhalla of customer service.
how-to
HOW TO: Buy A Car Without Putting A Shotgun In Your Mouth
By 5.3.06
Browsing Metafilter, we found this excellent post detailing the smart way to make a purchase from those plaid-skinned abominations who lurk in the primal shadows of every consumerist’s nightmares, grinning their straight razor smiles and beckoning us to sign contracts in bilesome blood: the car salesman.
HOW TO: Get Through Having Your Identity Stolen
By 5.3.06
After our last post on identity theft, regular Consumerist commenter trixare4kids sent us a great, well-crafted email detailing her own experience having her identity stolen. Better yet, she wrote us a personalized How To for getting through an identity theft crisis.
How Not To Use A Trampoline
By 5.2.06
Years ago, when I was a daredevil lad, I once used a pair of pogo stilts to jump off of the roof of my house and onto my backyard trampoline. It seemed like a great idea at the time. For a brief moment, I was Icarus, soaring godlike into the stratosphere. The next thing I know, the nose cone of an oncoming Logan-bound Airbus had exploded into my crotch. As I plummeted a truly terrifying distance back down to the earth, I realized that my options were not really very good: either I fell, allowing the impact with the black asphalt below to trigger the nasal expulsion of my own gelatinated pelvis, or I braced with the pogo sticks and risked jumping even higher. Possibly directly into the sun.
How To Apologize, for Politicans and Companies Alike
By 3.27.06
From Brownlee’s neck of the woods — Dublin, Ireland’s industrial metropolis — we saw this article on issuing a good apology. Although primarily aimed at apologies issued by politicians, it should be taken as gospel by the hand waving, “We Understand Your Concern” PR gorgons we so actively loathe. We won’t sully Tom Savage’s points with any more forward commentary. Check it out:
How-To Run A Viral Marketing Campaign
By 3.2.06
We’re not as hip as our editor, Ben Whatsisface [ed: Popken!]. How could we be? We live in Dublin, for Chrissakes. We don’t have a crewcut, we don’t have glasses. By extension, we probably don’t have his panache with the ladies, nor his disestablishmentarianist fervor.
