Service Untitled

My mom’s birthday was a couple of weeks ago and for her birthday, she asked that I post a link mentioning an organization she works with on my blog. The link she asked me to post was this one.

If you follow that link and vote for the organization I’ve referenced below, the organization will have a better shot at winning a grant that could range from $1,000 to $25,000. It takes about a minute to vote and the cause is certainly worthy.

The charity is called Another Chance 4 Horses and they are based in Bernville, PA. Every year, Another Chance 4 Horses save hundreds of horses from abuse, neglect, and slaughter. AC4H is an all-volunteer organization and there are always more horses to save than there is available money, so this grant could help them (and most importantly, the horses) out.

Voting is simple. All you have to do is:

1. Go to this page.
2. Put in “Another Chance 4 Horses” as the shelter name.
3. Select “PA” from the state dropdown list.
4. Click search and then when the next page loads, click “Vote”.
5. Enter in the CAPTCHA (it is a pretty interesting type, actually) and then click “Confirm Vote”.

It only takes about a minute to vote and you’ll do your good deed for the day. You can vote once per day, so you can come back and do the same thing tomorrow if you have a spare moment.

We’ll return to our normally scheduled customer service posts tomorrow.

Instead of a post today, we have a completely redesigned Service Untitled. It is still a work in progress, but feel free to check it out at http://www.serviceuntitled.com.

As you might have noticed, there was no post today. The reason: I was enjoying my Memorial Day off. Posts will be back tomorrow as usual.

Please take a moment to think about and remember the brave men and women who have lost their lives while serving for our country. The holiday was originally created to commemorate those who lost their lives for the Union in the Civil War, but now includes those who have lost their lives in any war or military action.

Happy Memorial Day.

I read about a relatively new site the other day called Alltop. It was started by venture capitalist and author Guy Kawasaki and seemed to be an interesting site. I sent them an email suggesting they add Service Untitled to the site’s marketing category and sure enough, they agreed. Service Untitled is now officially part of Alltop’s Marketing category.
On a somewhat unrelated note, my apologies for a lack of a post yesterday. I had actually written a post earlier in the afternoon when I didn’t have Internet access (the government customer service one), but forgot to publish it when I got back to a place with Internet access.

Technorati Tags: Alltop

Though you shouldn’t have noticed any problems or issues, we’ve gone ahead and upgraded Service Untitled to the latest and greatest version of WordPress (an upgrade was overdue). Most of the improvements are on the backend, but we now have a “related posts” feature that you can view above the comment fields (by clicking on the post title or where it says comment).

As always, if you experience any issues, please let us know.

It was on my calendar, but I completely forgot to write about it until now: Service Untitled turned two years old today (it’s a blogiversary). The post I wrote last year was a bit more eloquent, but I’m going to say essentially the same thing this year.

For the last two years, I have blogged about customer service and the customer service experience every single Monday thru Friday (except holidays and occasional days when I’m sick).

I have to say I really like doing it and what I like even more is getting the chance to talk to and meet such interesting people. Not just the people I interview, but the other bloggers, customer service professionals, employees, journalists, and plethora of people I talk to and/or exchange emails with every week. It helps humanize some of the subscriber numbers and makes the writing process a lot more interesting.

The people you meet through blogging (especially customer service blogs) are fascinating and the experience of meeting, talking to, and even working with these people is probably the main reason I keep writing every day.

You can’t take people for granted, though. I am eternally grateful to the amazing people I have met and have had the pleasure of working with through my blog and my consulting work. This includes the wonderful group of customer service bloggers that help me (and I try to help them), my consulting clients, the individuals that allow me to interview them, the people who write guest writer posts every so often on Service Untitled, my advertisers, and everyone else.

Most importantly, this includes my readers. Without the readers, writing this blog would be far too academic and self-reflective (I have never kept a diary consistently). I am thankful to have such a great group of readers – a group that not only reads my posts, but takes the time to email suggestions, post comments, refer my blog to their friends and colleagues, and talk about my blog.

I’ve written another 290 or so posts over the last year. My readership has increased significantly and I continue to get a lot of positive feedback about my blog. It is still exciting to see a post of mine featured on another blog or to see my blog linked to in some random blog’s blogroll. It shows that people reading and enjoying my blog, which is always good to hear.

If my posts are helping companies, individuals, and organizations to improve their customer service and their customer service experience, they’re doing their job and I’m doing my job. I’m looking forward to continuing to my job — as a blogger, as a writer, and as a consultant — for many years to come.

Thanks for the great two years. With your continued support, I am sure there will be many more.

Technorati Tags: Birthday, Blogging, Blogiversary

My apologies about not posting on Friday. I was (and still am to some extent) sick. Being sick made me pretty much useless for the day – I barely checked my email, much less made progress on anything. I expect to be completely back to normal by Monday and posting will return as usual then. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

I read The Name Inspector and find it to be rather interesting. Naming anything (a company, a product, a person) is a subtle art that requires a great amount of skill and creativity. Which names stick, which names don’t? It’s hard to tell and generally, only time can tell which names, phrases, or slogans will “stick.” There are reasons reason that some names or phrases (Google it) have become ubiquitous while others haven’t (MSN it) and The Name Inspector works to explain those reasons.

Here is the story, the etymology if you want to call it, behind the name Service Untitled:

I am frequently asked what the name Service Untitled means and how it came about. The blog is named such because I couldn’t think of a better name. Due to my disappointing lack of creativity, I named the blog Service Untitled out of pure spite (to whom, I don’t know).

When I explain the etymology of “Service Untitled,” people often become disappointed, hoping the name represents (stands for! defends!) the anonymous service provider, the plight of the consumer, or the untitled service department in an almost undeniably Orwellian organization that is found somewhere on the Fortune 500 list. While I love dystopian literature and the idea of a greater meaning behind the blog’s name certainly makes the blog (and as an extension of that, what I do for a living) seem more glamorous, it simply isn’t the case.

Hopefully that clears things up (and won’t cost me any readers!). I promise great service, the anonymous service provider, the plight of the consumer, the untitled service department, and the Orwellian organization are just as important to me now as they ever were.

Technorati Tags: Names, Service Untitled