The American Red Cross is this month’s charity. The reason I chose the Red Cross this month is due the large scale of devastation of some recent natural disasters that happened around the world including the cyclone in Myanmar, the earthquake in the Sichuan Province of China, and the string of tornadoes that have torn through parts of the US. To cover such a broad scope of natural disasters the American Red Cross is the perfect choice this month.

About the American Red Cross

“Since its founding in 1881 by visionary leader Clara Barton, the American Red Cross has been the nation’s premier emergency response organization. As part of a worldwide movement that offers neutral humanitarian care to the victims of war, the American Red Cross distinguishes itself by also aiding victims of devastating natural disasters. Over the years, the organization has expanded its services, always with the aim of preventing and relieving suffering.

Today, in addition to domestic disaster relief, the American Red Cross offers compassionate services in five other areas: community services that help the needy; support and comfort for military members and their families; the collection, processing and distribution of lifesaving blood and blood products; educational programs that promote health and safety; and international relief and development programs.” – RedCross.org/aboutus/

The Red Cross is there to help people in times of emergencies locally and around the world. The Red Cross isn’t run by the government so it works on donations and time from everyone. You can find out how you can help at RedCross.org by donating, giving blood or volunteering.

China Earthquake – May 12, 2008

In the Sichuan Province of China there was a massive earthquake that registered at 7.9 on the Richter Scale followed by a chain of after shocks. The numbers are staggering with the death toll heading toward 80,000, many still missing, and some 15 million people displaced from their homes.

Myanmar Cyclone – May 2, 2008

In Myanmar, Cyclone Nargis tore through the southern parts of Myanmar creating a path of destruction brining heavy rain, high winds, and floods destroying homes and killing thousands. I have a haunting image in my mind after watching the news of dead bodies in the fields and floating the down the river. It was like the scene in War of Worlds with Dakota Fanning when she’s near the river and all of the sudden dead bodies are flowing the down the river.

Dead are thrown into rivers as the living wait for aid – CNN.com (contains graphical content)

Tornadoes in the US

There has been a string of severe weather in the US, including tornadoes that have taken lives and affected many others. Mother’s Day weekend will be a sad memory for those who lost loved ones in those storms in Oklahoma, Missouri and Georgia. There was even one incident that the authorities stated that a mother lost her life as she covered her son up to protect him. The son survived with facial injuries. There were additional severe storms that affected other lives this month as tornado season comes to end, but hurricane season is right around the corner.

Storms Kill 22 in Midwest, Southeast – CNN.com

I will be making a donation to the American Red Cross in hopes to help out even if it’s just a little bit for the victims of these catastrophic events. Learn more on how you can help at RedCross.org or Donate Now.

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There are two supermarkets that approximately the same distance from where I live, but I frequent one over the other significantly when I buy my groceries. My loyalty lies with Hannaford over Price Chopper for various reasons including the the level of cleanliness(at least for these 2 particular locations), familiarity with the store, and that I’m near Hannaford more often. I pretty much know Hannaford like the back of my hand, but the last two times I’ve been grocery shopping it’s been at Price Chopper, they’ve drawn me in and I will continue to for the time being.

How has Price Chopper lured me in to do shopping with them instead of my good old Hannaford? It’s simple, they are competitors that offer the same products and it would take just a little benefit on my behalf to make the switch. In such a competitive market an $8.00 coupon off a purchase over $50.00 was enough to get me shopping at Price Chopper. There were also additional coupons that I was able to use in conjunction with the $8 coupon that sweetened the offer. When the competitors are so closely matched and the opportunity cost going from one to another is very small, an $8.00 coupon was more than enough.

In my most recent grocery shopping trip I saved $13.00 on a $74 purchase for a final total of $61.00 with a savings of about 17%. That’s a good chunk of change to save when prices on products in a grocery store won’t differ too much.

Now that they got me doing my grocery shopping at Price Chopper, how do they get me as a regular returning customer? If it wasn’t a super amazing quality experience alone to persuade me to return, why not give me the same coupons I used in the purchase with the same great savings. That’s what they did, I got the same coupons I used that day back so more savings for me. Savings like that on groceries can’t be denied with the low opportunity cost from one supermarket to another. As long as I’m saving something over 15% it’s worth it. If I continue to receive these coupons it’s worth it and I’ll be going to Price Chopper. Unless there is there is a major change in cleanliness, new products that I must have that Hannaford doesn’t carry, and I’m around the Price Chopper area more I will probably be returning to Hannaford when there are no more coupons.

Ultimately they got me there shopping with the possibility of converting me to a regular customer which is the main objective, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have gone there for past two grocery shopping trips. Price Chopper has taken me as a customer away from Hannaford for at least two grocery shopping trips and giving me the same coupons that got me shopping there in the first place to use again I will probably be back at least one more time. Price Chopper was able to get me as a temporary grocery shopper, but I will probably be back to Hannaford when these coupons end because I personally like Hannaford more.

Similar to e-commerce you could do the same thing by offering a great deal that you can’t resist with the goal in mind to getting new customers by taking them away from your competitor. Get the customer shopping with you first, then if you give them a quality experience you may have hooked yourself a new customer. This is a competition and if you think you’re better than your competitor lure them in and convert them to be your customer and take market share. Price Chopper took me away from Hannaford but they weren’t able to convert me to a regular shopper because I think Hannaford is better.

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Companies are listening to what you have to say about them in the world wide web. In my previous post, “I Failed the Xdrive Security Check“, I posted about my experience struggling to get pass the security check when I was registering for Xdrive. Xdrive was listening and posted a comment on that blog post.

Xdrive was nice enough to contact me about my problem and this is what they had to say:

“Hi Michael –

I wanted to thank you for trying out the Xdrive product, and for your persistence in working through a rather difficult CAPTCHA to complete your registration. All of us on the Xdrive team have felt that our security challenge can be far too difficult to recognize at times, and we’re actively working on a new registration flow that *does* allow the user to request a new set of images when they run into this particular problem. The new system should be in place in early/mid June.

Now that you’ve made it through the registration, I hope that you and your colleagues find that the Xdrive family of products meet all of your online storage needs.

Cheers,
The Xdrive Product Team”

To the Xdrive Product Team I appreciate the time and effort put into contacting me by commenting on my blog. It’s good to know that companies are listening to what people have to say and in this situation Xdrive does recognize that there is a problem.

This is my first time having an experience like this after writing about a problem that I experienced with a companies service, but Adam has had two other occasions when this has happened to him with Feed Burner and Paypal.

Knowing what people are saying over the internet about their company can be very valuable information to better your business and make your customers happy. I know one simple way to see what people are saying about your company on the internet and it’s through Google Alerts. Enter a search term and fill in some other criteria and enter an email address then you’ll receive email notifications of Google’s latest web results for what you entered.

Simply signing up for some alerts, you can be in the loop on what people are saying about your company on the net. Listen to the net and you might detect a problem early or jump on a new opportunity.

Xdrive thank you for listening.

Comments (0)

I have a funny and frustrating story to tell you about with my experience with Xdrive. Xdrive offers free online storage and our company is making the move to be completely web based, so we all signed up for 5 free gigs of storage. I would have to say I’ve had good amount of internet experience signing up and registering for different sites and I’m pretty sure this is the first time that I failed.

Everything was going smoothly until the security check, which I couldn’t pass. I tried numerous times and just couldn’t get the characters correct. Then I tried to listen to the characters and all I got was beep. Frustration starts to set in, so I started the registration process all over. What is the deal AOL, which owns Xdrive, with not offering a different character image. There was one character in the security check that I just couldn’t figure out. I took a screen shot of the security check, check out for yourself.

What could it be?

• COHSJGXR
• COHS6GXR
• COHSIGXR
• COHbGXR
• COItJGXR
• Maybe the O is a Zero

I tried all sorts of combinations of characters and none were successful. What the frick is that character? I don’t know what that character is. Anyways that little character caused me a lot of mental anguish. I failed the security check and I had to do the registration process all over again. I did not have a pleasant experience with that security check, especially because they didn’t give me a new character image that would be more readable so I could finish my registration.

AOL please offer new character images, so users can start using your services quicker just in case they can’t read some of your wack security check images.

Update 7/27/2008

Many other’s continue to be frustrated with the Xdrive experience here is another image of a security check gone wrong submitted by a someone who commented on this post.

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