Believe…

Originally Posted By Bright Eyes, Reposted Here for Your Pleasure

The Difference Between Marketing PR Advertising and Branding

Recently I had an experience with Audi of Bernardsville in NJ, which frankly was sad.  Plain and simple, this dealership does not honor its commitments and I’m not the only customer who thinks this.  Here are a few others that also think Audi of Bernardsville doesn’t honor their commitments: http://www.dealerrater.com/dealer/Audi-of-Bernardsville-Mendham-review-997/ This review shows an average rating of 1.5 out of 5.  Additionally, in the minimal experiences I’ve had with this dealership I have now made up my mind to never visit this dealership again.  They promised a few things, and never delivered on any.  Thus, the title of this post “Honoring Commitments”.

My story begins last year, when my wife purchased her car in December 2008.   In making the sale, the saleswoman at that time stated we’d be able to get a loaner car for any Audi we serviced there in the future.  Even if the car was not purchased there.  Unfortunately, when I tried to take Bernardsville Audi up on this offer, they explained that they changed their policy and no longer provide loaner cars to anyone who had not purchased their car from there.  I thought wow, it’s fine that you changed your policy, but the salesperson told me that we would always be able to service any of our Audis there and obtain a loaner whether or not it was purchased there.  After some discussion back and forth, I gave up.  I could see that it was a waste of my time to argue this point.

This wouldn’t matter much if I bought a Yugo or a much less expensive car that doesn’t require such a high level of maintenance, but in this case we are talking about an Audi.  People purchase premium brands in order to receive a premium product.  That goes for everything related to that product, from the actual product to the servicing of the product.  When you have a premium product it is not okay to not honor your commitments.  I do not hold this against Audi, but I definitely do hold this against Audi of Bernardsville.   Once I did actually have my car serviced there, there were numerous other flaws in their process, which were downright pathetic.  However, I’m going to spare you those details as it would be two more pages of writing and I don’t want your blood to boil over the other atrocities.  Yes, these words are harsh, but trust me when I tell you the situation was harsh and that along the way the dealership had a dismissive attitude.

By posting this I just want to let Audi of Bernardsville know that it is 2009 and that in the age of the Internet – information travels quickly!  They may have just seen me as one inconsequential customer, and a customer that they already made money off of when my wife purchased her car – but I’m a customer with a voice, and I’m willing to use it.

I will now go back to getting my car serviced at Princeton Audi, a dealership which actually maintains Audi’s brand “promise”.  Ray at Princeton Audi knows good service.

I’ve owned several Hondas in my life, and they have by far been the best car experiences I’ve had. Low cost of ownership, fun, reliable, and all around well designed cars. A few years back I saw this amazing commercial that Honda did, and I just wanted to take a second to share it with any who haven’t seen it. It was a very creative and nice piece of advertising.

This video is for my fellow car enthusiasts. Some of you may have seen this at some point in time or another. I’d like to give special thanks to my friend Mike Topp for being the first person to introduce me to this video.

I work in IT supporting the Marketing side of the business.  On a daily basis I support various interactive campaigns, interpret web analytics, and help marketers understand disparate sources of data.  At the end of the day all of this is about listening to our customers and taking action to serve them better, or better yet being pro-active and serving their needs before they even realized they needed something.  It’s kind of like when your server at the restaurant brings you a new glass of water before you’ve completely finished the one you had.  It puts a smile on your face knowing that someone was paying attention to you and that they valued you.

Well, this is by no means a political column.  However, I find it pretty sad that John Corzine didn’t listen to his “customers”.  If you look at the citizens of NJ as customers and John Corzine as the server, he was definitely a server that ignored his customers.  The end result is he got fired.  In a state where citizens  typically lean democratic John Corzine was beaten by Republican Chris Christie.

Chris, I hope you listen to your customers.

As a new father my experiences change on a daily basis.  Almost daily my son makes me laugh with some of the things that he does or things that he learns to do.  The below video was taken by my wife while I was at work.  In it he has just loaded up his diaper, and is confused about what’s going on in there.  Haven discovering his diaper is awesome, but it’s my wife’s sweet dialog with him and their interaction that makes me laugh.

Enjoy!

In this link you’ll get to see some fun and more recent pictures of Haven.  Haven is 9 months now and is always smiling, laughing, playing chase, trying to stand up, and he loves to eat.  Here he is: http://www.nigelstorey.com/havenfirstnine

Additionally – I take this day to remember my grandmother who passed a couple of years ago.  Today would have been her birthday.  Thank you gran for everything you did.  You did an amazing job of taking care of me and my sister and we appreciate it.  I love you and am sending hugs to heaven.  From above I hope you can see Haven and enjoy the pictures. 

I just finished midterms and it’s quite a relief.  Test stress is annoying and draining.  I did have a very interesting moment today during my Global Economy exam.  It was a 9 question exam and I skipped my way around the exam and had made my way through about 4 questions.  I had 5 questions left, and they were all pretty difficult.  The first thought that came into my head was !#@$ this is impossible, but within a millisecond another thought and voice popped into my head (my favorite voice-the optimistic fighter).  I started talking to myself (in my head) and I began to have a full dialog with myself.  I told myself that the next 5 questions were no big deal and that I was really smart so I would make my way through them.  Whether or not I believe I’m smart didn’t really matter.  What mattered was the peace I felt in beginning to attack those next five questions.  It was unbelievable and comedic at the same time, it was as if I was talking myself off the ledge, but amazingly – all of this really seemed to work.

Later on, I was talking to Maria about this situation at dinner.  She mentioned to me that what I was doing was a form of self-hypnosis and that doctors actually use this as a common practice when they are faced with a very difficult situation.  Sometimes when doctors are confronted with insurmountable odds they have no choice but to talk themselves through because in their circumstance a human life may be at stake.  Thus, the stakes are high.

The lesson is when confronted by a challenge you are the best person to help yourself through something, just use that little voice it’s pretty powerful – BELIEVE.  Another powerful lesson is draw bigfoot when things get confusing, my friends at school will know what I’m talking about here.  Bigfoot is a metaphor for “Believe”.

-Ni

This summary illustrates a typical day for me right now:

7:30AM – Wake Up Shower

8:00AM – On the Road

8:30AM – At Work Cleanse E-mail

9:30AM – Project Management Call for a Web-App Launch

10:30AM - Noon – Redirect Strategy for SEO

Noon – 1 - Lunch (My 2nd favorite part of the day)

1:00PM – Conference Call on Corporate Website Launch

2:00PM – Creating a Draft Access Control List Procedure

3:00PM – Writing My Goals & Objectives for the year

4:00PM – Installing Productivity Applications for Business Partners

5:00PM – Quick Getaway

6:00PM – Dinner with my parents, wife, and Haven

7:30PM – Crash – one hour nap

8:30PM – Head to the Library

8:45PM – Library For Studying Statistics

10:45PM – Head back home

11:00PM – Study some more to get through some hang ups

Midnight – Blog