Over the weekend, my wife’s car was broken into while parked in a hotel parking lot outside of Baltimore, Maryland – the thief made off with a GPS unit. Consequently, yesterday morning we needed to find someone to repair the window that was broken. We called two national autoglass chains, Safelite and Glass Doctor, for quotes and appointment times.

First up, Safelite. The woman on the phone was very sympathetic and quickly gave her a quote and a number of potential appointment times. When my wife mentioned that she was going to get a few other quotes, the woman was very understanding, wished her luck and told her that she could call her should she have any trouble or other questions.

My wife then called Glass Doctor where the woman she spoke with continually confused which window needed repairing, quoted her three different prices, and sounded as if she had been out late the night before. Not a good experience.

In the end, despite being $100 more expensive, quality customer service won out, we chose Safelite.

Being the social media geek that I am, I immediately tweeted that customer service is king – using the real world experience as an example. Within 10 minutes, I received replies from both @Safelite and @Glassdoctor1. @Safelite thanked me for the kind words while @Glassdoctor1 apologized and traded a few messages with me to get to the bottom of the issue, promising to follow up with the local sales office to address the problem. Both very good experiences for me and definitely impacted how I perceived their brands.

Finally, wouldn’t you know that my day ended with me receiving an email from the casting company for Hasbro’s Cranium, inquiring if I would like to submit a video that could potentially be used in a Cranium commercial. So, how did they know my friends and play Cranium? (OK, played Cranium – all my Cranium activity was pre-baby). Well, they found photos I had posted on Flickr over two years ago and sent me an email through Flickr with the invite. Again, I was very surprised, but excited to see a brand I already like reinforce that positive image by engaging me where I spend time on a daily basis.

I mention these three examples because you constantly read how more prominent brands like Coke or Comcast use Twitter and Facebook to connect with their customers. But, you would never expect an autoglass company or a cult game to use social media the same way. However, they do what I talk with our clients about all the time – they use social media to listen and affect the customer experience. They use social media to engage their customers in a conversation and shape their brand perception. These three brands prove that regardless of size or industry every brand should be listening to what people are saying about them, because people ARE talking. And when your customers DO talk, you should be there to talk back.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, my buddy and I have to demonstrate two people playing frisbee without talking. Oh, and if you happen to stumble across a three year old GPS unit with outdated maps, sigh, send it my way.

If you want to read today’s thoughts on social media, you can read it here.

But honestly, there’s been a lot going on in the Clark household as of late. We’re in our third trimester, we’ve been working on the baby’s room, spaying the dog, shopping for a bedroom set, cutting needless trees down, etc. When I have had time to jump on the computer, it’s mostly been spent doing work or balancing the family checkbook. It’s been a real test of establishing priorities and also an opportunity to learn about what’s truly important in our every day lives – a subject that occupied about 30 minutes of our dinner conversation this evening.

It’s really no different than how the economy has forced families and companies alike to do the same evaluation as they review their budgets. Most companies have been forced to make some difficult decisions, Grafik and WeatherBug included. I suppose the main difference between the two is that the economy is an external factor outside of our control, while our impending arrival is a beautiful and blessed choice. Either way you slice it, times are tight and smart decisions need to be made which has led to less time to spend blogging about the going-ons of the family.

That said, I’ll try to do a better job keeping this up to date, particularly over the next few months as we look to welcome our new family member and we experience the joys, the challenges, and all the fun things we’ve heard come with being parents.

I never knew how much “fun” it was going to be getting a house ready to move into… Now I know.

I have to admit that it’s kind of creepy being in an empty house all by yourself with every sound you make echoing off the walls. It doesn’t help that our house is adjoined to some creepy person that we have yet to see. We just missed this person last night when we pulled up, but until we actually see him/her, they will remain a mystery.

Good times.

The fun part of being a homeowner now is that we’ll learn so much about our new house. Some things may take us a few years to learn, and some you learn the first time you decide to move the mirror in your bathroom.

I guess the previous owner did not like her medicine cabinet… so it’s just one more thing to add to the now long list of home improvement projects.

Kevin takes a break from riding his lightcycle to check up on the Tron market.

Great, so we won a big game… let’s celebrate by ripping down lampposts,  uprooting shrubbery, and closing down a main street.  We are… Penn State.  We are… a storied football program.  We have… been there before.  Why on earth do we need to act like we’re some Division I AA school that just knocked off Michigan (last year, not this year of course)?  I’m not sure if it’s the fact that the town is currently populated by a large percentage of students who don’t know the history, have not experienced the winning, or what…. though one could argue that the past three seasons have not been too shabby.

Anyway, it’s embarrassing as a Penn State Alum and even more embarrassing as a football fan who argues that his team is one of the best teams in the country week in and week out.  Fans acting like naive, never been there before idiots, after a big win just undercut this claim. 

Instead of property destruction, let’s all start saving our money now and party on the streets of Miami in January.

Check out the Flickr pictures here.

If you have a Facebook account, you should be able to access the various albums that Lauren posted to see the great shots from the photographer.

[I had supposedly posted an entry from my iPhone as I was watching the Penn State game that talked about the annual Arts on the Avenue held in Del Ray each year, as well as the football game, but apparently it did not post. To that end, the festival was great, we bought some art that will be used very near in the future to decorate a room, and Penn State beat Purdue to go to 6-0. All in all, it was a good day, and a great weekend. I apologize though for the blank entry until now.]

Thought for sure it would wear her out, but it took a good 3 hours for her to finally settle down and curl up. Maybe next time we should try two miles…

As suspected, the Skins-Cards game was back and forth and required a defensive stance in the final minutes to ensure victory after a botched 52 yard field goal. The victory puts the Skins at 2-1, and squarely in the hunt in the NFC East. Next up, Dallas… IN the Big D, which should serve as a pretty good test to see how for real the Skins really are. As everyone has seen these first three weeks, Dallas is good, very good. But, after losing to the Giants in the first week (which I attribute to the team still not being familiar with the offense and a rookie head coach), beating a ‘decent’ Saints team, and an overrated Cardinals team, we do not have a real measure of how good this Redskins team is.

Next week, we will know.

As far as my fantasy football teams go this season, the teams have taken two completely divergent paths. In the big money league, I will sit atop the standings at the end of this week at 3-0. In my 2nd league, I will sit in the basement at 0-3. Not sure how I ended up with such good/bad teams, but as long as I can finish in the money in one of them, I’ll be happy. Stay tuned.

Full game day pics can be seen here.