Swaggin'

Are you SwagBuck-ing? If so, make sure you tune in on Monday, February 28, 2011! They're having a huge birthday (3 years) celebration and there are bound to be tons of Swag Codes flying that'll get you closer to your next reward.

Swag me some Toy Story 3!

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If you're a Disney/Pixar and/or Toy Story fan, Toy Story 3 is available for pre-order off of Amazon now. I just pre-ordered mine, along with another item on my Christmas list. The total out of my pocket? Oh, $0.00. Thank you, Swag Bucks!

Swag Bucks goes back to school

It has been a super crazy weekend for me so I haven't been able to update this blog as timely as I would've liked to. In fact, I totally forgot about the Kroger sweepstakes resetting until today so I forgot to play yesterday! Ugh! Anyway, when I got a chance to log onto Swag Bucks last night and I won some SBs doing a search, I noticed something was different: the bucks looked different! Here's what I got treated to:

It looks different! I had no idea what was going on, but I was glad that I scored some SBs. I thought they were just changing the graphics to a new model just because but when I logged on this morning, I saw a post on their blog explaining that they are running a back to school promo. They've rolled out five new collectible Swag Buck bills in 6, 9, 14, 19 and 23. If you collect all five by the end of this week, you will be awarded 50 extra Swag Bucks! So get searching!

So far, as of this blog entry, I've collected 3 out of 5 bills: the 6, 9, and 14 bill. Hopefully I can get the last 2 and score a bonus 50 at the end of the week. :)

New Swag Bucks video ads

If you're on SwagBucks, have you been checking those video ads? (They're in the middle of the front page, on a yellow strip under "Special Offers.") They seem somewhat random and regional so just because someone you know sees a vid doesn't mean you will, but it never hurts to check. I haven't seen any for a few days, then today, BAM! Several new ones sprung up for me. Here's what I'm seeing:

IKEA - 4 SB (new)
V8 - 4 SB (new)
bing - 2 SB (common)
Scion - 2 SB (common)
Reebok - 4 SB (new)

That's an easy way to earn 16 SB!

Are you seeing any new video ads?

TSG has a sense of humor

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Only because it's amusing what I get Swag Bucks for. I often get a good laugh at the stuff I search for that nets me Swag Bucks. It cracks me up. It's rewarding and comical. Who knew?

Heads up, Swag Buckers

Have you noticed there's been a shortage of Swag Bucks earning video ads to watch lately? I noticed something today. I noticed 3 vid ads that did NOT have the little blue arrow indicating that it's a vid ad. I only noticed it because the point value was much smaller than the typical "sign up and buy" offer...it was only for 1 SB. You click on it and rather than it opening up a small pop up with the vid, it opens up a new browser or tab with the vid in it. Once you watch it in its entirety you should instantly get the SB.

Oh yeah, and I just received another Amazon gift card from them today. I'm just 25 SB away from another one! I hope to get it by the end of this weekend. Oh, and did you hear? Or should I say, read? They've improved their Amazon gift card redemption process. Now you can get it faster instead of waiting until the 1st and 17th of each month to get your GC. I like it! It's a lot less pressure on me to get those SBs in time. :p

Customer Service: getting it right the 1st time

One of my gigs when I was in college was customer service, usually in a call center. While the pay sucked, it was also an eye opener for me, and helped me understand what it's like to be a consumer, and someone helping the consumer. One of the things I had pounded into my head was the mantra of "get it right the first time." Basically, if you serve a customer right and satisfactorily in the first place, you earn their respect, trust, and repeat business. Along those lines, I've come to expect the same mantra from those who serve me. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, right? I feel that if I'm paying for a service, I expect good service, otherwise I'd just do it myself or go elsewhere. Unfortunately, it's all too often that bad service is the norm. It's a mixture of a number of reasons from lack of communication, lack of training, not enough pay for the employees, the list goes on. My one biggest pet peeve in customer service is outsourcing. It's not that I don't want people in other countries who make pennies to our dollar to be employed. I do, but what bothers me the absolute most is the language barrier and lack of communication. The fact is, communication is integral in customer service. If you hire employees who cannot understand or communicate with your customer base, then you're going to run into problems, and lose business. I think hands down my absolute WORST experience with outsourcing was the time I lost my credit card and had to call Citibank to cancel it. At the time I had two credit card accounts with Citibank and the customer service rep with a thick Indian accent who couldn't properly understand the reason for my inquiry canceled the wrong account. This poses to be a HUGE problem especially since you are dealing with people's sensitive information such as credit, social security number, and ultimately identity. Needless to say, I was absolutely LIVID when I found out they canceled the wrong account. It created a heap of headaches for me as account cancellations affect credit, and I had to essentially reapply to have my account reopened. I demanded the CSR to transfer me to an American CSR who could understand me. That was years ago and to this day, I still feel bad about the incident because I felt like I insulted that CSR for not speaking English well. Unfortunately, it had to be done. I needed to be able to properly and clearly communicate with the person helping me with a sensitive situation and problem. The fiasco could've been avoided had Citibank not outsourced, and kept their customer service local to the market they intend to serve. But I digress...

No wait...there was the time my HP laptop died during a warranty period. I sent it back for repairs per their CSR's instructions. They did not fix it and sent it back to me. I sent it back to them and they sent it back with my hard drive completely wiped clean and with screws loose rattling inside the laptop.  When I called to complain, they told me I should've backed up my hard drive before sending it in for service.  Right, because I could've done that with a dead laptop that wouldn't even boot up. Uh huh.  Yeah that was a nightmare I won't soon forget.  I'm not sure which was worse...having all my data wiped or the wrong credit card canceled.

My experience with HP was also my first experience with EECBs.  (If you are not familiar with EECBs otherwise known as Executive Email Carpet Bomb, then please, click on the link and read more. It's important and very useful to familiarize yourself with EECBs.)  I happened upon an EECB accidentally. I'd ranted about my experience on a message board I frequented back then when a member, who happened to be a HP employee read my rant.  She sent me a private message asking me for permission to forward my complaint to Executive Case Management (which I had no idea what the heck it was at the time, but it sure does sound fancy, doesn't it?) who would take care of me.  I figured there was nothing to lose, so I went ahead with it.  Within a couple of days I got a call back from an executive CSR who had more power than the ones lower on the totem pole, listened to me, fought with me on the phone for over an hour, making me late to a dinner party, then offered me an extended warranty worth $230 for free.  It didn't bring my lost data back, but it was better than nothing should the laptop croak again....which it didn't.  It just nearly got recalled for an exploding battery...

Anyway...

The reason why I'm reflecting upon customer service again is because I had a customer service experience tonight that made me wonder, are companies and businesses really able to provide "good customer service on the first try?" Do they really care to, or does it just sound good to people?

A few weeks ago, I used my Swag Bucks Amazon gift cards to treat myself to a cake decorating set. I was so excited about it and planned on using it to decorate the cupcakes I had planned for my kids' birthdays coming up. When I finally got it, I played with it and noticed one of the metal pieces had paint sloughing off. That is not normal or safe for a product that's meant to be used with food. I contemplated keeping it because Amazon's return policy is kind of annoying in that they make you pay for the return shipping, but I knew I wouldn't use something with peeling paint with my food, so I called Amazon's customer service to see what I could do. I basically wanted them to spring for all the costs of shipping because they'd sold me a product that's just not safe to use. The CSR I spoke with was really nice, understanding, and assured me that I would not have to pay for any shipping charges involved. She helpfully emailed me a return label and instructed me to just drop it off at any UPS Store. Easy enough. I was thankful and did as instructed. I got an email earlier today letting me know that Amazon had received my return and they'd start processing it soon. Tonight I get an email from Amazon informing me that they've processed my return and have credited my account. I looked at the amount credited and they'd charged me a return shipping fee! Needless to say, I was miffed and annoyed. I called customer service to see what can be done about the discrepancy, and thankfully, the CSR who helped me was kind enough to make it a nice and smooth process for me. He requested a credit back onto my account. Now I just have to wait 3 days for the credit to show up. Yes, it's a bummer because I was hoping to get all the credit I was promised back so that I could use it to make another purchase I'd been eying. Oh well, c'est la vie. At least I'm getting the credit back eventually.

So the whole thing just lead me to wonder: do companies and businesses really care to make sure customers are served right the first time? Perhaps my incident with Amazon could've been avoided if there was better communication.

Edit: I got an email notifying me that the shipping refund has posted to my Amazon account. It was called "Goodwill Refund."  That made me chuckle.  Whatever, as long as I got my refund back.  Hopefully the "Goodwill" status doesn't affect any future returns/refunds I may request.

Canned Kin

So Microsoft has killed the Kin due to sluggish sales. I have to admit, I chuckled when I read the news. Why? Because they've been heavily marketed in the last 2-3 weeks. Swag Bucks, for example, has been running their video ads like mad last week and earlier this week. Personally, I loved it because each time I clicked and viewed one, it got me 3 Swag Bucks. But what struck me as interesting was that I would watch the ad once, check my balance, come back to the ad list and behold, there's another ad for the Kin to watch. That would repeat itself several times. I could easily net 9 Swag Bucks in the span of under 3 minutes just watching Kin ads. I mean, they were really pimpin' those things out.

Then there's Pretty Little Liars. In just last week's episode Lucy Hale's character Aria stood next to her friends by their lockers and literally said, "oh, I can just check my Kin!" Um, hello! If that doesn't scream PRODUCT PLACEMENT! I don't know what does. In fact, here's a screenshot from this week's episode which aired on Tuesday, June 29, 2010:


Admittedly I can't say I know all that much about the Kin, but there is one thing I can say: I sure am going to miss their video ads on Swag Bucks because they were some good buckaroos from being pimped so much. Now I know why. Which brings me to something else:

Bing was heavily marketed on Swag Bucks for about a month too. For a while there, every time I logged on, there was a vid ad from Bing which could often be replayed for credit several times. Those were only 2 Swag Bucks each, but still they added up. Does that mean Bing is struggling too? Can anything compete with Google? What search engine do you use most often?

Now is the time to Swag!

Are you on Swag Bucks yet? If not, now is the time! Until 11:59 PDT tonight, all new Swaggers can start off with 50 Swag Bucks if you enter the code SweetTweeting (case sensitive so it's best to copy and paste) upon sign up. C'mon, get a move on it! :)

One of the most popular prizes is the $5 Amazon gift card which goes for 450 Swag Bucks. They're issued out on the 1st and 17th of each month so the 50 SB you'd get by signing up is pretty timely.

Happy Swaggin'!

Assertive

I haven't had much luck with Swag Bucks lately. Last week, I was winning pretty consistently. I've always been able to count on "Midnight Madness" to score at least 5 SBs, but tonight, nada. I'd been trying for over 4 hours to no avail, not even 1 measly SB. Then, in one last frustrated gasp before going to bed, I let it all hang out and voila!

I guess sometimes TSG just needs to be smacked around a bit. :p

Spoonful of Sugar

I’m having a bad day. I’m just all around flat out grumpy from having a crappy night. At one point, I got mad, lashed out at Swag Bucks, and this is what I got:

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I will admit. It made me laugh and cheered me up, albeit temporarily. That TSG (The Swag Guy/Gal) sure does have a sense of humor.

Oh yeah, and in case you didn’t know. I do on occasion…sometimes frequently, use profanities. That’s just how I roll. ;)

Treat to self

You're probably aware I'm pretty addicted to Swag Bucks by now. I've been redeeming my Swag Bucks for Amazon gift cards and I had enough to treat myself to a little guilt free shopping. I've always loved the game Mouse Trap and I really wanted to treat myself to it, but it wasn't on sale at all on Amazon, and you know me...I don't like buying things that are not on sale, even if it's just 25 cents off. (In fact, when I just now researched the game, I discovered that Hasbro has it through their own online store for $2 cheaper than Amazon. WTH?) Anyway, since it wasn't on sale, I thought I'd just keep an eye on it and buy it at another time when it is on sale. (Board games tends to go on sale right around the holidays but unfortunately, I haven't seen Mouse Trap on sale the past few years.)

Instead of treating myself to something, I ended up buying stuff that benefits the whole family. (So much for getting something that's just for me, eh?) Not that I wouldn't enjoy it, they are things that I've been wanting for a while, but it's just not something that's just for me. Then again, Mouse Trap wouldn't be "just for me" either, but I'd have a hell of a lot of fun locking myself in my room just building and playing with the trap like I used to do as a kid. :p

I ended up getting a cake decorating set and a popcorn popper...both for free and I still have enough gift card money left over to treat myself to Mouse Trap...should it ever go on sale. :)

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Swag Bucks

I have a confession:

I'm addicted to Swag Bucks.

I will admit that when I first signed up for it, I poked around a little and gave upon it because I was so confused. I didn't know what I needed to do to earn Swag Bucks for prizes like they claimed, other than spend money and that's just not how I roll.  I gave up on it for a month if not two until a savings blog I follow kept talking about it. That's when I figured it couldn't hurt to give it another shot and see what it was about. I mean, what's all this swag about anyway?

I took some time out and poked around trying to see just what I could do to earn a few of those elusive Swag Bucks.  I checked out the FAQ, poked around and figured there was no harm in following them on Twitter. Within a few hours, they posted a hint to a code on Twitter, I figured out the clue, and voila, I was rewarded with Swag Bucks. The rest was history and I was hooked once I started earning them.  I think that was around the beginning of May.  By mid May, I'd won and accrued enough Swag Bucks to cash in for some Amazon gift cards.  Two of them to be exact.  When I received them and plugged the codes into my Amazon account and they worked, I knew for sure then that Swag Bucks was legit and not a scam.  I've been helplessly hooked ever since.

They run a lot of promos to help you get Swag Bucks.  I watch a lot of their ads (videos on the front page in the yellow rectangular sliding box) I follow them on Twitter and Facebook so I'm up to date on where they've hidden codes and participate in their code hunts (where they provide clues and you have to figure out the riddle to get the code) and I also check their Swidget.  Of course, I use their search engine which is one of the most popular ways to earn Swag Bucks. It all adds up.  They just wrapped up a week of beaucoup Swag Bucks with some huge wins each day.  Admittedly I had rotten luck most of the week until Thursday when I snagged this searching for the contact info for Orajel so that I could write them an email about a product I'm having issues with. (I'll follow up with that when I hear more from Orajel.)

Not too bad for having a crappy week of wins.  That was one of my biggest wins ever. (I had a 49 last month.)  That, along with their newly launched Trusted Surveys, net me enough to score another Amazon gift card, making my total of 3 of them just in the month of June so far. Needless to say, I'm quite happy and can't wait till the 17th when they issue the codes so I could go do some shopping. :)

If you follow me on Twitter, you can get a glimpse of how often I win by searching. I don't always post every win because quite frankly, that's annoying, but I do post with some...usually the big wins or if I haven't won in a while and it's celebratory for me. :)