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True or Not

My daughter is home schooled, so from year to year I buy various text books and computer programs as part of her curriculum.  Sonlight Curriculum Ltd. out of Littleton , CO has always been a dependable source. They specialize in courses with a Christian focus… and I have to believe the following is 100% true. But true or with a slight marketing spin, the following is one of the best email marketing letters I have received recently.

Subject: Explanation of how to get $25 off your Sonlight order (for a very limited time)

Dear Tom,

I am deeply embarrassed. Yesterday afternoon, in preparing my letter about five reasons to order sooner rather than later, we accidentally attached the wrong subject line to the email you received. I had prepared that subject line for a different email headed to a group of people who had never purchased from Sonlight before. I wanted to see if a special offer might help these non-customers place their first order.

The subject line for that email offered $25 off the recipient’s Sonlight order. The email these non-customers received specified a time limit on the offer, as well as a minimum order total of $250.

This morning I discovered we sent that subject line to everyone who has bought anything from Sonlight in the last two years!

Yikes … NOT what we had intended! Talk about expensive mistakes.

But I talked with John and Sarita, who said, “You gave your word. You must fulfill your promise … Since you’ve got lemons, do what you can to make some lemonade.”

So we’re going to do something we pray doesn’t completely swamp our computer system and warehouse crew. I can imagine it may slow our ability to process orders for a few days, but…

We have decided to honor the promise of my last email to you in the following manner:

Since you’ve ordered from us before, we’re extending the offer (originally intended for families new to Sonlight) to you for a very limited time. Place your order worth $250 or more (not including shipping) no later than 11:59 p.m. (MDT) tomorrow (7/23) and you will receive $25 off. That’s in addition to any Sonlighter Club discounts you may receive.

Just enter PRXDY in the box marked “Special Offer Code” at Step 2 of check out.

I hope this little bit of “lemonade” is a blessing to you.

Sincerely,

Tim Heil

Customer Relations Manager

Sonlight Curriculum, Ltd.

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Baby it’s cold outside

I’m sitting in El Asteca restaurant in cheapeake waiting for a table and freezing my arse off every time the front door opens. I’m also posting to my blog from my phone while I wait. Now that may not seem like a big deal if you’re under 40- but this is star trek stuff to me. In a second I’ll snap a picture and post it to facebook. What the heck is going on here – we seem to be reaching out to one another in a strangely intimate way. Too much computer time?

Update:

This is the photo uploaded from my mobile phone to FaceBook

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What a way to start a Monday

O.K. – this is how to start a Monday… My office computer was giving me a lot of grief last week – displaying the dread “Blue Screen of Death” several times in a row. So Thursday night I went out and purchased a replacement box.  After being out of town for the weekend I decided to come in bright and early to set up the new computer and not eat into office time on Monday… so around  6:00 AM I entered our new office and proceeded to enter my alarm code… except I did not push something or I pushed the wrong button. Then the Fire Alarm went off.
The Fire Chief was very nice. Now I know to keep my glasses on when entering the building and that the overhead lights take several seconds to come on… and double triple quadruple check which buttons to push in which order.

Then I turned on my flighty computer to find it had not reset text in an out of office message. I had been monitoring my email by blackberry  Thursday afternoon and Friday while traveling – but with the flighty computer turned off I did not know the auto responder function was still on until….  134 emails went out at 6:34am Letting everyone know I would be out of the office from December 19th 2008 through the 22nd.  Before I could answer back a did receive a lot of emails which let me know it was already 2009.

The day got better after that. (Well so far anyway)