Results tagged “customerservice”

If you utilize CTA buses to commute to work (or even around town for other reasons), it's probably happened to you before: your heart leaps at the sight of an arriving bus, you grip your CTA card for entrance, and then your heart crashes into your stomach as the bus zooms right on by, the driver not giving you and your fellow potential passengers a second glance. In the first quarter of 2009, the CTA received 468 complaints about such incidents, referred to as "pass ups." Always ones to put a positive spin on things, the CTA points out that more than 600 "pass up" complaints had been made each of the previous two quarters. Second place in total complaints for the first quarter of 2009 went to rude drivers/conductors.

While the Field’s Fans are too busy protesting poor customer service at Macy’s as they long for the days of Marshall Field’s, customer satisfaction for shopping scabs has increased. An annual University of Michigan Study ranking shopper satisfaction among discount and department stores and supermarkets reported Macy’s saw a 5.6% increase in customer satisfaction, ending with a score of 75 out of 100 points. Nordstrom tops the list with a score of 80, only five points between the two. The Sun-Times reported:

...than Ed Smith's video blog? As alderman of the West Side's 28th Ward, Smith has a reputation as (sort of) an independent. Coming into office with Harold Washington in 1983, Smith was behind the smoking ban, has pushed for federal prosecution of former police commander Jon Burge, and generally annoys Mayor Daley. Now he wants to be Cook County Recorder of Deeds. As The Reader's Mick Dumke pointed out, this election may be the Year...

Mercy, CTA. Uncle. Whatever you want. We give up. You're eliminating every bus we ever take, charging us more for every packed, smelly ride, and now, you're stealing our identities, too. CTA customer service rep Miranda Smith was arrested last week and charged with official misconduct, one count of aggravated identity theft, and three counts of identity theft. (Aggravated identity theft means the victim is over 60 or disabled, or that the crime occurred "in...

Marina Café on Jackson Harbor is one of many restaurants on the South side we'd love to recommend to readers without hesitation, but can't. We're convinced that tables without a reservation would be hard to come by if this restaurant was located at Monroe Harbor or North Avenue Beach. We also suspect that, if it were in one of those locations, Marina Café's owners and management would place a bigger emphasis on restaurant basics. As such, we can't eagerly endorse their combination of Creole and Caribbean for lunch or dinner. We were hoping that yesterday's jazz brunch would see them raise their level. But the food was still hit-or-miss.

This month's issue of Inc. Magazine has an amazing article detailing the years of infighting between brothers Darryl and Brian Rosen for control of Sam's Wine and Spirits that's a little bit sibling rivalry and a lot of "you don't have my the best interests of the company in mind." According to the article, the root issue over control of the company was one of vision: Darryl, the older brother, was the more conservative of...

If a wine shop has its own in-house chef — a Charlie Trotter-trained one at that — odds are it’s going to offer quite a different experience than those warehouse-sized ones you’re used to. And that’s just fine with the people behind Knightsbridge Wine Shoppe & Epicurean Centre. Open since 1986, this cozy Northbrook store takes buying a bottle of wine up a couple notches (the British spellings of its name and the fact that Knightsbridge, an area in London, is home to many of the world’s richest people are definite tip offs).

Time sure does fly when we don’t have to work on Mondays. We were sitting around minding our own business when we realized that it’s Wednesday already and that means the I-GO Audio Emissions contest is over and we’re supposed to be heading over to their show on Thursday night to see who garnered the most votes and rock out to some hometown musicians. We should probably say who won, huh?

Three minutes after we walked into Beograd Meat Market, we figured out that it’s a place that attracts a lot of regulars. How did we decide so quickly? That’s exactly the amount of time it took for Dusan Pavlovic to come over and ask if we needed any help. It’s this kind of customer service — Beograd is family owned, and it shows — coupled with a genuine passion for the Eastern European products...

We often fall back on really out-of-date stereotypes, like that the majority of all journalists are men, or that Tom Cruise is a good actor. One of them — that, unless it's spring break, airline passengers are primarily businessmen — is being directly challenged by American Airlines.

Chicagoist wants you all to go to this story and look at the expression on CTA Board President Carole Brown's face as she rides a bus this February. Classic. The picture accompanies an article detailing Brown's plan to have the CTA's Office of Inspector General do an audit to see if buses and trains are cleaned as often and thoroughly as they should be. At a board meeting Wednesday, Brown was given the party line...

Now that it's winter -- err, autumn -- we'll be staying inside and watching movies and TV-on-DVD more often. We'll have some freshly popped Newman's Own Movie Butter Boom and a precious bottle of Bell's Two-Hearted by our side. And of course a round shiny disc or two. But where to rent from? In our search for the golden choice, let's lay out some options:

If you notice a reduced presence of Bell's beer on the shelves and in bars in the coming weeks, there's a reason. Bell's delivered their last shipment of beer to Illinois last week. Here is some of what Bell's founder Larry Bell wrote last week regarding the situation on a forum thread at the Beer Advocate website (post number 32): "I'm very tired and sad tonight, but I will share thoughts with this group soon....

Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn has a suggestion for ComEd customers who want to fight rate hikes - send in a tea bag with your next bill. Outraged over a more than 20 percent rate increase, Quinn is hoping this sends the right message. We're not sure what that message is, but we're hoping it doesn't involve getting a phone call from a horny customer service representative at 2 a.m.

The Illinois Commerce Commission voted yesterday to deregulate home phone service in Chicago, declaring the market competitive enough to swim in the seas of capitalism. This is a perfect storm for AT&T, which has been rocking the boat for removal of price controls for years. Under the new agreement, they will be able to raise local rates $12 annually for the next three years--effectively doubling the average customer's plan. AT&T did agree to offer "safe harbor" plans with prices that will be frozen for four years, but customers have to switch plans themselves, meaning these low rates won't be available to people who aren't inclined to spend two hours on the phone with customer service, wait from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. for a technician who shows up late, and spend another three hours on the phone to correct billing mistakes--a.k.a. everyone.

Geez. We’re sitting here on what turns out to be a nice, pretty Friday morning. We have a night to ourselves, a brand new “Laguna Beach” all cued up on the TiVo, and we’re daydreaming about which toppings to get on our pizza. Things are good, life is good.

Moving Truck Rentals?

When Chicagoist started its "South Side Cheap Eats" series, we did so in order to shine a light on the untold culinary landscape of our side of the city. The stories we tell should be treated as cautionary tales, like the "war wound" stories of your flighty uncle. This is one of those times.

Comcast and two other local cable providers are raising rates again this year. Comcast raised its prices 4.5 percent; RCN 8 percent; and Wide Open West, 5 percent. This is the third year in a row Comcast has upped their prices. Their rates went up 6 percent in both 2004 and 2005.

You can trust Chicagoist when we say that tending bar can be a rewarding but sometimes thankless job. Still, some nights we wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Even though our "barside manner" sometimes resembles more "bizarro world Nick" from It's a Wonderful Life than Tom Cruise in Cocktail we were shocked, shocked, we say, that no one even thought to mention the Bridgeport bureau for mention as one of the city's best bartenders for 2005. Shite, our excellence has been sustained over a period of years. Then we took a deep breath, came back to reality, and said, "Wait a minute. It's Metromix!!" The same people who weighed in on this probably wouldn't recognize a dive bar when they walk into one.

Love your iPod but too lazy to import all your CDs into iTunes? Then this is the contest for you.

Comcast must really hate the fact that they are doing business in Chicago.