Tag: customer service

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Hello 2024!

Running into 2024

Hello to 2024, Friends!

I hope finds you well and happy. 2024 is off to a chilly start here in Southeastern Virginia, so I’m taking time indoors on this cold day to fill you in on the highs and lows of 2023.

December 2023 brought with it a few new adventures for us. The City of Newport News hosted several Holiday events and we were asked to provide a cookie-decorating activity at two of them. For someone who runs an internet-based business, it was a treat to get out, interact with families, and see people enjoying our products first-hand. Keep your eyes peeled as I think we may be showing up again at events for Newport News (which are always open to all).

We had a big, fun change in the Cookie Kitchen in December.  A regular customer reached out and asked if I’d like a mural in the Cookie kitchen. Now instead of all beige walls I’m greeted each day with a sunshine-y mural that includes our littleJeanne in front of mural red bird and a text bubble I can write on! I’m not sure if the best part is the mural or that in the process a customer became a friend. Please follow Courtney on instagram @Balingart and keep her in mind when you need some amazing colorful art on your walls (or your workplace’s walls)!

In the late Fall of 2023 I made the scary decision to change who was hosting and maintaining CookieText.com. The former company, while skilled, didn’t seem at all invested in what we do here nor did they seem to grasp the challenges of small business ownership.

The good news is that our current company is wonderful. Part of that wonderful-ness is that they care. They want to see us succeed, they want to make your experience on the website easy and seamless, and they seem to grasp that we don’t have the budget of a Fortune. 500 company;). There have been a few hiccups with the transition, but I’ll take hiccups over indifference again and again.

Speaking of the aforementioned balloons, we stopped offering them this summer. While I loved them as an add-on to a delivery, between the rental of the helium tank, the cost of helium, and some environmental factors, it was time to let them go. My apologies to those who loved that add-on. If anyone needs a bunch of un-inflated mylar balloons for various occasions, I’m the gal to ask!

2023 was a year of scaling back. The economy has not been a friend to small businesses, and it found me reverting back to doing as much as I possibly can to run the show instead of utilizing employees as much as we have in the past. For the first time I have real fears about the feasibility of keeping this going in a manner that will support my household. I am very proud of Cookie Text and all we do and have done, and I’d love to keep doing it. I think we call this stage ‘watchful waiting’…time will tell.

We have begun preparing for Valentine’s Day and lots of great choices are up on the website! I encourage you to check them out and order early. Valentine’s has always brought us to maximum capacity and I anticipate the same this year. Be My Valentine Cookie Cake

Personally, things are good: my boys are well and happy, the oldest moved to Richmond this Fall with a good friend and is studying for the LSAT, he is loving his new place. The middle son is set to graduate from Virginia Tech this May, and will begin his career with Smithfield Foods this summer. My youngest son has some crazy ability to excel at both his engineering courses and having a good ol’ time as a Hokie. The younger two play Club soccer for VT, so mama is very happy to know they see each other a few times a week and would be able to sound an alarm to me if needed. I traveled in November to Texas to see them compete in Nationals. Not many parents get to see two of their kids compete on the same team at such a high level. It was a cool trip and I am grateful.

Lastly, we are up for a “Best Bakery” award from Coastal Virginia Magazine. If you have a minute or two to cast your vote our direction we’d appreciate it. You can do that here. Primarily the win helps potential customers believe that ours is a product and service they can trust. We’d love to turn potentials into actuals, so thanks for your help!

Cheers to you and yours in ’24.

May it be our best year yet!

Fondly,

Jeanne

 

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Where do you Draw the line on Delivery?

Having a gift delivery business is a bit of a challenge. Where do we draw the lines? Are they set in stone?

Our Southside delivery doesn’t always make sense to people. That’s because the website had to be set up by zip code. Either the zip code was in or out. For instance there’s a zip code in Chesapeake that stretches from near the Monitor Merrimac Bridge Tunnel all the way to the North Carolina border, so that’s one of them that got the boot.

That’s why I often tell people that before they accept no as an answer, email us the exact address, we will take a peek at the map, and then let them know if we can make it happen.

The Ask.

On Friday someone sent a message asking about delivering to Portsmouth.

I sent back the www.cookietext.com delivery zone link for them to check via their zip code if we cover that area.

They soon responded that according to the website we don’t deliver there, but they’d really like a CookieText for their spouse’s birthday.

Mind you these messages were happening during prime cookie decorating time, so forgive me, but as I actively considered my Saturday agenda and wrote at the same time, my email response was this:

Would you please provide the actual physical address so I can peek at it? Heck. Never mind. Just put it through. I’ll run it over personally.  ~Jeanne

I applied the work-around to get the site to accept the order, and they placed it right away. I was delighted to see it was a larger order, so that made going the distance a little sweeter.

The Task.

On Saturday morning, off I went to make the delivery. As I got further and further and saw it wasn’t a case of a huge zip code, this place was really far away. As I finally pulled off 664, I saw two of my favorite signs: 7-11 and Speedway. Both fantastic places to stop for a giant fountain soda on the ride home, it would be my karmic reward for going that far.

The location wasn’t far off the highway, I wound through a neighborhood of one-story homes and found theirs on a cul-de-sac. House numbers are funny, so I was thrilled that the initial on the garden flag matched the first initial of the last name on the order.

The Delivery.

I knocked on the storm door and could see a bed set up in the living room: someone was sick, maybe they are taking care of a grandparent?

The sender answered the door, smiled and said a thank you. What I heard his eyes say was, “I know you went out of your way, I appreciate it.”

As they turned to go in the house,  I noticed the pajama pants. I saw signs of past medical procedures. I knew in that moment that the sender was the sick one.

It occurred to me that this person likely could not have driven to pick up a birthday cookie cake for their spouse. It kind of looked like there was a chance they might not be around to celebrate many more family birthdays. Little do I know for sure, but that was certainly the impression that I got.

I walked back to my car and my eyes welled a bit. What if I had stuck to the webite’s determination that the delivery location was too far? What if I’d said no? I felt so relieved that I had said yes, that I would deliver it myself.

The Why.

At CookieText.com, we can’t always say yes to going out of the structure of the business. We do try to remember that we are servicing people and needs vary, so we bend the rules if we are able. We also follow our instincts. In the midst of Friday morning mayhem, I oddly agreed to spend part of my Saturday delivering to an unknown destination. I had the time, and it just felt right.

It seems that we always reap some sort of reward for our yes’s. This one was absolutely the case. Though my eyes had welled up, I felt good as I climbed in my car. I felt good about my business, good about my product, and good that I’d gone out of my way for a customer who clearly could benefit from a yes, from something being easy and stress free. It was incredibly rewarding.

But don’t get carried away, I still stopped and got that giant fountain soda for the ride home;)

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Socks as a Centerpiece and a Knife in the Box

Little wooden Knife

Decorating 101

I had a nice glass and iron candle holder in the center of the kitchen table. There was a pretty blue candle in it that pulled in the colors of the nearby furnishings.

Now there is a basket of socks.

My three teenage sons shower and then dress each morning in their respective rooms. They share socks, however, and those have always been stuffed in a common drawer for them to pull from.

Socks are a pain. I am often standing at the kitchen table, laundry basket on a chair beside me, tackling the sorting and matching of 81 black Nike socks that vary only by either the color of the little swoosh, whether there is a grey ring inside the top hem, or by how much they have faded over time. If you haven’t had a good time in a while, join me. It’s kind of like the game where you have to study the two pictures that are almost identical and circle the minute differences. And just like the kids level-up in video games, my aging eyes enhance the sock challege year by year.

All the matches then go into a collective sock drawer in a nearby room for the boys to pull from. So the barefooted boys get to the kitchen, get their breakfast, and then wander off to the drawer to don their socks.

It occurred to me, as I sorted these socks while standing at the table, the basket of single socks on a chair beside me, that the kitchen table is where the boys are when they need socks. So why the extra trek?

Practicality 102

I moved the candle in it’s glass and metal display, grabbed a wire basket, and filled it with matched socks.

The next morning’s ritual was akin to studying animals in their native habitat. One by one the boys each sat down, did his breakfast thing, the thought of socks washed over him, he lifted his head, saw the basket, grabbed a pair, and put them on.

Never a comment or question from either of them. Simply, “this is what I need, here it is, I’m moving on.”

And so I have a centerpiece of socks.

In the same vein, you get a CookieText® that has napkin and a knife in the box.

At home and at CookieText I try to make it easy.

Our team aims to anticipate the CookieText ‘experience’ from start to finish and make it as simple for the sender to give as it is for the recipient to enjoy.

Let’s say you are the lucky recipient, you open your CookieText®, are touched by the kindness of the message, want to dig in, and in the same second you realize it needs cutting, you see, right there: tucked neatly on the right side of the cookie cake, is the little wooden eco-friendly knife, just exactly what you needed.

So at home I have a centerpiece of socks, and at work we put a knife in each box.

Different but the same.

Because it’s really kind of special when someone anticipates your needs.