Quick Picks

Quick Picks

Sorry I didn't get a chance to post this earlier. Did the research and never got around to posting it. Blog and picks will continue this week.

Getting the Best Customer Service

Everyone has had an issue they needed resolved, whether it be an incorrect charge, missing a flight or just restitution for a poor experience you had. I'm going to provide a few tips for getting the MOST out of your customer service experience.

1.) Contact them in the Early Morning

If you're working in a customer service related field, where you are taking inbound calls, more than 90% of which are people that are not happy the day is probably going to wear on you pretty hard. Especially, at least from my experience, the first person can rarely help me and they are seemingly incapable of passing along your information so you have to repeat it. Besides the discounted cost of labor, I think hiring foreigners to take these calls is due in part to the fact they can last longer because they don't understand the sarcasm. Regardless, the point is their days typically don't get better as the day goes on. Quick resolution of the problem is the #1 factor in a good customer service experience. If you get someone that has been beat up on the phones all day, they are more likely to be worn out (working slower) and less cooperative than if they've only had a few upset customers to deal with.

2.) Persistence is Key

Most 1st contacts (these are the initial people you reach when calling in the 1-800 number) that you reach when calling in have the same amount of authority. That's why they are all at the 1st level. If you had a problem with Chase and everyone could reach Jamie Dimon (Chase CEO), you may get a better resolution because he wants to keep your business, but at the same time, that would be impossible for everyone to get a hold of him. So he has directors, than manager the managers, that manage the associates. The associates experience could range from 2 days to 10 years. Typically if you are at a call center for 10 years, you would probably get promoted, but some people are just really content. It's a spin of the wheel to determine which associate you receive, but keep in mind, most places will take notes, so if you complain every time you call in, you may not get the best results.

Currently my dad and my grandma are on our plan so I typically upgrade their phones and sell them because they just want flip phones. Then when they need a new phone it's more lucrative to just buy it outright for them. I've been doing this for many years now and when I was still in college (damn I'm old) I received a "free early upgrade" from Verizon. Typically for Verizon, you can upgrade at a discounted price every 2 years. So as a loyal customer (I believe my dad has been there for 13 years), they sent us one in the mail. I took advantage and upgraded, sold the phone, made a few hundred dollars and moved on. Well soon after, I received another one. But this time, instead of immediately upgrading, I decided to call in and see if I could upgrade early, about 8-9 months, I don't remember exactly. The first person told me no, the second the same, but the 3rd was a sweet southern sounding lady and told me yes. I ended spending a total of 25 minutes to get a free upgrade and make $200 or so. The key was the first two times I didn't fight it, just agreed with their decision so there were no notes made on my account or anything. That year I got 2 more free upgrades in the mail. Personally, I think there was an error of some sort, but making an extra $800 just from knowing how to work the system and very little effort was something I enjoyed very much.

The point is that because I was nice, didn't make a stink and kept trying, I was able to get an early upgrade for free (which I didn't know was possible). I also would like to think that whomever that customer service person was, helped in sending out the free early upgrades I received later in the year.

3.) Contact them via Twitter

"All Publicity is Good Publicity" is just not true. If your CFO, Tweeted out something that was supposed to be a private message (while there were talks that your software was not more difficult to use than thought and it was hurting your stock price) I think that is in fact NOT good publicity. Boom 100 year old saying disproved.

Why is Twitter/Facebook advertising so lucrative? Because things that you like on Facebook or Follow on Twitter show up on your friends feeds'. Typically if you like something (not like on Facebook, but like in real life), the chances are likely that your friends will feel the same or similar. If you don't believe me, pick a friend and name all the things you guys similarly like. David Barlow and I both like, Football (watching, Fantasy, The League), Baseball (watching, discussing), Business (discussing), Golf (playing), Technology (discussing), Saving Money (savings). So when he follows "HTC USA" on Twitter and I follow him, I will occasionally see HTC USA tweets because it is assumed we have similar tastes.

Just the same, when you tweet @DeltaAssist (the customer service Twitter account for Delta) they will respond quickly and are more likely to respond positively because they know people are seeing these responses since they are public. In addition, a lot of these customer service Twitter accounts are monitored 24/7. Lastly, just in case they don't respond quickly, you're more likely to see a tweet you had than to check your sent mail folder as a reminder to follow up.

I had a very good experience with @DeltaAssist when I worked for Reynolds and Reynolds back in 2011. They actually reimbursed me the cost of a rental car to travel from Detroit to Dayton due to a delay in flight that caused me to miss a flight. I highly recommend this strategy if you have issues. I am going to test out my theory at Panda Express today because in the middle of writing this, I was served this undercooked chicken:

***I will follow up when I receive a resolution***

Shermy's Sweethearts

I am going to take a different approach towards sports advice because picking six things is simply too time consuming and I have more success with a Sweetheart Teaser than any other bet. In case you aren't familiar with a Simple Teaser (normally just called a teaser), it is when you buy points for decreased odds. You have to pick at least two games and you can buy points in the form of 6, 6.5, 7, 10 or 13 for football. The more points you buy, the worse odds you get. As an example, if you did a parlay this week and took Dallas (-4) and the under (51.5), you would bet $10 and profit $27 if you hit it. If you teased it 6 points, you could get Dallas (+2) and under 57.5, but a $10 bet only pays $9.09 because you have much better odds of winning. The best way to approach approach a strategy using a teaser bet is to get the most favorable numbers possible. These numbers are +21.5, +17.5, +14.5, +10.5, +7.5, +3.5, -2.5, -6.5, -9.5, -13.5, -16.5 and -20.5. They go on from there, but spreads in the NFL typically aren't much higher. This is supported by the most common winning scores (over the last 5 years) being 3, 7, 10 etc. That being said, getting a spread from -8.5 to -2.5 is considered the most favorable bet because 15.38% of the time, a team has won by 3 points in the last 5 years. Some of these are of course underdogs, but a good statistical note still.

In the past 14 days I have won 7 out of 9 teasers. Most of these are 4 team teasers, teasing 13 points, which only pays $8.33 for every $10 bet. To break-even using this teaser strategy, you would need a winning % of 54.55%, but no one wants to break even. At a 7/9 clip, you would make $766 profit over 18 weeks, $100/week.

On to the picks:

1.) Dallas/Chicago Under 64.5 (teased 13 points)

The highest O/U this year was 58 points between IND/NE and they put up 62. There have been only 17 games this year that have scored more than 64.5 points. That may seem like a lot, but only 5 of those had an O/U of 51 or higher. The point being that games expected to be high scoring don't always live up to that.

In Dallas's last 3 wins, they put up 31 points. If they put 31 and win again, the most points this game has is 61 (30-30). Dallas, who is in the top 3rd of scoring in the NFL has only been in one game scoring 65 or more. Last year at Chicago, the first game in December (very similar to this one) Antonio Ramiro Romo put went for 104 yards and scored a a meaningless TD to lose by 17, even though they did put 73 points. Romo is 7-11 vs. the NFC North and along with being 14-19 in December has the lowest passer rating in that month. I expect there to be a heavy load of Murray and Dunbar, still taking a few deep shots occasionally.

Last year in this game, Chicago put up 45 points (with Josh McCown) and 348 passing yards. Jay Cutler put up 349 this year at home... But lost, 23-20. He has been real hot and cold this year so it's hard to predict. He's thrown for 130 (two games ago), 176 and 190 this year. He's also thrown for 330 (6th ranked pass defense), 349 (5th) and 381 (32nd) this year. In two of those games, Alshon Jeffery was the leading receiver. He's a little banged up and missed practice today. Their leading receiver the last two games, Martellus Bennett however, is not. Also, he used to play for the Cowboys. He hasn't historically done well against Dallas, averaging just 4 for 35. Of their four big weapons, Forte, Marshall, Jeffery and Bennett, two should be little factors. 

If the Cowboys can watch Forte out of the backfield and they win this game AND do so by only scoring 27 points. 

2.) Houston (+7) @ Jacksonville

I honestly thought the Texas may be in trouble last week when I heard Ryan Mallett was not going to play. The reason being, the AFC East has been owned by the Patriots (11 titles since '01), NFC North Packers (7 titles since '02) and AFC South Colts (8 titles since '03). They are the class of the division and everyone else is just living in it. The Texans are 13th in points scored and 10th in points allowed. They have Arian Foster and a very smart QB in Fitzpatrick (even his son is pretty smart @ 1:06 mark), who has only 2 INTs in his last 5 games. They've also won 2 of the last 3 division champs (but it still belongs to the Colts). Andre Johnson, DeAndre Hopkins, Arian Foster, JJ Watt, Brian Cushing and JaDeveon Clowney (who I think is their waterboy this year, but he's keeping them really hydrated) are just too much for the Jaguars and Justin Blackmon, I mean Allen Robinson, Blake Bortles? Yeah, too much for him. Lastly, before this game, Fitzy had thrown more then 3TDs in a game on average once per year, the last 5 years, last week was his game. I expect him to come back down to earth and get Foster involved more after they build a nice early lead.

The Jags have to go back to '07 to have a WINNING season. They're on pace for a 2-3 win season this season, averaged 3 wins the previous two seasons and still managed to come back, 21 down against the Giants for their 2nd win this season. I will chalk that up to Eli Manning and the turnover prone Giants (they scored 2 defensive TDs). Houston won't allow those type of things to happen. The Jaguars have the 2nd worst point differential in the league, in front of only the Raiders and they've only averaged 10 offensive points the last 3 games, against the 16th, 18th and 25th ranked scoring defenses in the league.

Houston should roll into Jacksonville about 45 minutes before the game starts, warm up a little, beat the Jags and NEVER have the plane stop running. Gotta keep it at a good temperature. The pilot shouldn't even be able to finish any of those Lord of the Rings movies by the time they land and are back up in the air.

3.) HOU @ JAC (Under 55.5)

See above.

4.) DET @ TB (Under 55)

The Lions have gone over in 3 games this year, by 5, 3 and 1 never putting up a combined 55 points and the Buccs aren't going to add much to the total. The Lions are the #1 ranked scoring defense in the league averaging 17.3 allowed. The Buccs are only averaging scoring 18.33, 5th worst in the league. The Lions offense hasn't been TERRIBLE, they have put up 35 and 34 (last week), but the two weeks prior they put up 15... TOTAL. When they put up 35, they followed it with 7... Against the Panthers... Without Greg Hardy. THE PANTHERS ALLOW THE 4th MOST POINTS IN THE LEAGUE.

The Buccs have gone over in 4 games this year and none in their last 6. In 3 of the ones they did go over, they allowed 56, 48 and 37. Going against that defense, I expect them to score a late meaningless TD and only get 10 points. And I don't expect this opponent to get 37, 48 or 56, close to 24 at best.

***Keep In Mind - You Must win all 4 to win anything***

If you win a 4 team parlay, it pays $100 for $10, this only pays $10 for $12.

Good luck everyone and have a great weekend! Look for me on the NFL Network Thursday at the Cowboys/Bears game.