(Let’s see if the people who monitor online mentions at Blockbuster catch this. I’ll make it easy for them, and tag it. In fact, they can just cut to the chase.)
I took my daughter to the video store this afternoon to let her select a couple of movies for the week. While there, I was going to see if I could get my hands on a copy of ‘300’. 
With nothing on the shelf, I asked the manager if there were any in the return bin. 42 copies at that location, and 42 of them were checked out. No luck. I let Laura browse every movie in the kid section just on the off-chance the delay might bring one back. I took my time perusing the new releases, and begrudgingly picked up a copy of ‘Smokin’ Aces’. Nothing I would have snagged on my own, but seemingly better than anything else there.
Not having a card, during check-out I gave the manager our last name to look up in the system. “Diane?” he said. “Um, no – my wife is Brenda. She used to be a Dianne, but gave that name up when we got married.”
It took a few minutes to get cleared up. With our address and her driver’s license number, we had the problem diagnosed. They had misspelled our name. (1 G, 2 T’s for those at home keeping score. P-i-g-o-t-t.)
We grabbed the movies and started for home, pleased that the helpful manager had been patient and worked everything out for us. On the way home, Brenda called me. “Blockbuster just called, and said a copy of ‘300’ just walked in – they’re holding it for you.”
I looked up the number on the box, and called the manager immediately to tell him I was on the way. “No problem,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for the confusion over the spelling of your name, I wouldn’t have remembered it.”
The store is a Blockbuster franchisee – ID #94597.
If you’re with Blockbuster’s PR team, and you’d like to know the name of the employee and his ID#, please e-mail the request to inbox {at} occamsrazr (dot) com. Also, I ask you to comment here. As quickly as possible. I’m curious to see how often you scan, and I know positive feedback is hard to come by.
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, rentals, movies, movie rentals, Blockbuster, Blockbuster Video, 300[/tags]
