Keeping An Eye on Your Package

At Carson Wrapped Hershey’s Chocolates, our customer’s satisfaction is of the highest importance to us. One way we try to show this is through our careful attention to your packages as they travel around the country or globe. Each day we receive a very detailed report from UPS of all the packages that have suffered slight setbacks to their UPS guaranteed delivery time. In order to get the shipments to the desired destination as quickly as possible, we proactively check into the packages on the report and call the customers to let them know what has taken place. Sometimes it may be a rescheduled delivery date. Other times it may be an address error has occurred or UPS is having an issue with finding the address. Whatever the case, even after your package is no longer in our hands, we do everything we can to make sure you receive your order.

“I wanted to take the time to send a note with how pleased I am with my experience buying form Carson Wrapped Hershey's Chocolates.  In this day, it seems customer service is laughable, to say the least.  My experiences with your organization were much different.  The website was very easy to navigate through.  My order was shipped promptly and the product definitely met my expectations.  The thing that impressed me most, an attempt to deliver my order was made on Tuesday.  I was not home to sign for the package.  I signed the UPS slip for it to be left on the second attempt, Wednesday.  To my surprise, when I came home from work on Wednesday, my package arrived.  When I got inside, I had a message from Carson following up, someone noticed that UPS attempted to deliver but couldn't and they wanted to ensure I received my order.  Needless to say, that one simple jesture went a long way.  I appreciate the wonderful display of customer service and look forward to other opportunities where personalized chocolates are an option.
Thank you.”
A. Rychetsky

Customer Service Week 2007

If your company celebrates Customer Service Week every year, but you weren’t quite sure when or why the event came to life, here’s a little history… Customer Service Week began in 1988, to honor & recognize the people on the front lines of the service revolution. Four years later, in 1992, Customer Service Week became a nationally recognized event to be celebrated annually during the first full week of October. For more on Customer Service Week, visit www.csweek.com.

Personalized Hershey’s chocolates allow companies to reward & recognize their customer service representatives with a sweet & personal chocolate treat that is great to boost morale, motivation & teamwork. View our Thank You collection for ideas on how to recognize your reps.

In honor of Customer Service Week 2007, it is only appropriate to give a shout out to the “front lines” of Carson Wrapped Hershey’s Chocolates... Our Customer Service Representatives! Our reps are the lifeline between our company and customers. This is a great time to tell them how much we appreciate their hard work & dedication.

Job Well Done

I can almost guarantee that Cristina’s customers’ reactions will be as good as those of her staff!  While this type of feedback about our product is common, we never grow tired of hearing our customer express their excitement.

Hello!

I just received my order of 1000 Corporate Custom Design Wrapped Bars, and I’m just writing to thank you for such a great job.  The printing looks phenomenal, and everyone on staff absolutely loves them.  We can’t wait to hand them out to our customers.  If the customer reaction is just as good, I won’t be surprised if we come back to you for more!

Thanks again for a job well done!

Cristina Luther
Marketing Associate
MLS Property Information Network, Inc.

 

The Englishman and The Ladies

Once upon a time in the land of Hershey’s Chocolate there were 6 beautiful women who worked in the Carson Customer Service Center.  They were happy enough working with each other and delicious chocolate, after all, who wouldn’t be? Each day they talked with customers and made them happy as they helped place orders for beautiful candy bar wrappers celebrating births, weddings, birthdays and other special events. They were happy, they liked each other, they loved their customers.  But something seemed to be missing. What could it be?  Did they need more chocolate?  No that wasn’t it. 

Did they need more extracurricular activities?  No they had the Funshine Committee for that.

They just didn’t know what it was, but something was not right. So they carried on until one day there was a knock on the door and what did they see, but a young man standing there. Not just any young man, this one came from far across the sea from the land of Kings and Queens and handsome Princes.  They asked how they could help him. Did he want to order some candy bars with wonderful wrappers?  “Why no, he said. I heard that you have an opening here in your call center. I have come to give you my application.” The ladies gasped, “Oh my goodness!”  He wanted to come and work with them!!  They could hardly believe it!  They didn’t know what to think, and frankly neither did Matt, once he found out that he would be the only male in the room. What would happen?  How would it all work out? They weren’t really sure, but everyone was excited to find out. 

And so Matt came to work at Carson with the 6 beautiful ladies.  He told them of many strange and unusual tales of plimsoles, nappies, the loo, the telly and what a pram was.  They taught him about bagels, Tootsie Rolls, microwaves and how to work a VCR.  He ate all of their candy.  When the beautiful ladies ordered matching green Carson shirts, he said there was no way he would do it.  When the shirts arrived, he could not resist joining in the fun. 

Now they live happily ever after with lots of laughs and fun.   And the ladies found what was missing.  It was Matt.

Quinceañera

La celebración de los 15 años en la cultura Latina es un evento muy especial. Esta es la edad en la que oficialmente se reconoce el cambio de niñez a madurez. 

Durante los últimos meses Carson ha notado que cada vez más personas se muestran interesadas en nuestros diseños de Quinceañera, y para nosotros es extremadamente importante ofrecer a nuestros Clientes Hispanos chocolates personalizados que endulcen este momento tan especial. Actualmente estamos trabajando en crear diseños para Quinceañera, que se ajusten apropiadamente a este evento tan especial. Así que si tú te estás preparando para celebrar tus 15 años… nos encantaría conocer tu opinión sobre cuál es el diseño perfecto para tus chocolates personalizados. Escríbenos un comentario… de seguro lo tomaremos en cuenta! Nosotros queremos ser parte de tu sueño.

Carola Stiver
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In the Latino Culture the celebration of the 15th Birthday is a very special event. This is the time where the change from childhood to maturity is officially recognized.

Over the last months Carson has noticed that more people are interested in our Quinceañera’s wrapper design, and it is very important for us to be able to offer personalized candy bars for this special occasion to our Hispanic Customers. Currently we are working on new Quinceañera’s designs that sweetly compliment this important celebration. So, if you are about to celebrate your 15th Birthday, we would love to know your opinion about the perfect wrapper design. Send us your comments… we will take it in consideration! We want to be apart of your dreamed day!

Carola Stiver

Our Man Milton

Today we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of Milton Hershey.  We had some pizza and a very nifty cake. We could have let this pass as merely another excuse to have a little fun (we seldom need much to kick things off around here), but instead thought it prudent to take a closer peek at the man whose confection is at the core of our very business.

Milton Hershey.  Entrepreneur, Businessman, Visionary, Philanthropist… “Chocolatier.”  A man of humble origins, a 4th grade education and a heart of gold, he built an empire upon chocolate.  Not only did he develop the means to manufacture, market and distribute the first affordable chocolate confection in this country, he was also a man of immense magnanimity with a humanitarian spirit to which few could compare. He began many philanthropic entities, too numerous to recount here, still thriving today as a result of his generous endowments. 

But we here at Carson Wrapped Hershey’s Chocolates have another reason to hail this man.  A reason that on the outside may seem trivial, but to us it’s the world.  That reason is his name, Hershey. 

One might be tempted to quote a little Shakespeare here and say, “What’s in a name, guys?  A rose would smell just as dandy no matter what you call it.”  (I may be paraphrasing a bit.)  Yes, this is true; Mr. Hershey’s chocolate would be just as delicious were his surname Johnson, his empire just as vast, his legacy as generous. 

But consider this.  On that fateful day in 1993, when upon the birth of his new granddaughter Ed Carson sat pondering a chocolate bar, and in the mesmeric haze of his overwhelming bliss fancied the term HERESHEIS® out of HERSHEY’S, I say upon that very day, if the chocolate bar before him was called but Johnson’s, why, the reason for this blog would not even exist. 

So, with fingers sticky from icing and pizza sauce, we give a double salute to Milton Hershey, for excellence not only in character and product, but also excellence in NAME.

India

On certain occasions, personalized wrapped chocolate bars are imported to India.  As was the case July, 2007 when 375 corporate thank you bars were sent there.  Most people will be able to read what is on the wrappers because Bangalore has the second highest literacy rate in all of India at 83%.
Bangalore is the capital city located in the Indian State of Karnataka. It is the third largest city in India with a population of 6.5 million people. With a large information technology industry, Bangalore is known as the Silicon Valley of India and is responsible for more than 1/3 of India's software exports.
Bangalore is also known as the "Garden City of India" because of its greenery, the "Pub City of India" because of its clubs and bars, and the "Rock City of India" because of all the rock concerts that happen there. If you travel to India, walk through a garden or park, have a beer, see a concert and then write a program or develop new software.

The Candy Wrapper Museum

I found this website while doing my regular all things candy bar wrappers search recently on google and thought it would be fun to share.

It is a cool little site started by Darlene Waddington, with a great history on herself and how she came up with the idea of telling the candy wrapper story online.

Probably my favorite part of the site is her images and discussion about candy bars that have shown celebrities on their wrappers over the years.  Anyone for a Mr. T bar?  She also has a Pete Rose bar that I remember growing up as a kid in Cincinnati.  I used to love those as well as chugging them down with a big can of Pete Rose chocolate drink which I still have a can of someone in storage at home (don't tell my wife or she will find it and throw it away as excess clutter).  This of course was long before Pete Rose let the baseball world down by being a major league gambler.

Personally, I am a Johnny Bench fan.  While he doesn'€™t have any candy bars with him on the wrapper, he does have a very nice scotch label right now.

So check out the candy wrapper museum site, and please feel free to email me if you see any other candy related sites of interest out there at sjfrederick@carsonbars.com.  Around here, we love all the candy information and news we can get.

WHO DEY!

If you read this blog regularly, you know that certain themes emerge, one of which is the fact that most of our Carson group are Cincinnati Bengal’s fans.  You can only imagine how excited we are that NFL Football  is just around the corner.

Recently, my football fan daughter and I went to Georgetown College in Kentucky to watch our fearless Bengals swelter in the 90 plus degree heat during an intrasquad scrimmage.  Ellis’ favorite receiver is Chad Johnson, but TJ H is not far behind, and of course we all think Carson Palmer is going to have a great year with his offense.  Of course we took the team and coaches some custom made Hershey’s bars to help them get through the dog days of training camp.

Joe Mays, our production supervisor, is also a pretty huge Bengal’s fan, and each Sunday he tailgates with a large Carson Wrapped Hershey's banner on his truck and we give away free Bengals custom wrapped  “ Who Dey “ miniatures to anyone who needs a chocolate fix before the big game.

Joe and I are also in the same fantasy football league which has been a tremendous amount of fun over the years.  I remember when the league first began back in the mid 80’s and I was in college.  Miller Lite Beer  was the first major brand to sponsor a fantasy league like this and they have just grown to enormous proportions today, and are really a lot of fun.

This year, our shipping manager, Bob Jeffries is going to be the commissioner for the Carson Fantasy Football League that will provide a little friendly competition  among the football fans in our building.  We are still trying to convert some non football fans, but I am proud to report that we have many success stories, one of which is in our Marketing Department, Kim Chamberlain. Kim came to us a Miami University grad and a Ben Rothlisberger fan.  While we all loved Ben while he was at Miami I explained to her, now that he plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers, she at least is not allowed to root for him when they play the Bengals.

Carson is a proud sponsor of the Marvin Lewis Community Fund  which we chose not only because Marvin Lewis is a strong community leader, but because of the organization’s focus on youth and giving those who may not have the same opportunities as others, a better chance by providing assistance in many areas including scholarships to high school kids who may not otherwise be able to attend the college of their choice, among many other things.  His golf tournament this year alone raised over $500,000 for the fund and will be put to very good use.  In October, we will also sponsor Football 101 again, which is a great event where men are not allowed to go.  Women get to interact with the Bengals coaches and some players, run drills on the field, go into the locker rooms, while us guys get to stay home and mope because we are not allowed to go.  This event also supports a wonderful cause which is Breast Cancer Awareness.

I will keep you up to date on the Bengal’s season, and my weekly drubbings of Joe Mays’  team, as we compete in fantasy football this season.

Rascal Flatts

My oldest Daughter’s favorite band in the whole world is Rascal Flatts.  She is a die hard fan who is committed to the cause.

Growing up, I never much cared about concerts or even music for that matter, but my daughter is passionate about it and has quite an itunes  library. She could sing before she could talk and dance before she could walk.

Not only did I not grow up caring much about music, I cared even less about country music.  Ellis’ love for Rascal Flatts however opened up my eyes to an entirely new genre of music that I actually quite enjoy.  Country music is full of life’s lessons, with a general common sense approach to most of life’s ups and downs.

Have you ever listened to any country lyrics recently?  Last Spring, we got quite busy which meant that everyone at Carson had to pull their weight plus that of about two more people to get all of our orders out on time.  I was recruited to do “second proofing” which, you guessed it, is the second time we proof a wrapper before it is wrapped around a Hershey’s bar.  Anyway, I was in Gail Hale’s office doing my duties, and she listens to country music, so that meant I also listened to country music.  Well let me tell you, I got quite an education in there listening to those country lyrics ( although I wasn’t a very good proofer I hear..)

I’ll save some of the more sultry lyrics for later, since this is a G rated blog, but one of my favorite songs I heard was one by Rascal Flatts called “Country Song Backwards."  While people used to claim that if you played certain albums by various artist backwards you would hear subliminal messages ie. The Beatles and Ozzy Osbourne (link) when you play a country song backwards you actually get things back, like your old truck, your dog and other items lost during your life.

Anyway, back to my story.  Rascal Flatts came to Cincinnati  and Columbus this summer, and somehow I ended up taking Ellis to both shows.  As a fan club member, Ellis is eligible for certain “perks” that come with the privilege, one of which is actually getting to meet the group, Gary, Jay and her favorite Joe Don.

Only 30 people per show get this honor, and it is a race on the computer to see who clicks the fastest when they announce the sign up online.  Needless to say, Ellis did not get a “meet and greet” for the local shows.  Being the encouraging Dad that I am, I gave her the idea of just keep trying each time they announced a sign up, regardless of where it was, I guess expecting that it was so far fetched, it would never happen.

SO you guess what happened from there…. Yep, the next time she tried she actually got her meet and greet .. IN HARTFORD CT.

She was so excited she floated around the house for days, and I was feverishly trying to find a cheap way to get to Hartford.

You can read her blog post to get all of the details about the “moment” she met the guys.  She designed her own custom wrapper and gave them a gift of her own custom wrapped Hershey’s bars, which you can also see on her blog post, from a photo I took at the Columbus, Ohio concert.  They loved them, my daughter was again floating on thin air, and we then enjoyed a great show in the “pit” right by the stage.

Jason Aldean opened up and was great as well.  When all the smoke cleared, and it was time to go home, we both had some great memories of the evening, and her old Dad had some legs that were ready to collapse after standing for 9 hours straight, while his daughter floated all night long.

6 Degrees of Elvis!

Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches… Poodle Skirts… Pompadors… What’s going on at Carson? Well, to cap off the summer here the Funshine team (which is a team of Carsonites in charge of planning fundraisers and other events) decided we needed to celebrate or better yet pay homage to the King himself, Elvis Presley! So we did it the best way possible, by playing the 6 Degrees of Elvis! If you don’t know, the 6 Degrees is a game made famous by Kevin Bacon. To play it you connect individuals by who they may have been in movies with, relationships they have had etc. So with this in mind everyone at Carson dressed up as someone through Elvis’ “grapevine”. Our Creative Production Associate, Gail Hale dressed as Michael Jackson ( ELVIS to LISA MARIE PRESLEY to MICHAEL JACKSON) that’s only three degrees. Just imagine how crazy and creative people got with their connections and costumes. Needless to say, it made the day very memorable. And oddly enough it left me craving some more PB and Banana Sandwiches, which by the way were one of Elvis’ favorite snacks! So, with a full stomach and greasy hair we closed the summer with a bang… and some Hunka Hunka Burnin Love!

Mike Reuter
Carson Wrapped Hershey’s
Graphic Design Team

See if you can find us in the photograph…

I am Mary Tyler Moore.  Before I had my own show, I was in a movie called Change of Habit with Elvis Presley where I played a nun.  -  Laura Ash

I was Lauren Conrad from The Hills.  She was in Epic Movie with Darrell Hammond who was in New York Minute with Frank Welker who was in The Trouble with Girls with ELVIS.  -  Pam Bottles

I'm the Killer himself! Jerry Lee Lewis. I was being groomed to be 
The King of Rock n Roll. That is until I married my 13 year old 
cousin. The public did not think so highly of me after this incident. 
Either way I've still had many hits (i.e. Great Balls of Fire) 
throughout the decades and I'm still kickin' today. I know Elvis 
because the two of us and Johnny Cash toured together in 1957. I also drove to Graceland once while inhibriated with a gun and got arrested.  -  Mike Reuter

June Carter - She toured w/Elvis, was said they dated.  Elvis introduced her to Johnny Cash.  -  Kelly Fulmer

Elvis, hi I'm your future son-in-law, Michael Jackson, white glove. bandaged nose and white socks.  -  Gail Hale

Rudi Johnson , Regina King, Jamie Foxx, Jay Leno, Lisa Marie Presley, ELVIS  -  Kim Bires

I was the understudy to Julie Adams who co-starred with Elvis in the 1965 film, "Tickle Me".  While I didn't get to be in the film, Elvis did admire my coiffure behind the scenes.  I vowed from that day forward to never change my hairstyle for the rest of my life.  -  Dianne Beeson

I am the King himself, soaking up the sun in Hawaii with my guitar.  -  Scott Frederick

Rascal Flatts in Hartford CT. <3

August 24th can be proclaimed the best day of my life. Why? I. Met. Rascal.
Flatts!  I found out a month before that date, and unfortunately, this meant
we would be going to Hartford. Oh well. One more concert for me!

Because my dad told me it would be great to give them Hershey Bars wrapped
by Carson, I figured... heck, why not, so I designed the wrapper and it came
out perfectly.

We made the trip to Hartford Ct. and arrived at the Dodge Music Center at 2 PM the first ones in line!  5 hours standing in the heat, they opened the gates and I made my way backstage.  There were some that had meet and greets with Jason Aldean who opened up for Rascal Flatts, and he is also great to see.

My time came for my meet and greet, so I went up to Gary first, considering he was the closest.

Gary: Hey!
Me: Hi Gary!

Hug. <333

Me: I came all the way from Cincinnati just to see you guys.

Gary: Really, that's great.

Me: Here. *hands box to Gary of my custom designed wrapped Hershey's bars*  I have a box, it's your present.

Gary: A box?

Me: Well, there's stuff inside of it, of course! It's a little heavy, hope
you don't mind.

JOE DON... my favorite .. AHHHHHHHHH.

Me: Hi!

Joe Don: Hey, babe, how you doin'?

Me: I'm really good.

HUUUUUUUUUUG. <333333333

So, then I go to Jay.

Me: Hey Jay!
Jay: Heyyyy.

Hug. <3

So of course I go back in between Gary and Joe Don, just do a simple little
stand-there-and-smile picture, which of course, I do NOT mind. Joe Don told
me "Come here baby," which of course, about made me die of happiness.
And at last minute. I turn to Joe Don. I CANNOT believe I said
this but man, I am so glad this came out of my mouth.

Me: I like you the most.
Joe Don: Haha.
Me: Just thought I'd let you know that!
Joe Don: Awh, well, thanks for letting me know, babe.

This lead to a.

Oh, you can guess it by now.

HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. AHHHHHH. <3333333333333333

See a pattern there?

Unfortunately, at this time, I had to say goodbye to the guys. It was a
moment I'll never forget. And according to a secret source (haha), the candy
made it onto the guys' bus! I really appreciated their kindness, and I was
getting way too much love during the concert.

When can I see them again?  Stay tuned...

xx<3Ellis.

PS> School officially started on August 28th so I may not be posting for a while as I focus very hard on my studies for awhile.. wink.