In the last few days we've gotten some emails and Facebook messages of Crooked Monkey sightings throughout the New World .
From Rome (below) to Colombia (above), The monkey is spreading his.... love.
How do we get these pictures? Well the "I'd tap that" picture was found by a former Crooked Monkey intern, and current BBM acquaintance. She was perusing a friend of a friends pictures and found this t-shirt. At Crooked Monkey we call this research. In academic circles they call it Stalking.
Its the holiday season, and people like to buy Crooked Monkey shirts for their friends--because they want their friends to love their gifts and not return them.
We have a gift option at the checkout, and we have the pleasure of writing whatever note you want us to write. We've written a funny blog post about the notes we've written. But this is a different post.
This is about our interns who write those notes and how pretty they make them, because they want the gift to be perfect. Anyways, enjoy this special gift note, and when you buy a shirt from us, take advantage of our interns. Not in the sexual kind of way, but in the "They'll make your gift look even cooler than it already is" way.
This creation was done by Jacqui, our intern from Walter Johnson High School.
We get lots and lots of emails from our fans. We get lots and lots of pictures from our customers of our funny t-shirts. But this might be the coolest picture/email combo we've gotten so far.
Well we just got a funny email from one of our customers. It brought something to our attention that I hadn't looked at in years. Here's what she writes:
"Hi,
This might be a silly question, but I just received the thats how I roll tshirt and the design on the front is printed crooked on the tshirt. Is that part of the 'Crooked Monkey style, or should the design be straight on the t-shirt?"
We actually had to check the warehouse to see what she was talking about. And she's right, the text is a bit crooked. But that's on purpose! No one else had ever asked us about it, but it's a valid point.
I also like that she gave us an out--because our name is Crooked Monkey, we're allowed to produce Crooked shirts. But rest assured, if its printed crooked, it's because we meant to, not because we're trying to solidify our brand.
Every now and then we explain the idea behind Retiring shirts. We'll do it again here.
In order to keep our site fresh, we are always coming out with new t-shirts. And to make room for these new shirts, we need to retire the older guys. This doesn't mean we don't love them, or that we've forsaken them.
On our new website (to debut in 9 months) we'll have an option to vote those shirts back in, so we can reproduce the shirts you guys love. Because to be honest, the "I slid into third at rachel's bat mitzvah" is one of my all time favorite t-shirts.
Holiday shipping is always a bit stressful. Like Santa, we need to deliver on time, every time. But unlike Santa, we don't have thousands of elves working for us--just caring and loving interns.
For Father's Day we're running a huge promotion--25% off any of our t-shirts when you use the promo code "Father." We've noticed some pretty questionable "Father's Day gifts"--namely random girls shirts and the I'm not a gardener i just like hoes shirts. I know those shirts aren't going to your dad, but we won't tell anyone. We're happy when you're happy.
Speaking of being happy when you're happy, I wanted to share some customer testimonials. Real people, just like you, who bought shirts and appreciated our prompt, pro active customer service.
Dave from California writes: "Hey guys, I'm wondering if there's any way I can buy just a few of your company stickers with the crooked monkey logo. You guys always threw in some freebies with my t-shirt orders, but this time I'm just looking for some more stickers if possible.
Dave in California"
We sent him a bunch of stickers and ping pong balls for free. We appreciated his suggestion of paying, but we're going to ship that stuff out for free.
Spencer from France writes: "So many choices! So, the story is that I'm in France and it's going to be my parents who are bringing it here (yes I'm trying to take crooked monkey global)....
If you think it'd arrive in time, I'll go with the Tips shirt, but if you're hesitant, I'm entirely happy with the polaroid shirt.
I leave the decision in your expert hands!"
We appreciated him calling us experts and are glad that he will be taking the shirts to France.
Craig from Connecticut writes: "Proactive customer support….I’m impressed."
Enough said.
So if you've got something nice to say, just email us. Thanks!
At Crooked Monkey, customer service is paramount. The customer is always right, and we're always super excited when customers get phenomenal deals. We even like to share them with you so that you can replicate their deals--and get t-shirts for as cheap as possible.
As you are fully aware, People.com's Stylewatch, featured our funny t-shirts on their site and offered a 20% discount. That discount, on all our t-shirts, ends on Friday. All you have to do is use the promo code: "People"
So here's the amazing deal: A customer bought two discounted shirts, used the People promo code and got free shipping (which everyone gets when you buy two shirts). She bought our Gimme Some Sugar t-shirt (on sale at $16) and our More money more problems t-shirt (Priced at $19.99 in honor of the recession). She ended up spending $28 for two shirts, including shipping. That's $14/shirt. Good work! I think she got the best deal ever for two t-shirts.
Go look for your own deals on www.crookedmonkey.com. Don't forget to use the 20% promo code.
Customers are always surprised when we say that we ship to every single country in the world. And I'm surprised by their being surprised.
Who are we to deprive our funny t-shirts to someone based on their geographical location. That's outright racism and we just won't stand for it.
It's not very difficult to ship t-shirts abroad--you just have to have a lot of faith in the postal service because when you ship abroad you are offered no guarantees and no tracking numbers.
On May 13th we shipped shirts to a customer in New Zealand. Two weeks ago the lady emailed us asking where her shirts were. We told her to hang tight because it had only been one week. Then she emailed us again last week. I gave her my personal address and told her it would arrive by the end of that week.
Then she emailed me yesterday asking for the shirts and I got nervous. 3 weeks? Come on now. I've been to Australia and it only takes 24 hours on a plane. So I told her to wait until Friday--and if her knight in shining armor (AKA the postal man with her favorite shirt) didn't arrive, we would mail out a replacement. For Free.
She emailed me the following today:
"Just when I was about to lose all faith in the postal system - my tshirt arrived!
I am SUPER Stoked! Will be wearing it to work tomorrow.
Thanks heaps
Cristina" You can tell its an authentic email because she wrote "Heaps" and shes allowed to wear her shirt to work. Good on ya.
As you all aware, we are running a 20% discount on all our funny shirts. You don't have to type in a promo code--its a gift to celebrate our 200th blog post.
A customer of ours just logged onto the site and got a phenomenal deal--better than any recession buster deal I've seen.
Here's how it went down: Fully aware that you can get free shipping when you buy two or more shirts, he ordered a couple Facebook t-shirts at the regular 20% sale, and then entered an extra 15% promo code at checkout. Leaving him with a total discount of 42% off!! The total should've been: $53, but because of his savvy shopping, he only paid $30.72. Good work. We're always happy to see our customers take advantage of great deals, and this is one of those once-in-a-lifetime deals.
Before we announce the winner I must admit how thrilled we are with the quality of the submissions. Everyday I was oohhed and aaaahhed by the quality and quantity of submissions we received.
Because of the phenomenal response to our Valentines Day Poem Contest, we've decided to have more t-shirt contests, more often. During this recession, we've got to be creative and find ways to help the consumer spend less money. We've already got ideas for contests, but if you've got any, please email us or post the ideas as a comment here. We're building a nice community here at Crooked Monkey funny t-shirts, and we're loving it! Feel free to subscribe to our RSS feed to keep abreast of all contests, funny blog posts and new t-shirts.
Choosing the best poem was quite difficult. We are swamped with tons of work in anticipation of the largest annual tradeshow of funny t-shirts next week in Vegas, but instead of working on that, we spent all day reading and rereading these poems. And after reading all the poems, we didn't feel it was right to just pick the best and leave the rest out, so we chose a top 5. Perhaps in the future we'll give prizes to the top 3 poems, but this time only the winner wins. Number 5: Eve with "My Sweetest Gift" Number 4: Kittielee Faircloth with "The touch of your Lips" Number 3: Heath with "The economy is Bad" Number 2: Nathaniel with "My Dear Love" Number 1: Lior Geft with "Romance 101"
The top 5 are all posted as comments under the original Valentines Day Blog Post. So please check them out because they are all awesome in their own right.
We posted Lior's poem as a blog post a few days back, but it still did not do it justice. So if you'd like to view it, please download the poem, in its original format (the poem is written in the shape of a rose and its quite beautiful). We uploaded it to our server.
Here's a beautiful note that a customer received after she sent her friend a Crooked monkey t-shirt.
Moral of the story Part I: If you want your friendsto love you, buy them Crooked Monkey funny t-shirts. Moral of the story Part II: If you want a girl to get naked, buy her a Crooked Monkey funny t-shirt. Here's the Email:
"OMG!!!! You continue to awe me!!!!! What an amazing surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thaaaaaaank YOU sooooo much, girl.
I looove the shirt...I immediately ripped off my clothes to put it on!! Oh my, I am SUCH a lucky girl. MY life is WAAAAAAY better & brighter & more fun & more inspiring with a Colette. I wanna keep you FOREVER n' ever.
I luv u bunches. Thanks for making my day such a special one with a rollerskating shirt & the cutesy card EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you recall, we wrote a blog about one of our customers entitled "Cause Breaking up is hard to do." It's one of my favorite blog posts about a customer, for a number of reasons, but it was also the start of our Things you can't find on google series. During that post we created our "Dumpee discount," where we offer a 15% discount to any customer who recently breaks up with his/her significant other.
I then googled "dumpee discount" and found that no one else in the history of time has ever written those two words, side-by-side. Is Crooked Monkey the only brand caring enough to help alleviate the rebounding process--i.e. promoting consumerism as a way to mask any deeper or lingering issues? It seeems so.
Anyways, that same client who broke up with her boyfriend (in the time it took her to order and then receive her shirt) wanted a refund. And because we love giving refunds to our customers of funny t-shirts, we proceeded with it.
Fast forward to today, when we are working on closing our books for 2008. We noticed that our merchant provider did not process the refund correctly--resulting in a bank error in Crooked Monkey's favor. The customer didn't notice that the refund wasn't processed, and since we never heard from her we could've simply moved on without processing the refund, in essence "fixing the glitch (see youtube video below)". But since we have a moral conscience, are not some evil corporation (like Initech), and love our customers, we mailed out a check today for the refund. It's fun to do good in this world.
Since we are primarily a wholesale funny t-shirt company, we don't get to hear from our satisfied customers as much as we'd like. When we do hear the love stories, we get all tingly inside and are motivated to create even funnier t-shirts.
This particular story is a bit bittersweet. A customer emailed us today asking for her favorite Crooked Monkey shirt. Only issue is, we don't (and never have) carried that tee. She was convinced that it was a Crooked Monkey original, but after an intense round of emails she conceded that in fact, the CEO and founder of Crooked Monkey would recognize a Crooked Monkey slogan when he saw it.
But even greater than her belief that all funny t-shirts can only be produced by Crooked Monkey, is that she decided to stop looking for the shirt she was hoping for, and pick up a C Monkey shirt instead.
Colette W. wrote: "Ahhh that’s too bad! It was in the Crooked Monkey section and I thought I saw the little monkey on the back. Oh well… Will head over to the online store now – I’d rather support Crooked Monkey anyway."
She was looking for a Rehab t-shirt. We gave her a discount and a few meds.
Today we got an email from another one of our satisfied customers. During the holiday gift giving season, it's not always easy to please everyone. But we try pretty darned hard. One way we do that is by shipping on time, everytime. Because, as the late Chris Farley believes:
You know i could guarantee you all day long, but we both know a guarantee is only as good as the man who writes it.
So here's the email. Debbie P. got her funny t-shirt today (her order was processed yesterday): "I just wanted to let you know that the package was delivered today. I don't know what to say. You're amazing. Thank you so much! Have a Merry Christmas!!" Just another day at the office...
Christmas has come early for Crooked Monkey. Nine days early. Today we shipped a record number of online orders, making sure that you guys will be able to give your t-shirts on time this holiday season. The most fun part of holiday shipping, is the gift-messages we get to write on behalf of our customers.
Its a fun exercise, as we hand write each letter, but are not allowed to correct or even question the messages posted. Most of the stuff is composed of indecipherable inside jokes, replete with LOLs and OMGs. And usually its just wishing someone a happy Kwanza or Ramadan.
But today we got an interesting one. The t-shirt purchased was Dead Man Walking, and the gift card read: "Will U plz marry me, ring 2 follow."
A bit impersonal, but we're happy to help in anyway we can. Sometimes, a t-shirt making fun of marriage is the best way to get someone to marry you. Playing hard to get--even up until the last second. I admire that.
We just got a very sweet email from a loyal customer of Crooked Monkey's funny t-shirts, and we decided to share it with you all.
Amanda R. wrote: "I LOVE my Pluto tee-shirt, and would love to buy extras for when it wears out. Any chance it will come out of retirement?"
Amanda really loves her shirt, and we love her for it. Since the shirt is retired, I'd suggest wearing it a little less often, and taking more pictures of you enjoying the shirt. Maybe even putting it away for your kids, so that they too can enjoy the wonders of funny t-shirts.
What's the deal with retired t-shirts? We love every t-shirt we produce--our strict standards require a long vetting process (not unlike that of the Vice Presidential candidates)--but all good things must come to an end. And in the interest of remaining fresh and keeping our shirts unique, we retire shirts. If we never retired the shirt, then it would be mass produced. And that's no fun.
Our t-shirt, Waking up is hard to do T-shirt, is based on the song "Cause breaking up is hard to do," so it was no surprise when we got an email from one of our customers the other day asking for our return policy.
She told us that she had purchased two Crooked monkey t-shirts and needed to return them because from the time she ordered the shirts until she received them, her relationship status on Facebook went from "In a relationship" to "single."
That's not the first time that happened. The same girl that wrote and composed "I got dumped for Obama" also got dumped 3 years ago. Her name is Rachel, and she bought our "I slid into third at rachel's bat mitzvah" t-shirt. And this was in the beginning days when we didn't keep stock. It took us about 4 weeks to ship it, and by then she had been dumped (for another girl) and canceled her order.
A few valuable lessons: A)Crooked Monkey makes great gifts for boyfriends. B)When you get dumped by a boyfriend/girlfriend, come to Crooked Monkey. We now have a dumpee discount. Type in dumpee at checkout and get 15% off at checkout. But you better be able to prove that you're newly single.
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In the last few days we've gotten some emails and Facebook messages of Crooked Monkey sightings throughout the New World .
