First an earthquake and now Hurricane Irene.

This has been an eventful week for the East Coast and now the threat of a devastating hurricane is embarking on the largest city in the U.S. After the blizzard blunder last Winter, the city is not taking any chances. In addition to shutting down the entire New York mass transit system, Mayor Bloomberg has issued mandatory evacuations in all five burroughs of the city. As a natural worrier, I have been checking updates via social media all day, crossing my fingers that my pint-sized apartment will be a safe hideout for me this weekend. So far, so good.

Despite my fear about all of this chaos, I have found myself quite impressed and almost at ease with the abundance of information. One particularly useful tool is WYNC’s Evacuation Zone map. By simply typing in your address in the Zoom To box at the top of the map, you can see what (if any) evacuation zone you are in and how much damage you should anticipate. With Irene’s unpredictable behavior, it’s important for New York residents to stay updated as much as possible.

I completed my feature earlier this week for the November issue of CRM about crisis management among prominent businesses (ie. Toyota’s recall and Groupon’s Super Bowl commercials) and found a consistent similarity: You must communicate quickly with your customers as their patience is almost nonexistent these days. This weekend is no different: Everyone wants to know how they should protect themselves from the hurricane’s wrath.

Stay safe, everyone. I urge you to take advatage of social media and other digital resources to stay informed in real-time.

While researching my feature for the November issue, I came across a recent survey by Consumer Reports that found out just how bad consumer sentiment is about customer service in this country. The numbers are dramatic, and should act as a call to action for the industry, but I don’t have a lot of faith that anything’s gonna happen.

So here’s the bad news: nearly two-thirds of consumers have walked out of a store because they didn’t get the assistance they needed. Sixty-seven percent have hung up on a service call before their particular issues could be addressed. Seventy-one percent were “tremendously annoyed” at not being able to get a real person on the phone, 65 percent were just as annoyed after an encounter with a rude salesperson, and 56 percent felt that way about having to take multiple phone steps to reach the right place.

There is nothing unusual or surprising about a research study showing that American consumers are unhappy with the service they receive from the companies that want their business. Surveys have uncovered similar levels of dissatisfaction for years. What is surprising is that so little has been done over the years to remedy the situation. That needs to change, and fast.

Business Insider reported yesterday that Groupon is “running low on cash.” According to Henry Blodget’s article, “on the surface, things look great.” Groupon reportedly had $224 million in cash as of June 30. The company did report a $103 loss in quarter two, but the group buying darling generated about $25 million of “free cash flow” that quarter.

So, what’s the problem? ”The trouble is that the cash Groupon generates from the Groupon sales is not all Groupon’s to keep,” Blodget writes. “It owes a big chunk of that cash to the merchants it sells Groupons for. And at the end of Q2, Groupon owed a lot more cash to merchants than it had on hand.”

Just how much does Groupon owe? As of June 30, Blodget continues, the company owed $392 million, which is a bit higher than the $225 million it currently has in its pocket. Groupon also had $680 million in “current liabilities,” a.k.a. outstanding bills, but only $376 million in current assets. That’s quite the gap. But is Groupon really in the red?

Maybe. Blodget writes that if Groupon’s growth “slows sharply…the company could quickly face a cash crunch–as those $300+ million of bills come due before Groupon accrues the cash necessary to pay them.” With companies like LivingSocial on Groupon’s heels, there could be a shake-up in the group buying marketplace.

While working on my feature about mobile commerce a few months back, analysts, marketers, and even consumers seemed to agree that the smartphone has the potential to replace the traditional wallet. This surprised me. Maybe I’m a distrustful person, but I still can’t bring myself to make a purchase on my Blackberry. I just started to feel (somewhat) comfortable shopping online, and I keep all hard copies of my receipts for at least a year. However, I apparently am behind my time.

This week, Mashable reported on a recent study by Ogilvy & Mather. After asking 500 U.S. Internet users who they trusted with mobile payments, Visa and Mastercard came in at the top two spots with 39.6 percent and 35.8 percent, respectively. Facebook was the loser. Despite its growing popularity, consumers are unlikely to trust the social networking site for their retail therapy habits.

Despite my conservative virtual shopping habits, I’m curious to see the results a few years down the road. My prediction? It won’t be long until Facebook is a major shopping hub.

But I’ll remain a mall rat for life.

As consumers, we’ve all grown accustomed to being put into specific groups as companies compile demographics about their customer bases. I’ve accepted my designation as a single, white, urban, college-educated, middle-class, male homeowner with a dog and a cat. I’ve also come to accept that marketers will use this information hit me with sales pitches for products that people who share these same traits have already bought (I might not always like it, but it’s a fact of life today when every company is trying desperately to attract new customers).

I’ve also come to accept that companies I do business with store personal information about me and my purchasing history. I know and accept that Internet service providers keep track of the sites I visit and what I do when I’m there. Sites I visit keep cookies, Google tracks my search history, and even my email provider stores data about my personal online communications.

And then, there are some demographic profiles that just border on the inane, if not ridiculous.

When I got into the office this morning, one of the first things I did was open my email and check for new messages (That’s something I do every morning, and I’m sure someone’s got that little nugget about me stored in some database somewhere). As I sifted through the dozens of emails awaiting my attention, I came across a news release from 1800Mobiles.com in which the eCommerce site claimed to have found a correlation between a person’s political leaning and his choice of mobile device. If you believe the data, Democrats prefer iPhones and BlackBerries while Republicans favor Android devices.

To reach this conclusion, 1800Mobiles.com and JumpTab, which actually did the research, cross-referenced the 2008 presidential election map against a map that pinpointed mobile device user preferences by state. Apparently, the iPhone is the device of choice in the Northeast and Android is the dominant platform in the South and Southwest. BlackBerry made strong showings in states like New York and Oregon.

“There is an overwhelming advantage for Democrats when it comes to the number of states where iPhones are the leading devices. A slight majority of states that went to Obama also prefer BlackBerry phones. Android-leading states saw a Republican advantage,” the release stated.

The release wasn’t without a necessary sense of humor: “Most smartphones are free with service, while iPhones still cost hundreds of dollars. What does that tell you about Democrats and overspending?” Marcello DeLuca, co-founder of 1800Mobiles.com, was quoted as saying. The release also mentions that President Barack Obama has often been seen using a BlackBerry, but questions whether he actually owns the device.

The release makes it a point of advising readers to take the research “with a grain of salt.” Now that’s probably the most useful sentence in the release.