I know that I rant and rave about the customers I’ve had a good bit, but at the end of the day I know my place and my job. It’s to make those customers happy. I’ll admit that there have been times where I haven’t done everything in my power to make these people happy, but overall, I do go the extra mile to generate good customer service.
Some people don’t understand what good customer service is. It doesn’t mean annoying the customer into the sale. It means making them want to make that purchase because you’re just so damn nice and sincere and where the hell else are they gonna find such good customer service? It means making the customer’s experience at your store so friendly that not only with they shop with your company again, but they will be sure to come back to your store.
In short, it’s being a half-way decent human being and knowing how to talk to people.
Now, onto the management side of my rant. Management is knowing your shit and finding out if you don’t know. It’s not removing and item from the display because you don’t have any more. You can still order it for the customer, dipshit. It’s also performing maintenence on the engraving machine. Not letting all the gears and rubber chains inside dry up and then wondering why you smell something burning. As a point of clarity, the engraving maching is your primary source of income, meaning every time you have to tell a customer that the engraver is broken, you’ve lost a sale. Good job skippy.
It’s also understanding that everything can’t be perfect, and if you keep trying you’re going to lose your god-forsaken mind and destroy everything in the process.
It doesn’t matter how many pretty little charts you can churn out of you computer. It matters whether or not your employees care. You can’t hand them a chart and say here, fill this out, cuz I said so. You hand them a chart, explain how to fill it out, explain why, and come up with a reward system for doing well, you brain dead simp. You also treat your employees like adults, not 3 years olds. You make them feel like you respect them.
And if you want them to do their job, you make them feel like they have a stake in how your store does. You don’t run around acting like the whole world rests on your shoulders and there’s nothing anyone can do to help. You get them involved, you ask for their ideas, you try to use their ideas. You hold little meetings to discuss ideas and progress.
You don’t stand there with one of the best Assistant Managers I’ve ever worked with and act like your world is over. Your world is over when she leaves. “Oh what will I do when I have to work 80 hours a week?” Uh, you’ll freakin do it, or quit. Here’s the lesson I learned: Better to work the 80 hours a week. At least the work will actually get done that way. Oh yeah, hiring friends, generally a bad idea. Especially ones with loyalty issues who haven’t held a job in years.
K. All done now. I think.
