Good Customers

I’m going to take a break from all the ranting about psychotic customers and talk about two of the most awesome customers I’ve ever had.

The first one I encountered shortly after I had started working at Things Remembered. This woman called the store around 8pm. She asked if she would be able to get something engraved tonight, and said that she probably wouldn’t be down until almost 9pm and asked if that was still okay. I told her it wouldn’t be a problem. That’s my rule. If you call me and check to see if I’d be willing to cram in a last minute engraving; I’ll do it. If you show up at my kiosk at 8:50; it’s not happening. It’s a courtesy issue. At any rate, while I was waiting for this woman to show up, I encountered another customer who was, at least mildly, inebriated. He showed up and didn’t know what he wanted at all. Then as I’m trying to help him, he runs around and just starts picking out, what seemed to be, random items. Then he wanted some of them engraved. The whole while he was on the phone with his wife arguing about something. I wasn’t finished with this customer until after 9pm. The woman had already shown up and was very patient with me. She would ask questions only when I wasn’t in the middle of talking to the guy. Other customer were around here and there asking questions. The whole time, the woman never once got impatient or angry with me. When I finally got finished with the guy; I moved on to help the woman. She already knew exactly what she wanted. I grabbed a workorder, filled it out, she filled out her part. I rang her up and engraved her item. I showed it to her; she loved it. She then asked for my manager’s name, I gave it to her. She thanked me a few million times and then left.

I am already enternally grateful to this woman as it is. She was so patient and so nice, and I had already learned by this point; that this is a rarity in customers. However, the best part of all of it, the woman wrote a letter to my manager describing the experience, much in the same way a secret shopper would; with great detail. She praised me over and over again and said that I gave her an even better impression than what she already held of the company, Then rounded the letter up with “Now that’s customer service.”

The other awesome customer I had was just the other day. The man rushed up to the kiosk and just started racing around, looking for something, anything, that he could give as a gift. He spotted the trinket boxes and started asking me about them. He picked the one he wanted, against my better judgment, but I won’t hold that against him. He started asking how long it would take. I told him it would take about an hour to engrave it. He started pacing as I searched for the trinket box in our back stock. He started asking if there was anyway it would be done sooner, and wanted to know if buying me lunch would get it done any faster. I just laughed at him and told him it wouldn’t make a difference. I found the trinket box, pulled it out and showed it to him. While looking at it, I realized it was an item that uses a plate. This kind of item is the easiest to engrave be it’s just a flat piece of metal. The other bonus, these items have replacement plates. This means that if I mess one up, I just grab another plate and start over. These don’t count against mis-engraves, meaning I don’t have to tape test them first, which means it takes me very little time to engrave it.

So the first thing I do is find out what he wants on it and the font. He wanted a 3-letter name and the Victoria font. Easy. I popped the plate in and started setting everything up. I turn back to him to fill out the rest of the workorder. He gets it all done and continues his attempts at bribing me, this time asking me if I wanted a drink. I pointed at my mountain dew. He said that he was going to get something to drink, for himself and that he’d be right back. When he returned, it was with a bag from Auntie Anne’s containing pretzel sticks and the cheese dipping sauce. I showed him the trinket box, he also bought a gift bag. He thanked me a few million times and vanished into thin air before I really got the chance to thank him for the pretzel sticks. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I don’t like Autie Anne’s cheese sauce though.

I don’t ask my customers to be this grateful. All I ask is you be considerate of the fact that I am doing everything I can to help you. I also ask that you treat me as an equal. I am not your slave, you’re not paying me, and without me, you’re fucked for that last minute gift. Don’t talk down to me. Don’t be rude to me. Don’t question everything I say. That’s all I ask. I don’t think that’s a lot; considering you’d ask for the same thing if roles were switched.