Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Customer service isn't dead after all!

Some of you know that I had a varied array of professions before settling into teaching. Waiting tables and working in retail are two of them. I enjoyed both of these jobs, and they taught me a lot about customer service.

For quite a while, it has seemed to me that customer service is a dying art. It was bound to happen in these days of takeout and internet shopping. I guess it's not entirely bad, but it makes me kind of sad. Mostly because I know that I really enjoyed helping people when the roles were reversed.

Lately I've been looking for some cute pregnancy jeans. Let me tell you that there are lots of pregnancy capris out on stores right now, but I'll also tell you that capris won't be working for my ankles (Okay, fine. What will then be "cankles.") in a few months, so no sense on buying those. Tonight I went to Motherhood Maternity in the Southtowne Mall, where I met Emily. She is the cutest, sweetest, most understanding sales associate that I've had the pleasure of purchasing anything from in quite a while. She listened to what I actually wanted, didn't try to sell me what I didn't want, actually had an opinion on what I tried on, and acted like she loved her job in a way that I don't think she was faking it.

Why is this such a big deal to me? Honestly, I don't know. But this post goes out to all the Emilys that can make someone's day just by doing their job and doing it well. Thanks for all you do. It really is appreciated.

4 comments:

  1. That's sweet of you. Did you tell Emily? Or her boss? It is true-there are lots of hard workers out there. Unfortunately, our attention usually lands on the duds.

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  2. I agree with Suzanne...it is unfortunate that we usually focus on the bad when relaying information to managers. I wonder if it could somehow change the decline in customer service if we shared stuff about the positive experiences and not necessarily all the negative ones (I know of somewhere else that could work to change a few things ;) ). I love when I come across an Emily out there...it totally make my day!

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  3. I love people like Emily! She sounds like a great help. I love your pants today by the way. Very cute. :)

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  4. I totally agree with you! I also wrote a similar post not too long ago about some great service I was given. It feels so good! I also learned that it feels just as good to let them know exactly how they have made you feel! My new goal is to try and recognize when such Emilys come my way!

    By the way, I am going to use your "By The Numbers" as a post for my blog. I hope you don't mind, but I thought it was fun!

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