It Costs Nothing to be Nice

Hoorah! The shops are reopening. Now my family have a lot of birthdays in July, so I decided to support one of my local shops that had just started trading again, and get organised with the birthday cards.

Obviously shopping is a different experience now, and aside from my weekly visits to the supermarket, I haven’t been anywhere else.

I am perfectly versed in the current (at time of writing) 2m rule, and keeping my social distance. I also wear a mask.

Shock and Hurt

When I got to the card shop, there was no queue outside, and a few people inside. So I entered and started to browse.

Suddenly an aggressive voice boomed forth from behind me.

“If you don’t follow our designated one way system I shall have to ask you to leave the premises.”

Turning round I was greeted by the stern face of the store manager (I think). I was taken aback a bit by her surly manner, and opened my mouth to begin to apologise.

However, before I could get a word out, she added, “And while you are at it, you can use some hand sanitizer”, whilst pointing at bottle of hand wash liquid.

Feeling Silly

Now, I admit that I had walked straight past this. It was low level and I just didn’t notice it as I passed. There was a sign on it too, so I felt a bit silly. The one way system, was marked out on the floor, but again I was just heading straight to where the cards I wanted were, which were actually really close to the entrance to the shop.

The daft thing was, by following the one way system, I would have had to pass six people in close proximity, whereas going straight to the cards I wanted I would have passed no one!

However, I understand that those are the rules and, yes they have a responsibility to enforce them.

I guess my point is that whilst I made a mistake, no one deserves to be spoken to in that way. I felt hurt, admonished and ridiculed like a school kid being told off by a moody teacher.

I had made a conscious decision that day to support a local business that would have been struggling during lockdown. I have now made another conscious decision. I will never, ever enter that shop again.

Got Me Thinking

The process got be thinking. How would I have handled the situation differently. I imagine I would have approached the customer, maintaining my distance, and just quietly reminded them that

“Unfortunately there is a one way system in operation is it possible to follow the arrows to help us comply with the new rules”

It was that simple – If I had been spoken to like that, I would still be a customer.

Lessons Learned

The take home message I got from this is that, even in these difficult times you can’t treat your customers in this way.

We have talked about this incident at Hipposerve and we are collectively determined to ensure that all our customers are fully supported at all times.

They will be treated with respect no matter what the support request is, however small and seemingly insignificant. If someone has taken the time to contact our support desk, then the issue is not insignificant to them.

We have made a pledge to treat our customers with the respect that they deserve, so that they will not turn away and look for business elsewhere.

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