Hello darlings,
Read this story and simply needed to share. It’s by The Mail’s Jan Moir about a toy shop in London:
***
About six weeks ago, my lovely godson Nye Davies took it upon himself to write to his favorite toy shop.
In a letter to a London branch of Hawkin’s Bazaar, Nye explained he wanted to own a joke shop when he grew up and wondered if the Bazaar had any Saturday jobs going as he needed to get some experience.
Yes, he already has a busy schedule that includes school, rugby and the regular consumption of sausages, but good to know that my Nye is planning ahead.
This week, coincidentally, on his eighth birthday, Nye received a huge box of lovely presents, including a radio-controlled car and a revolving planetarium.
Who were these extravagant gifts from, wondered his parents?
Surely not his daffy fairy godmother Jan, because her presents always arrive about a week late! In fact the parcel was sent from a Tina Campbell of Hawkin’s Bazaar and included a note thanking Nye for his lovely letter and explaining he was a little too young to work in one of their shops, but that they would be delighted to employ him when he was older.
She also hoped Nye enjoyed the gifts and wondered if he would like to tour their factory and play with some of the toys there.
Isn’t that charming? We hear so much about poor service in these straitened times, so how cheering to see such a triumph in customer relations.
A hat tip to you, Hawkin’s Bazaar.
And a big hug to Tina Campbell, who – out of the simple goodness of her heart – nourished a little boy’s dreams, encouraged his ambition and absolutely made his eighth birthday.
***
I LOVED this story because most of the time customer service in shops has me spitting nails.
Like the time I entered a bank in Zimbabwe and found the tellers with their bum perched on a desk discussing a romantic interlude that had gone wrong while the queue was growing to the door and the customers stood there like lemmings and said nothing. Until, I let rip and then I received a ‘hear, hear’ from all the customers and then I let rip into them for just standing there accepting poor service. Lucky for them I just happened to have the Managing Director’s telephone number on me and was happy to share. His wife later asked me if I’d been in the Borrowdale branch and I said yes, and she said, ‘He thought it must have been you. They said a scary Scottish woman told them to phone him to complain.
Or the time in the supermarket when I’d been charged twice for a microwave and when I mentioned it to the girl at the checkout she said it was too late to reimburse me the money because she’d just closed the till and I’d need to go to customer service with the receipt for a refund. Eh? It’s not often I’m speechless, but even my daughter’s eyes went huge at that one! (She’s laid back and easy-going compared to her mother.)
And this week I’ve had another great experience with Kobo customer service who have put up my romance A Stormy Spring on their site – woo hoo!
And since I’ve your undivided attention, here’s an excerpt – please feel free to share around your social networks.
A Stormy Spring
***
‘If I could move the way she does I’d be useless in the kitchen too,’ Moira informed him, totally unrepentant that she’d overheard part of their conversation.
Lucas caught Becca’s shocked wide-eyed stare.
‘Si, my housekeeper has no filter between her brain and her mouth.’
Completely unfazed by the insult, Moira simply shot him a look.
‘Lunch is served in the orangery.’
Becca turned laughing eyes on him. ‘I’ll go and change.’
But he captured her hand in his. ‘No, please, let me have the pleasure of looking at you just as you are. And I have a present for you.’
Moments later Becca caught her hands behind her back and peered up into his face.
‘Are you serious?’
Baffled, he looked at her. ‘It is a laptop.’
She stared at it as if it was an atomic bomb. ‘I know it’s a laptop. But I’m a complete technophobe. It’ll probably burst into flames or self-destruct.’
He blinked. ‘What about social networking?’
‘Nope.’
‘Shopping, email, facebook, twitter, pinterest?’
‘Nope. And I don’t want to know what pinterest is.’
‘It is very creative, you would enjoy it. What about business?’
Becca shook her head still glowering at the laptop. ‘I do my level best never to be left in a room alone with one.’
Bewildered now he stared at her. ‘Alone with one what?’
‘A computer.’ His laugh had her glare at him. ‘Seriously, you never know what it might do.’
‘Querida,’ he said in a silky voice. ‘I will show you.’
‘If an IT wizard couldn’t teach me, what makes you think you’ll crack it?’
He gave his signature shrug. ‘It is very simple and you are clever and creative.’
She simply stared at the slim silver laptop and didn’t bother to hide the bitterness in her voice.
‘Life was so much easier when Apple and Blackberry were fruit.’
***
There’s a reason I’ve used that excerpt and it’s because I’ve a new Mac and the word Demented is now used to describe me in this house. I’ve just sent away for iPages for Dummies and since I can touch type the keyboard’s driving me crazy too so we’re buying a new one and since it needs to be compatible with a Mac it’s costing a bloody fortune. Thus far I am NOT impressed.
You know your comments make my week!
So, tell us, what fabulous customer service have you enjoyed? Let’s give them a BIG round of applause!
What customer service has been bloody awful? Name and shame them here!
CC MACKENZIE - USA Today Bestselling Author 
Good customer service = Discover Card! They tell you right away that they’re “in Scottsdale, Arizona” and yes, they speak understandable English - first requirement of good service in the US. And they took care of my problem right away. Nintendo of America is the same way. Broken screen on a DS that’s less than a year old? Send it back, and we’ll send a new one, they said. And they did, right away.
OTOH, Time Warner Cable probably has used the recordings of some of my husband’s calls for “training purposes.” Although I think they’ve improved a bit - some of our cable channels were out last week, so he called them and didn’t have any funny stories for me when I got home from work.
Hi Jennette,
This sounds good - Discover card! Gold star!
Time Warner - Not so much!
I gave Sky a rocket when we unsubscribed. They telephoned us about nine times a day. Until, I went ballistic. Nothing since, except now it’s unsolicited mail!
My IPad is great…still learning it. I don’t have service for it so I’m dependent upon free wifi. I should have spent my many bucks on a real apple laptop so I could keep files as in my chapters/story. But it takes great, super awesome pics n videos. Five people in the house and now down to one working computer…ouch! Yeah I need a job to buy technology. Our big screen tv fell over n crashed…slowly technology is escaping from me. I’m whining now so I’ll stop. Cheers;)!
Hi Gardenlilie
It will be fine, once I get my head around it. However, the learning curve is not computing in my brain. I’ve heard plenty people say the Mac is easy to understand, nope, not for me it isn’t and I’ve a logical mind.
When we’re used to having our brain connected to our fingers and then there’s a disconnect, it’s not been pretty and very frustrating. But as they say in this house, the machine does not have a brain, but I do. I think.
Good Luck and keep at it!
Hi CC
Unsubscribing from most things is a pain. ATT being one of them. But my web host bluehost.com just refunded me money in a moment, which makes a change.
Don’t like your mac? They are a change from PCs and experience (esp in the UK) tends to be thinner on the ground. Overall I find them way better. Almost no viruses, better software, things work when you plug them in, all sorts of things. Mind you I can only type with two fingers at a time …
Cheers!
Hey Nigel,
Just rec’d iWork for Dummies which will help moi! The touch experience for the skinny wireless keyboard means too many typos. My keyboard for my PC is a specialist one for touch typing which mean virtually no typos so my frustration levels are high since I need to slow down my typing. However, found a fab keyboard DAS https://www.daskeyboard.com/blog/?p=3093 which has been designed for touch typists for the Mac. Costs about $140 but Hugo’s buying it to keep me happy.
I can type at 140words per minute and can type and talk and read at the same time without looking at the keys. My son says it’s spooky to watch but then he’s easily spooked!
Aw that toy store is AWESOME and that woman is an amazing employee! She should be rewarded for going above and beyond to continue nurturing a positive relationship with customers. 🙂
Hi Kourtney, I think she’s one of the company directors, but isn’t it a lovely story? Can you imagine his face when he opened up the parcel on his birthday?
Aw, what a sweet story about your godson Christine. His story restores some hope in the human race! LOL! Excuse me. 140 words per minute? Say what? That’s amazing and totally unheard of. I myself get frustrated with my vaio keyboard. I type faster than what shows up on the screen and sometimes I think it didn’t compute what I’d typed and go to type the word again and then it shows up and I’ve typed the word twice. Err! Anyway how are you my friend. I think I’m due for an email. I shoot you one over soon. Hope you had a wonderful weekend! 🙂
Not my Godson, hun, Jan Moir’s Godson, lol!
Yes, I’ve been timed over the years and that one was the fastest. Could have been luck and I was in the ‘zone.’
We actually have sunshine and warm weather - a miracle! Been in the garden!
More than once I’ve experienced the cashier making a mistake and then sending me to stand in line at customer service desk instead of fixing it themselves. Truly a lesson in patience but while waiting in the second line I like to stew in my head about the cashier’s potential karma. 🙂
I’m glad it’s not just here. Actually, that didn’t come out right! I’m not GLAD you’re cashiers are as bad as some of ours, but you know what I mean. Nothing worse is there? And just to let you all know, we’re at thirty degrees - hot and sunny! Can this last? I’m out in the garden sunning myself and reading! Woo Hoo!
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