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Customer etiquette
Hi Everyone!
Please indulge me just a little. I work in a needlework shop and have just come home from two really busy days, where classes were being held in the shop. I have read many a post here about the rudeness of certain shop owners and hope you will listen to a little bit of it from the other end. Today we had 27 people taking two classes in the shop, 21 of who we also served lunch, plus the normal busy Saturday load of regular customers. 1. Please if you are going to be in the shop for six hours, don't ask me five time in the first forty five minutes if I have gotten the chart you ordered from the back yet, when you see I am trying to get the other 26 students checked in and set up with kits. Give me a fair amount of time before you start nagging. And please be a little considerate and don't expect me to kit it up with a complete color change in obscure threads and have it ready to leave with you that afternoon, when you know you will be back on Wednesday to attend another class and have no intention of starting it before then. 2. Don't bring your pet to class. I am an animal lover and I love when customers bring pets by on drop in and brief visits. However a full classroom is not the place to bring a nine week old puppy, no matter how adorable, and it is highly presumptive to assume that everyone will love the idea of his spending the day. (We sent him home with his father.) And just so you know for the future, I love animals. our insurance agent has issues with them. 3. If you have physical limitations or special requirements, please let us know in advance and we will do everything in our power to accommodate you. However, do not show up on the day of class and drag one of the big oversized leather chairs from the stitching parlor into the classroom. because it is more comfortable for your back if you are going to sit all day. We have determined how many students we can comfortably accommodate based on armless chairs and now that you are comfortably established several others are not. They have paid the same fee as you and are entitled to equal comfort. (I should mention that this is the same customer, who for several years and until quite recently would visit the shop, trailed by her husband carrying the wheelchair, in case she needed it, which she never did. She was highly insensed when the insurance company turned her down for the third new one in two years on the grounds that her condition didn't warrant it. I know insurance companies are sometimes unreasonable, but since we never saw her use either of the first two, we tend to agree with them.) 4. We want you to buy, the more you buy the happier we are. I am happy to run a tab for you. However, please do not expect me to keep track of 10 different individual piles of stash left haphazardly on the checkout counter and keep it straight what belongs to who. That is why we have those cute little baskets at the front door, so you can accummulate and we can both ooh and ah when you checkout and I can spread your acquisitions over the small amount of space I have in which to operate. 5. If you want to call in advance to see if we have what you require before making a fruitless trip, we will be happy to accommodate you. However, please try to do it at an off hour, (late on Friday afternoon, before the planned Saturday trip) especially if you have a list of 5 different threads in 2-3 colors each.). I know you might not be aware of how busy this Saturday above all others might be, but if you give me the time to check out you list I might be able to recommend alternatives for some of the harder to obtain threads. 6. If you are taking the two hour class in the front stitching parlor, don't take it upon yourself to troop back to the all day class taking place behind closed doors in the classroom and help yourself to their lunch buffet. 7. If you see a class or a demonstration taking place in the middle of the shop, please don't try to hold a conversation with a friend at the other end of the shop by yelling over the teacher. Also, don't be offended if we gently bring to your attention that the conversation you are having with yourself if taking place at a high enough volume to accommodate your hearing loss without turning on the hearing aids. I am sorry if I seem ungrateful for the business, normally I love our customers and privately laugh at some of their quirks, but it has been a hard two days and all of the above really did happen. Thanks for listening. Candy |
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In article , "CANDY CORRIGAN"
writes: 3. If you have physical limitations or special requirements, please let us know in advance and we will do everything in our power to accommodate you. I'll second that. As you all know, I am very free about offering my guest room to all and sundry. Several times, we've gotten everything set up, and then it comes out that one of the guests has mobility limitations and can't navigate either the front steps or the narrow indoor doorways or the bathroom the size of a cracker box. *You* know if you (or your travel companion) have a walker, wheelchair, scooter (or whatever) ... don't expect me to guess that you need to be told that this house doesn't comply with accessibility standards created 90 years after it was built. I've also had visitors show up and only *then* tell me that they're allergic to cats. At that point, it's a little late for me to do a complete strip and sanitize of the room. I've had dinner already on serving plates when a guest said "I'm a vegetarian" or "I'm allergic to that". If I'd been informed before I started cooking, I could have changed plans and put together a veggie stew or a non-dairy meal, but now that everyone else is ready to eat, you can just settle for a package of Ramen, which will cook up before the rest of us have to eat cold food. The last person to pull that stunt on me tried to lay a guilt trip on me that I'm a bad hostess. I'm a very good hostess -- I put a lot of time into cooking something that I thought everyone would enjoy. A very bad guest failed to inform me that I needed to make special arrangements for someone with special needs, and I was not going to feel guilty because I didn't interrogate every person "are there any dietary restrictions I need to know about?" -- Finished 12/14/03 -- Mermaid (Dimensions) WIP: Fireman's Prayer, Amid Amish Life, Angel of Autumn, Calif Sampler, Holiday Snowglobe Paralegal - Writer - Editor - Researcher http://hometown.aol.com/kmc528/KMC.html |
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"CANDY CORRIGAN" wrote in message ... Hi Everyone! snip I am sorry if I seem ungrateful for the business, normally I love our customers and privately laugh at some of their quirks, but it has been a hard two days and all of the above really did happen. Thanks for listening. Candy {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Candy}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} All I can say is YIKES! I'm glad to hear that you've survived - at least partly =) - and hope you can spend the rest of the weekend relaxing and forgetting about the past two days. -- Jenn L. http://community.webshots.com/user/jaliace http://sewu9corn.blogspot.com Current projects: Firehouse Angel (aka Angel of the Morning - L&L) Lady Scarlet's Journey (Just Nan) Ice Garden (Just Nan) |
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Hallo Candy ,,, i think i would like to live near a shop like your`s
from all the things described ,,,, [which made me smile as we all know `sombody` who behaves Just like that!!!] Alas you are way too far for me . But keep on the Good work . mirjam On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 23:19:12 -0500, "CANDY CORRIGAN" wrote: Hi Everyone! Please indulge me just a little. I work in a needlework shop and have just come home from two really busy days, where classes were being held in the shop. I have read many a post here about the rudeness of certain shop owners and hope you will listen to a little bit of it from the other end. Today we had 27 people taking two classes in the shop, 21 of who we also served lunch, plus the normal busy Saturday load of regular customers. 1. Please if you are going to be in the shop for six hours, don't ask me five time in the first forty five minutes if I have gotten the chart you ordered from the back yet, when you see I am trying to get the other 26 students checked in and set up with kits. Give me a fair amount of time before you start nagging. And please be a little considerate and don't expect me to kit it up with a complete color change in obscure threads and have it ready to leave with you that afternoon, when you know you will be back on Wednesday to attend another class and have no intention of starting it before then. 2. Don't bring your pet to class. I am an animal lover and I love when customers bring pets by on drop in and brief visits. However a full classroom is not the place to bring a nine week old puppy, no matter how adorable, and it is highly presumptive to assume that everyone will love the idea of his spending the day. (We sent him home with his father.) And just so you know for the future, I love animals. our insurance agent has issues with them. 3. If you have physical limitations or special requirements, please let us know in advance and we will do everything in our power to accommodate you. However, do not show up on the day of class and drag one of the big oversized leather chairs from the stitching parlor into the classroom. because it is more comfortable for your back if you are going to sit all day. We have determined how many students we can comfortably accommodate based on armless chairs and now that you are comfortably established several others are not. They have paid the same fee as you and are entitled to equal comfort. (I should mention that this is the same customer, who for several years and until quite recently would visit the shop, trailed by her husband carrying the wheelchair, in case she needed it, which she never did. She was highly insensed when the insurance company turned her down for the third new one in two years on the grounds that her condition didn't warrant it. I know insurance companies are sometimes unreasonable, but since we never saw her use either of the first two, we tend to agree with them.) 4. We want you to buy, the more you buy the happier we are. I am happy to run a tab for you. However, please do not expect me to keep track of 10 different individual piles of stash left haphazardly on the checkout counter and keep it straight what belongs to who. That is why we have those cute little baskets at the front door, so you can accummulate and we can both ooh and ah when you checkout and I can spread your acquisitions over the small amount of space I have in which to operate. 5. If you want to call in advance to see if we have what you require before making a fruitless trip, we will be happy to accommodate you. However, please try to do it at an off hour, (late on Friday afternoon, before the planned Saturday trip) especially if you have a list of 5 different threads in 2-3 colors each.). I know you might not be aware of how busy this Saturday above all others might be, but if you give me the time to check out you list I might be able to recommend alternatives for some of the harder to obtain threads. 6. If you are taking the two hour class in the front stitching parlor, don't take it upon yourself to troop back to the all day class taking place behind closed doors in the classroom and help yourself to their lunch buffet. 7. If you see a class or a demonstration taking place in the middle of the shop, please don't try to hold a conversation with a friend at the other end of the shop by yelling over the teacher. Also, don't be offended if we gently bring to your attention that the conversation you are having with yourself if taking place at a high enough volume to accommodate your hearing loss without turning on the hearing aids. I am sorry if I seem ungrateful for the business, normally I love our customers and privately laugh at some of their quirks, but it has been a hard two days and all of the above really did happen. Thanks for listening. Candy |
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Candy:
A lot of what you said you are correct example: 1) That the customer needs to inform you regarding special needs. 2) No pets do not belong in the shop, I love animals, but I'm not overly fond of other people's pets, especially when I'm paying for a class to learn something. Or even when I'm shopping, shop pets are OK as long as they don't expect me to pet them or spend time with them. If I wanted to spend time with a pet, I'd be home with my own. 3) Customers should not be re-arranging your class room to suit their needs without prior discussion etc. However the class room should have been ample enough to accomdate some changes, such as stitching lamps and/or floor or lap frames. 4) Eating another classes meal without an invitation or offer to pay for the service. 5) Piling stuff on on the counter, although I have to admit I'm guilt of this too, but I don't expect the shop owner or one of the ladies helping to remember what is my stuff and take responsibility for that myself. 6) Yelling is never acceptable in a shop, class or no class or anywheres outside your own house (because we yell all the time, my stitching area is in the basement and both my husband & I have bad knees, so the steps are not something we run up and down easily). However I would wonder if you have a class going on, why wasn't additional help hired for the day? Surely the class had been planned for several weeks of not months and the owner would have know it would be busy at least for the first couple of hours while checking people in for the class. Additional help would mean that there would have been someone there to pull the chart from the back or kit up the special material. If I had been a customer coming in to shop I would have expected you to pull the materials for my project and have it ready for me before I left the shop, I really don't think that was unreasonable for a person attending a class to expect it ready before they left, especially if the class was 6 hrs. Maybe stopping and doing it right that second was unreasonable, but having it before I left? No. My shop always hires one or two extra people (which "hire" ususally means regular customers willing to work for shop credit at $5.00/hr) which she knows she has a special event going on, or she plans the classes for after normal business hours (i.e. Sundays or Thursday nights). One person may not be doing anything other than running and fetching or cutting material. I agree 100% people need to be consider of others, both sides, customers as well as sales people and there isn't any excuse for bad manners. Sandra "CANDY CORRIGAN" wrote in message ... Hi Everyone! Please indulge me just a little. I work in a needlework shop and have just come home from two really busy days, where classes were being held in the shop. I have read many a post here about the rudeness of certain shop owners and hope you will listen to a little bit of it from the other end. Today we had 27 people taking two classes in the shop, 21 of who we also served lunch, plus the normal busy Saturday load of regular customers. 1. Please if you are going to be in the shop for six hours, don't ask me five time in the first forty five minutes if I have gotten the chart you ordered from the back yet, when you see I am trying to get the other 26 students checked in and set up with kits. Give me a fair amount of time before you start nagging. And please be a little considerate and don't expect me to kit it up with a complete color change in obscure threads and have it ready to leave with you that afternoon, when you know you will be back on Wednesday to attend another class and have no intention of starting it before then. 2. Don't bring your pet to class. I am an animal lover and I love when customers bring pets by on drop in and brief visits. However a full classroom is not the place to bring a nine week old puppy, no matter how adorable, and it is highly presumptive to assume that everyone will love the idea of his spending the day. (We sent him home with his father.) And just so you know for the future, I love animals. our insurance agent has issues with them. 3. If you have physical limitations or special requirements, please let us know in advance and we will do everything in our power to accommodate you. However, do not show up on the day of class and drag one of the big oversized leather chairs from the stitching parlor into the classroom. because it is more comfortable for your back if you are going to sit all day. We have determined how many students we can comfortably accommodate based on armless chairs and now that you are comfortably established several others are not. They have paid the same fee as you and are entitled to equal comfort. (I should mention that this is the same customer, who for several years and until quite recently would visit the shop, trailed by her husband carrying the wheelchair, in case she needed it, which she never did. She was highly insensed when the insurance company turned her down for the third new one in two years on the grounds that her condition didn't warrant it. I know insurance companies are sometimes unreasonable, but since we never saw her use either of the first two, we tend to agree with them.) 4. We want you to buy, the more you buy the happier we are. I am happy to run a tab for you. However, please do not expect me to keep track of 10 different individual piles of stash left haphazardly on the checkout counter and keep it straight what belongs to who. That is why we have those cute little baskets at the front door, so you can accummulate and we can both ooh and ah when you checkout and I can spread your acquisitions over the small amount of space I have in which to operate. 5. If you want to call in advance to see if we have what you require before making a fruitless trip, we will be happy to accommodate you. However, please try to do it at an off hour, (late on Friday afternoon, before the planned Saturday trip) especially if you have a list of 5 different threads in 2-3 colors each.). I know you might not be aware of how busy this Saturday above all others might be, but if you give me the time to check out you list I might be able to recommend alternatives for some of the harder to obtain threads. 6. If you are taking the two hour class in the front stitching parlor, don't take it upon yourself to troop back to the all day class taking place behind closed doors in the classroom and help yourself to their lunch buffet. 7. If you see a class or a demonstration taking place in the middle of the shop, please don't try to hold a conversation with a friend at the other end of the shop by yelling over the teacher. Also, don't be offended if we gently bring to your attention that the conversation you are having with yourself if taking place at a high enough volume to accommodate your hearing loss without turning on the hearing aids. I am sorry if I seem ungrateful for the business, normally I love our customers and privately laugh at some of their quirks, but it has been a hard two days and all of the above really did happen. Thanks for listening. Candy |
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[[[[[[[[[[[HUGS]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
Dianne CANDY CORRIGAN wrote: Hi Everyone! Please indulge me just a little. I work in a needlework shop and have just come home from two really busy days, where classes were being held in the shop. I have read many a post here about the rudeness of certain shop owners and hope you will listen to a little bit of it from the other end. Today we had 27 people taking two classes in the shop, 21 of who we also served lunch, plus the normal busy Saturday load of regular customers. 1. Please if you are going to be in the shop for six hours, don't ask me five time in the first forty five minutes if I have gotten the chart you ordered from the back yet, when you see I am trying to get the other 26 students checked in and set up with kits. Give me a fair amount of time before you start nagging. And please be a little considerate and don't expect me to kit it up with a complete color change in obscure threads and have it ready to leave with you that afternoon, when you know you will be back on Wednesday to attend another class and have no intention of starting it before then. 2. Don't bring your pet to class. I am an animal lover and I love when customers bring pets by on drop in and brief visits. However a full classroom is not the place to bring a nine week old puppy, no matter how adorable, and it is highly presumptive to assume that everyone will love the idea of his spending the day. (We sent him home with his father.) And just so you know for the future, I love animals. our insurance agent has issues with them. 3. If you have physical limitations or special requirements, please let us know in advance and we will do everything in our power to accommodate you. However, do not show up on the day of class and drag one of the big oversized leather chairs from the stitching parlor into the classroom. because it is more comfortable for your back if you are going to sit all day. We have determined how many students we can comfortably accommodate based on armless chairs and now that you are comfortably established several others are not. They have paid the same fee as you and are entitled to equal comfort. (I should mention that this is the same customer, who for several years and until quite recently would visit the shop, trailed by her husband carrying the wheelchair, in case she needed it, which she never did. She was highly insensed when the insurance company turned her down for the third new one in two years on the grounds that her condition didn't warrant it. I know insurance companies are sometimes unreasonable, but since we never saw her use either of the first two, we tend to agree with them.) 4. We want you to buy, the more you buy the happier we are. I am happy to run a tab for you. However, please do not expect me to keep track of 10 different individual piles of stash left haphazardly on the checkout counter and keep it straight what belongs to who. That is why we have those cute little baskets at the front door, so you can accummulate and we can both ooh and ah when you checkout and I can spread your acquisitions over the small amount of space I have in which to operate. 5. If you want to call in advance to see if we have what you require before making a fruitless trip, we will be happy to accommodate you. However, please try to do it at an off hour, (late on Friday afternoon, before the planned Saturday trip) especially if you have a list of 5 different threads in 2-3 colors each.). I know you might not be aware of how busy this Saturday above all others might be, but if you give me the time to check out you list I might be able to recommend alternatives for some of the harder to obtain threads. 6. If you are taking the two hour class in the front stitching parlor, don't take it upon yourself to troop back to the all day class taking place behind closed doors in the classroom and help yourself to their lunch buffet. 7. If you see a class or a demonstration taking place in the middle of the shop, please don't try to hold a conversation with a friend at the other end of the shop by yelling over the teacher. Also, don't be offended if we gently bring to your attention that the conversation you are having with yourself if taking place at a high enough volume to accommodate your hearing loss without turning on the hearing aids. I am sorry if I seem ungrateful for the business, normally I love our customers and privately laugh at some of their quirks, but it has been a hard two days and all of the above really did happen. Thanks for listening. Candy |
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On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 12:58:42 GMT, "s.whitley"
wrote: 2) No pets do not belong in the shop, I love animals, but I'm not overly fond of other people's pets, especially when I'm paying for a class to learn something. Or even when I'm shopping, shop pets are OK as long as they don't expect me to pet them or spend time with them. If I wanted to spend time with a pet, I'd be home with my own. And, the folks that insist on bringing their pets everywhere they go, apparently don't realize (or care) that there are people that are allergic to animals. I'm not allergic, but have a friend that is very much so. My pet peeve is when in a class that I can't stay in, because another person in the class has poured what seems like a gallon of perfume on before showing up. I can't be around strong perfumes, they can trigger an asthma attack for me. It's worse on an airplane, when I *can't* leave, since the long walk down could cause problems...... -- Deb WIP: How Great Thou Art (Leisure Arts Greatest Hymns II) |
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"s.whitley" wrote in message news:6I1_b.366982$I06.3828109@attbi_s01...
Additional help would mean that there would have been someone there to pull the chart from the back or kit up the special material. If I had been a customer coming in to shop I would have expected you to pull the materials for my project and have it ready for me before I left the shop, I really don't think that was unreasonable for a person attending a class to expect it ready before they left, especially if the class was 6 hrs. Maybe stopping and doing it right that second was unreasonable, but having it before I left? No. Really?! Boy that's some level of service! All the shops I have ever dealt with expected me to get my own chart (unless they were holding it for me, and then it was always in a special bin at the cash register), pull my own floss and embellishments, and choose the fabric. They will cut fabric for me, but I've never expected a shop to kit up a chart for me. The only exception is when I've bought something that is a kit, or from a shop on the Internet that provides this service. Besides I often choose to use a different color of fabric or change shades of floss if I don't care for the ones the designer used. As good as my local shop is, I don't expect them to be psychics! Lori Coulson |
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Lori Coulson wrote:
"s.whitley" wrote in message news:6I1_b.366982$I06.3828109@attbi_s01... Additional help would mean that there would have been someone there to pull the chart from the back or kit up the special material. If I had been a customer coming in to shop I would have expected you to pull the materials for my project and have it ready for me before I left the shop, I really don't think that was unreasonable for a person attending a class to expect it ready before they left, especially if the class was 6 hrs. Maybe stopping and doing it right that second was unreasonable, but having it before I left? No. Really?! Boy that's some level of service! All the shops I have ever dealt with expected me to get my own chart (unless they were holding it for me, and then it was always in a special bin at the cash register), pull my own floss and embellishments, and choose the fabric. They will cut fabric for me, but I've never expected a shop to kit up a chart for me. The only exception is when I've bought something that is a kit, or from a shop on the Internet that provides this service. I work in a needlepoint/cross stitch shop and needlepointers, at least, are quite accustomed to having a shop pull the threads for a project. It's not a presumption on the customer's part at all, although we (the shop) expect to have a reasonable amount of time to pull threads. Often the customer will pay for the canvas and leave it in the shop so we can pull for them. Certainly there are a lot of customers who choose their own threads but it's pretty common to pull for them as well. Typically it's for a painted canvas. The customer may specify what types of threads they want/don't want but many like to have us do that end of the work. Now how about the customer I had in a bookstore who expected me to not only lead her to each book she wanted but then cart it around for her like I was her mule? Karen E. -- _______________________________________ "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example" Mark Twain, 'Puddn'head Wilson' ***Please remove "nojunk" from email address to reply.*** |
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