Swamped at the store

[drcollie]

I apologize to those of you that are awaiting a return phone call or answer to an email, I cannot keep up with the volume of emails, phone calls and folks coming in the store. When I left the store tonight and hour and a half past closing I still had 42 emails to answer and 9 phone calls to return. Plus the forum questions! I would have stayed later to try to catch up but my wife doesn't like to have dinner alone.

I'm a 1-man show (other than my part time delivery team who work only on Saturdays). Its been like that since the Recession in 2008 and things are finally easing up and business improving to the point I may have to hire someone to assist. For now however, know that I will do my best to get back to you as quickly as I can. I do have to prioritize my time during the day and that breaks down to:

Top Priority: Customers in the store (and freight arriving, etc)
After that: Phone orders

Then:
* Customer Service Issues
* General Phone questions
* Email
* Forum PM's
* Forum Questions

My emails will be brief. When you have 40 or 50 a day they must be. I won't reply to queries for pricing on (6) sofas in (5) grades of leather each, as that's 30 computations I have to compute which takes half an hour. If you want pricing, be as specific and brief as you can and include where you live so shipping costs can be figured into the quote. The easier you make it on me, the faster you get a reply to your email or PM.

If you call and leave a message, you only need do it once. To call four times in a day and leave four messages won't make me get to your first one any quicker!

Regular customer get priority. I appreciate loyalty and repeat business.

I'm not going to discuss your wonderful Craigslist finds about used furniture on the phone or how to repair Uncle Fred's chair he made thirty years ago. Save us both the awkwardness of what will be a very short phone call. Those belong only here on the forum.

As you can see by my time stamps, much of my forum and email replies will be late at night because that's when I can get time to work on them after my wife goes to sleep. I generally can't run the calculator worth beans past 1 a.m., however.

For those of you who order from my store, THANK YOU. I appreciate the business and am in awe of those of you who drive in from three states away to shop with me.

If I can find someone who wants to work with me in the store for a fair wage, and is passionate about their job and what I do - and truthful and honest - I will hire them and train them. I see a lot of people come in asking for jobs that I wouldn't let wash my truck much less work with my customers - but eventually I will find someone who is a good match for my business and that will ease up the response times.

I'm pedaling as fast as I can these days.....

[BostonEd]

I can appreciate how busy you are Duane. Just want to send out a thanks for replying to my post & PM too. Good luck in your hunt for staff!