Adventures in Retailing

[drcollie]

This past Saturday started out messy, with one of my delivery guys that couldn't make it in as his son had an early morning Asthma attack. So I had to pitch in early with my other guy to unpack all the pieces for that day and load the truck. it was very hot out, and I was dressed for the sales floor, not to load furniture in a truck on a 92 degree day in 90 % humidity. Ugh. But Tommy and I got it done and off he went with a backup delivery person to the day's run. It had been a very quiet morning in the store, that pressed into early afternoon. Everyone out of town for Labor Day weekend, I suppose.

By 2 pm I was out of gas and needed an iced tea and a sandwich. I flipped the OPEN sign on the store window to "RETURN IN 20 MINUTES" with hands on the clock, and locked the store to run to Subway - gone for 19 minutes. Came back, re-opened and after a bit some customers came in. Once couple was a man and wife and I greeted them as they went over to the recliners in the store, but the woman came right up to where my counter was and proceeded to read me the riot act because they came by during those 19 minutes and I wasn't here. She finished her tirade with "You are unprofessional, and I will never buy anything here and will make sure everyone knows not to shop your store. You have no excuse - you send out for a pizza if you're hungry, do you understand me?" I assured her I got the message and told her "You shop where you are comfortable doing so - its your money and you have a choice."

Then she left the store and paced on the sidewalk while her husband was still looking at leather chairs. He came up to me to ask questions about chairs and I was thinking the whole time "Pal, the longer you stand here, the more angry she is getting and she's not going to let you get anything here anyways". But he continued to wander around and then went upstairs to look some more.

Sure enough, the woman had worked herself into a lather by now and came back in the store and started shouting at me from the front door. Again with the insults - again with the rants - and she said "I will go on every forum, every internet venue, and every blog and trash your store unless you apologize to me RIGHT NOW".

Uh-huh.

I said "You go right ahead, because I'm not apologizing to you or anyone else who threatens me. Furthermore, you are not ALLOWED to buy anything here even if you want to."

Now she was really mad. And she decided to up to other customers in the store and tell them to leave and not shop The Keeping Room. This crossed the line, and I told her she had to leave. She refused. So I said "You have 30 seconds to get out my store or I will call the police and have you removed and charged with trespassing."

I thought she was going to stroke out. She screams up the stairs at her husband: "DAVID - YOU GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW! DAVID!!!! DO YOU HEAR ME !! NOWWW!!!!"

As poor David dutifully came down, they got into the car and she was screaming at him as they drove away (she was driving). The other ladies in the store (who have been customers of mine for many years) said to me "She sure got excited over you having lunch, I bet poor David is going to hear about this the rest of the day." And we chuckled....

So there - not everything is peaches and roses at The Keeping Room and you heard it here first.