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Customer Service..............

By
Real Estate Agent with Aubrey and Associates Realty

I learned an important lesson this morning.  Darcy had surgery last Tuesday, so I have been trying (mostly in vain) to take care of her like she normally takes care of me.  Did I mention that I have a great wife?  I am amazed at all the things that she does in the course of her daily routine.  I used to think that I helped out a lot, now I know better!  One of the things that we have been trying to accomplish is painting the inside of the house.

We had some drywall repairs done a few weeks ago, and thought that it would be the perfect time to go through the entire house with paint and freshen it up.  I went this morning to our big box home improvement store to get paint.  We had picked colors and set a budget.  Things are tight, so we didn't want to spend all of our budget on paint alone.  I had thought that we could get the basic contractor paint and have it tinted to the colors that we wanted.

I didn't realize that the little color samples in the display are copyrighted in any way.  I am pretty sure that when Darcy managed properties this same chain tinted the cheap paint with the mid grade paint colors, but this is a new store.  Instead of really offering me another solution, the person helping me wanted to sell me the more expensive paint at nearly double what we had hoped to spend on the paint the house.

We have used the cheap stuff on rental units, and to be honest, it is good paint.  It covers well and stands up to the abuse of rentals pretty well.  I know, I used to do the painting for Darcy, and we tried the entire spectrum of paints and the cheap stuff isn't all that different from the really pricey stuff.  Anyway to make a long story short.  I decided that I would just search out what colors that they would tint the cheap paint with and found some that were really close to what we had originally picked.

The point is, I would have been much more satisfied and thought better of the employee if he had taken the few seconds to suggest that to me.  I thought of my own business, am I professional enough to have any alternative stored in my memory of the inventory of homes available?  Do I have another financing option on the tip of my tongue?  I really don't think that it takes that much effort to be ready in cases like this.

I also realize that many of the employees aren't trained at each part of the store that they may be required to work, so I may be comparing apples to oranges, but the basic premise is the same.  Treat the customer with respect and professionalism and they will remember it.  They will remember when you don't also, but they are much more likely to refer someone to the former than they are to the latter!

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