Are there any two words more important to a consumer than “customer service”? Well…. “free” and “stuff” when put together have their appeal, I suppose. Anyway…I’m a big customer service person.

Three weeks ago, before traveling to Toronto for the virtual assistance conference I spoke at, I scheduled an appointment for a hair cut. I just wanted to have myself looking all sleek and shiny - nothing dramatic.

“Just a trim,” is what I told the hair dresser. Because I had a very specific time frame to get my do do-ed, I wasn’t able to get an appointment with my regular stylist. Not a big deal, since I only wanted a trim.

I have very thick hair, and hair dressers are always having to thin it out. When this particular stylist asked me if I wanted it thinned, I told her that’s what Teresa always does (my regular gal) so she started to cut. However, apparently, thinning to this person meant layering. Before I knew what was happening, the hair I was planning to grow out a bit was being chopped into short layers right on the top of my head. I hate layers in my hair. I have some curl in my hair, and when it’s layered, because I have two young children and zero free time, I can’t do anything with it myself and it just ends up looking disheveled all the time.

When she was all finished, I grimaced at my reflection. I’ve never had a situation in a hair dresser’s chair where I wanted to cry, until that day. I told her I just didn’t like it, and asked if she could do something to fix it. It made me feel like I looked ten years older, and here I was just wanting to feel and look good for my conference. She looked at me, kind of puzzled, like she didn’t really know what to do, and then started cutting again.

I decided I would try it out, see if a few days would make any difference about the way I felt about it.

It didn’t work. Two and a half weeks later, I couldn’t look in the mirror. It was just awful. I made a call to the hair salon and explained that I had a hair cut a couple weeks prior and needed to get it fixed. My appointment was scheduled for Saturday morning (yesterday).

I was so happy to see Teresa. When I sat in her chair, the owner of the shop came over and apologized for the mis-communication and told me there would be no charge for my new do. I was shocked, really. I mean…was it the hair dresser’s fault that I didn’t like the haircut? Maybe it would have been great for someone else. Hair is such a personal, individual thing. The shop owner didn’t have to say anything. She didn’t even have to come over to chat with Teresa about the situation. But she did. She made me feel important. Told me she was just glad I came back, and that with two small children at home it’s important that I feel “hot”.  (At that point, I would have been happy with “not ugly”.)

Anyway, Teresa somehow cut my hair until it looked like I had more than when I started. She did a great job, and I left her a huge tip because it felt wrong to leave without paying.

THAT’s customer service. That experience will have me telling everyone I know (with hair) to check out Picasso’s in Charlottetown. The gal that cut my hair originally was a great hair dresser, it was partially my fault that I didn’t communicate properly what I was wanting. I don’t know. All I know, is that the shop owner went out of her way to ensure I was happy.

What do you do when someone’s not satisfied with the service or product you provide? Do you guarantee your work? Do you go out of your way to make sure that a customer never walks away unhappy? I hope so, because unhappy customers have huge mouths.

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I like to support local businesses as much as I can.

My laptop has been running a little slower than I’d like, so I decided to get another memory upgrade until I take the plunge to buy a new machine. Today, I brought my beloved computer to Derek Llewellyn at Microage in Charlottetown.

I’ve had a few different dealings with Derek, and I really love the service he’s obviously committed to providing his customers. I like to walk into a place, have a man in a suit shake my hand and call me by name. Call me crazy. That’s only possible in a small town, I think, but that’s why I like living in a small town. He congratulated me on the article about me in the paper a couple weeks ago and everything.

Anyway, it cost hardly anything for the upgrade, and I’m running much faster now.

My point of this post was to promote shopping locally. Often, the small businesses in your neighborhood will treat you better than the staff of a big box store. That’s not always the case, but I find it to be true more often than not.

I know that Derek at Microage wants my business. I know he wants my referrals. How do I know? Because he thanks me for my business, and my referrals, so I keep going back and sending people there. I know for sure the service they get will be second to none. That’s how the smart business owners or sales consultants get our repeat business, and our referrals. They treat us well so we go back.

Most local businesses will treat you just like that. They want your business, and they work hard for it.

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I was pondering something last night while I was watching American Idol (and wondering why in the world that first guy sang a WHAM song) that I thought would make great blog material.

I had this dilemma when I was starting my business. I was brand new and had lots of administrative experience, but I was trying so hard to find that first client, and I felt like all of the more experienced VAs were getting all the work. I had a case of the self-doubts and wondered why anyone would want to work with me when I had no actual ‘virtual’ experience.

First of all, what didn’t strike me right away was that nobody needs to know how many clients you have. I didn’t write my website content stating “Newbie VA offers her services”. I used testimonials from past employers, tried to demonstrate my areas of experience, and whipped up a ‘corporate resume’ so in the event of a potential employer questioning my work history, I would be prepared. Interestingly enough, to this day nobody has asked to see a resume. I pushed those doubts aside, and worked with what I did have that the more experienced VAs might not. Time. I marketed the bejeezus out of my business. And it worked.

Second of all, it could be an interesting feature to play off of, if you’re bold. Why not advertise that you’re brand new in business. Offer a deal - your first client will receive 10% off your services for their first year - or something. A new business owner is full of energy. Full of motivation and momentum. A new business owner is a force to be reckoned with.

Sometimes, after being in business for a while, you get lots of referral business, you let your marketing efforts get stale, you feel confident that you’re going to continue to do alright. You’re busy, your systems might be getting a little old, you might have lost a bit of that entrepreneurial spark you had when you were just getting out of the gate.

Of course, with experience comes knowledge, expertise and trust.

I was thinking about this, in particular, when it comes to real estate agents. There is always someone new popping up. They come, they go. Some stay for a long time.

A seasoned ‘top producer’ has a lot going for her. A great database full of contacts, name recognition in her market area. Lots of word of mouth referrals, etc.

Does that mean there’s no hope for a new agent starting out in that area? Not at all.

A new agent is coming on to the scene full of new ideas, a drive to become successful and catch up with the big guys.

I was perusing Active Rain and found a new agent in Charlottetown that has a great blog over there. Good for her. She was the only agent I saw in this area that didn’t just plug in an RSS feed for ‘PEI’ . I feel that’s cheating. It’s not really blogging. This agent actually wrote an interesting and useful post. She took the time to share something with her readers, and in turn, her blog has much more to offer than local news, weather reports, and other mundane information that doesn’t belong on Active Rain.

I am going to keep my eye on this person. I’ve seen her name in a lot of places, and I think she is going to be one of the ‘top producers’ in a couple of years time.

So what do you think?

When you’re in need of a service, would you rather work with someone that’s brand new - full of energy and drive?

Or would you tend to work with a seasoned pro. Someone who’s name has been around for awhile?

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If you live on PEI, you will see that the feature article by Mary MacKay in the Guardian today is about the virtual assistance industry. It’s impossible to miss the huge picture of myself and my daughter, Casey.

When I started my business in June of 2006, I sent a press release to the local paper. It was picked up, but it was not printed in it’s entirety, and it was just a tiny little piece in the paper - nobody would have noticed it. I also received press in the Eastern Graphic later that year, but it didn’t attract any new business, and it focused more on me than what I do for my clients.

Forging ahead, trying to educate as many Islanders as possible about the VA industry, since there are so many small businesses here, I kept writing the Guardian.

Back in late September, I sent an email to one of the reporters to pitch a story about virtual assistance. He put me in touch with Mary and finally…the article is in today’s paper.

I hope that many business people will realize that there is another option if they don’t have the means to hire a full time employee.

I’m very pleased with the article. If you are interested in reading it, the electronic version is here.

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There really isn’t a good reason, in this day and age, why a company will provide poor customer service. There are too many choices out there for consumers to deal with a company that has rotten service. Maybe I’m old fashioned in thinking that I would rather pay a little more for something if the company I’m buying it from will support their product and make me feel like a valued customer.

I’m going to share a story with you.

Every year, there is a big Christmas Craft Fair at the Civic Center in Charlottetown. I am not one for crowds and I usually stay away from large events with masses of human beings moving each other down aisles - not for me.

However, there is one vendor that brings me to that fair each year. (I won’t mention their name here.) It’s a place that makes personalized ornaments and I absolutely love them. They have become a part of the Christmas tradition in my new family. When my husband and I were engaged, we got an ornament personalized for our ‘1st Christmas’ together. The following year, when we were married, my sister-in-law gave us a personalized ornament from there with our wedding date on it. The next year, when we were expecting our first child we had ornaments made to announce the news to our families. I had an ornament made for me in honor of my pregnancy. The following year, we got our daughter’s ‘1st Christmas’ ornament from that vendor. The next year when we were expecting our second child, we had an ornament made, again, to announce the news to our families as well as a new family ornament with four snowmen - one representing myself, my husband, my daughter, and a ‘TBA’ snowman to represent the new baby.

That Christmas fair has come and gone. I didn’t make it because I was just too busy. It wasn’t until this past week I realized we didn’t get an ornament made for our new baby! This might sound trivial to some people, but it’s a big deal to me. This is a tradition that’s been going on since 2002! And what will Shelby think when there are ornaments to mark every other event in our lives except for her?! Talk about second child syndrome.

This company has no website. They’re in Nova Scotia - a neighboring province - so a trip over there to get one ornament is not an option. I called the company yesterday to see if they would be able to mail an ornament to me.

“No, we don’t do that,” was the answer I got.

“Really? And you don’t have a website or anything?” I said…panic in my voice…”But I have a story! This is part of our Christmas tradition! Do you know how important this is to me?” I thought…wondering if I told the girl this it would change her mind. But by the tone in her voice, I doubted it would matter.

“No. We don’t do anything like that. Sorry.” I wonder what the owner of that business would have said to me. I hope the conversation would have gone differently.

I can understand mail order could cause a lot of problems for a small business like this - especially during the holidays. However, think of how the sales could sky rocket! Couldn’t she at least have asked me what I needed? We could have worked something out. I could have described what I wanted, asked if it could be made up for me so I could have someone pick it up for me.

Instead, a paying customer was told “no we don’t do that” and that was it. I don’t think that’s acceptable. If you are a small business that creates gift items that could potentially be cherished collectible items, you should be more accommodating than that. If not, don’t bother going to fairs every year to get people hooked on you. Seriously.

I have contacted a fellow VA in Nova Scotia, Amanda Dugas, who has agreed to pick up an ornament for me. Thankfully I have a virtual friend willing to do me a favor.

I’m just steamed that I got such a cold, hard ‘no’ from a small business that gives me the warm and fuzzies every year when I decorate my Christmas tree.

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