I know my parents love me. I’m sure they do.

When they named me Jaime Lee, after my dad (James), they decided to spell his name “Jamie” in a more feminine way - “Jaime” for me, their first born.

I don’t think they realized that nobody would ever spell that name correctly as I grew older.

It’s not a big deal, in the big scheme of things, when there are wars going on and people are starving and can’t afford gas - I’m not whining. But I have many diplomas, awards, Christmas tree ornaments, etc., with my name on them - spelled wrong. It’s kind of disappointing, but I’m a big girl. I’ve gotten used to it. I know people automatically think “Jamie” when they hear my name, that’s fine.

I’m kind of surprised each time I receive an email - keep in mind, my email address is jaime@mannmadetime.com - where I’m greeted as “Jamie”. Sometimes “Jaimie” or “Jaeme” or any number of variations. Again, no big deal. (I’m not bitter, Mom)

However, I really like when someone has paid attention and spells my name right. It makes me feel good that someone actually noticed that detail.

What does this have to do with business?

It’s the little details. It’s the little things we do as business owners to make our clients and customers feel like we care about them. If that’s taking care to spell their name properly, or remembering them on their birthday (*ahem*, somebody’s might be tomorrow ;)). It could be sending them information on a new product you heard about that you thought they’d be interested in. It doesn’t take much, and small touches can really go a long way towards making someone feel loyal to you because you care.

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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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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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I recently ordered a piece of software online from an emerging software company. For reasons I can not disclose in case members of my family are reading this, I can not tell you the name of said company - but I will update this after December 25th and link to the company. In the meantime, if you’re curious - please leave a comment and I’ll tell you what type of software this company makes.

Anyway, I had ordered my software (not available as a download) and was anxiously awaiting it’s arrival. After almost four weeks with no software, I contacted the company. I got the funniest auto responder ever, which was followed by the most personal response from a real customer liaison person that I have ever received (and it was outside of regular business hours - on a weekend nonetheless!). I was told that darn UPS must have misplaced the shipment and they would ship another one for me priority that Monday. That was a little over a week ago, so I contacted them again late last night, and received a friendly response from the customer service rep very quickly (again- outside of regular business hours). She told me that I had a couple more days to go before I should worry that UPS had forgotten about me, but she gave me an alternative! She knew I wanted the software in time for a certain holiday, so she gave me download instructions - top secret download instructions - so I could have it sooner. When my actual software arrives in the mail I will have it as a backup.

I wish I could mention this company’s name here, because the service I’ve received is outstanding, and I would recommend the product without ever having used it - based on the relationship that I’m building with the company through their website, blog (hilarious) and the customer service representative that I’ve been in communication with.

We all need to do this in our companies. When you have a customer complaint - FIX IT! Do what you can to make them happy. If the customer service rep told me, ‘tough luck - I am sorry that you won’t have it in time for the holidays’, this would be a different blog post all together.

In my policy and procedure manual, under the ‘Customer Service’ heading, it states that if a client is unhappy - do whatever you can, within reason, to make them happy. I used the same philosophy while waiting tables in my past life, and I believe it to be true.

Imagine how nice the world would be if you never had to argue with a customer service representative. If you didn’t have to sign your life away after standing in a line up forever to return something. If you didn’t send a support ticket to a company and started pulling out your hair because it was three days later and still no response. If you weren’t told, “sorry, we’re out of pavlova but I brought you an extra fork” by a waitress AFTER they had served your husband his chocolate cheesecake that he only ordered because you ordered dessert and there was nothing else on the dessert menu that you wanted…..

Without our clients and our customers we wouldn’t be in business. It’s that simple. Why doesn’t everyone get that?

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