For What It's Worth - Customer Service

Things are starting to pick up re: the direct mail and we're getting a good handful of inquiries daily over the last few days and even have an order and several saying they're going to call next week to place orders. So far I'm pretty happy with how things are going though am still pretty far from (as my husband puts it) "500 boutiques and $200 worth of sales to each one" but ya gotta start somewhere, right?

However, I had a few calls come through today that made me think about customer service. The first call came in first thing this morning from an east coast retailer who obviously didn't know we're west coast and thus three hours behind. I called her back about an hour later and she said she was shocked to have someone call her on a Saturday. And shocked in a good way.

I didn't really think anything about it until I got another call from another retailer later in the day. She was calling with a question but told me how impressed she was that we sent her an email with the information she requested within a few hours of her sending her initial email. She told me that it sometimes takes other companies a few days to week or more to get back to her. I'm a little shocked by that. Sure we all get busy but at the base of it if we don't offer good - no, superior, customer service how are we going to get and keep retailers. Actually, I hope my competition continues to take a few days to get back to retailers as that will just make my job that much easier. But it is something worth keeping in the back of my mind so that once we do manage to grow beyond just me, one part-timer, and my dining room table that every employee knows that the customer is always first. Cliche I know, but it's true!