Full Service

Yesterday we went to a retail establishment looking to purchase some important items that were outside the norm of our standard purchases. We picked a specialty shop that featured the items and were soon helped by a knowledgeable and attentive salesperson. She went through the different options, carefully explained how the items worked, gave us helpful demonstrations of different features, and patiently answered a bunch of our questions.

We weren’t rushed, and we weren’t pressured to make a purchase. To the contrary, our salesperson conveyed that she understood that we were making a significant decision, respected that fact, and just wanted to be as helpful as she could be. Her explanations helped to clarify the options and ultimately made our decision an easy one.

There aren’t many stores that have salespeople on the floor anymore. Most retail operations that used to employ salespeople–like the shoe stores of days gone by–have long since gone to self-serve models. Self-serve makes sense when you are talking about pumping gas, or buying items at the grocery store, buying new sneakers, or in many other everyday settings. In those places, you probably don’t need–or want–a salesperson dogging you as you make your choices. But when you are making a decision on whether to buy something significant that you are unfamiliar with, it sure helps to have a friendly salesperson to help you in the process.

I’m sure we could have gone to many “superstores’ to shop for the items we were looking for yesterday, sifted through the offerings, and made a decision on our own. But having more information and getting our questions answered by someone who knew what they were talking about certainly made us more comfortable and confident in our ultimate decision, and I think resulted in a better decision than we would have made otherwise. I’m glad there are still full-service stores out there, with capable salespeople ready to help their shoppers.

Gold Soul

I’ve written before about the Platinum Stylist, the dedicated professional and perfectionist who cuts my hair and gives me a head and shoulder massage, mini-facial, and hot towel treatment to boot.  She’s an exuberant personality, and our appointments always end up being fun encounters where I walk away relaxed, refreshed, and with the best haircut you could possibly get anywhere.

The Platinum Stylist’s real name is Alyssa Rowland, and at our appointment on Thursday she told me that she’s starting up a new consulting business.  (Fortunately for me and the rest of her coterie of intensely loyal clients, she’ll continue to cut and style hair.)  The Platinum Stylist is maintaining her association with precious metals by calling her company Gold Soul, and you can read about it and the services it offers here.  Its focus will be on helping and motivating people to provide exceptional customer service — something that the Platinum Stylist does as a matter of course.

I wanted to give Alyssa a shout-out and a plug because she practices what she preaches when it comes to going the extra mile and because I think anybody who has the guts and moxie to start and run their own business deserves a boost and a pat on the back.  Entrepreneurs who believe in what they can offer make the capitalist world go round.  I also think, though, that Alyssa and Gold Soul, with their emphasis on service and quality, have identified something important that is increasingly lacking in modern commerce.  With goods and products becoming more and more commoditized and “self-serve” the new normal, it’s pretty rare to have any kind of positive service experience these days.  And yet, don’t we find instances where we have received fine personal service far more satisfying than the now-standard fare of sterile, rushed, generic treatment?

My conversation with Alyssa and Gold Soul’s website remind me once again of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a hugely influential book for me that I wrote about in one of my very first postings for the Webner family blog, more than seven years ago.  The author, Robert Pirsig, posited that “quality” was a kind of innate characteristic that people could recognize in just about anything — be it art, writing, or hair styling — even if they hadn’t been trained in art criticism or didn’t hold a Ph.D in literature.  The core concepts of “quality,” such as care and attention to detail, come shining through.

Although I’ve not seen one of Alyssa’s Gold Soul presentations, I have no hesitation in saying that I am completely confident that they are great.  She’s just that kind of person.  If you work for a business that is looking to up its game in the customer service department, it would be worth your while to give Alyssa and Gold Soul a call.

A Fully Automated And Self-Serve World

We’re leaving Montreal today, and as we passed through each stage of the travel process at the United terminal of the Pierre Trudeau International Airport I was struck at how much of our lives has become automated and self-directed.

We used the standard ticket terminals to check in, entering our confirmation numbers and scanning our passports and credit cards and retrieving our boarding passes from the printer slot at the bottom.  The agent directed us to an automated baggage loading machine, where we scanned our tickets and input information into a terminal, hoisted our bags on a conveyor belt, then watched while a laser scanned our bags and a machine lowered them into the vowels of the airport.  It’s the first time I’ve used one of these machines, but the instructions are easy enough to follow and they are bound to discourage travelers from overpacking super-heavy bags.  We went through all of the security scanning devices, then moved to Customs. There we found another machine on which we scanned our passports and had our pictures taken — they were unflattering, of course — before talking to the Customs agent and passing through to our departure gate.  It’s the first time I’ve encountered one of those machines, too.  I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before we see all of these devices in the U.S.

Science fiction has long forecast that we would enter the age of robots and machines. I think it’s here, now.