Alas, The Royal Highness "The Customer " Has Been Stripped Of The Title.

Granted, not everywhere but in many shops.

Trading and dealing with clients is a wonderful job and I loved it. Being in a shop, selling your wares makes the business of making a profit real. Not the abstract stock market way, or the conglomerate way, but the small business way. One most important, if not the most important aspect of making a profit, was the care and attention given to the customer.

The customer is King...

is a saying that is imprinted on the back of my mind as it should be imprinted on any and all people dealing with customers.

It should be, but these days, it is not. Just yesterday I was taking someone to the doctor's rooms in Oberwart and had an hour to kill, whiling away some time. Look, the center of Oberwart is not that large and most shopping gets done in a shopping center on the outskirts of town. But, there are some shops of interest and I did a bit of browsing.

Granted, I am not dressed up to show that I have oodles of money to spend, but I didn't think that I might resemble a shopper who doesn't like to pay a.k.a. the notorious shoplifters. Well, walking into a shop in main street ( the only customer too ) I greeted the sales lady and said that I was just browsing. She actually looked me up and down and I could feel eyes following me and it made it awful to just be in the shop. There was something that I wanted to get, but that attitude of watching my every move, changed my desire to spend money.

By the way, the way people dress does not indicate how wealthy they are. Often the shabbiest dressed customers have the most money to spend. Don't ever forget that.

Last month, while savouring an ice cream cone at the E.O. shopping center, I had the opportunity to observe. Eating an ice cream tends to keep you out of shops! My perch was opposite a Jewelry shop and I watched the process of a client trying on necklaces. That is nothing strange in a jewelry shop, but the fact that the shop assistant had a face of boredom, irritation and impatience all rolled into one, was tragic.

Spending and leaving your money in any shop, takes time and consideration. Oh, don't get me wrong, there are clients that try your patience but they still spend money. Without clients spending money, you don't get a salary.

Contrary to popular belief, it isn't the boss that pays your salary, but the customers. Your boss is just a middle man who hands the money spent by clients over to you as your salary.

Running any shop, one is aware that a certain percentage of stuff gets taken without payment. Instead of making each and every customer feel as though they might be the pilfering kind, make each and every customer feel as though they are royalty. Just imagine that real royalty deigns to enter your shop...would you treat them the same way as you would a woman dressed in jeans and t-shirt?

As one always says,

Don't bite the hand that feeds you...

Biggi