Weekly customer service story by Peiqi

Background:
This happened on the 4th week of the attachment in ValueShop. It occured on Tuesday, 8th of September 2009. A customer who is a staff in Nanyang Polytechnic visited our shop at 9.25am and wanted to get something. However, the shop had yet to be open and there was only one staff managing the store opening. As the customer was in a rush to get a gift for a visitor of NYP, I allowed her into the shop to browse around and get a suitable gift with the NYP logo. However, she spent quite a while deciding what she wanted. Finally, she decided to get the pen and laser pointer set.

Problem:
The pen and laser pointer set was out of stock and the display set was not functioning. Nevertheless, I introduced her to the other popular gifts. About ten minutes later, two of her colleagues arrived and they were deciding if they should get the chess set. While deciding, one of the NYP Hi-Density Black Jacket caught their sight. After much discussion, they concluded that this would be a much better gift as their visitor likes to wear jackets.

At this point in time, it was almost 9.45am and I was supposed to be down at Bazaar for our daily morning meeting. However, my partner Christopher was having a meeting with one of the supervisors and was not in the shop yet. Moreover, the customer wanted the jacket to be gift-wrapped and it further delayed my presence in the meeting. While I was wrapping the jacket for the customer, she decided to print a few photographs at our photo printing machine.

Solution:
Thankfully, Christopher came back on time and took over the wrapping from me. After which, I rushed down to Bazaar for my morning meeting.

Learning Points:
1. Service providers need to be more flexible and meet the expectation of the customers.
2. To notify the OPS team and inform them that I am going to be late for the morning meeting as I was alone in the shop serving customers.