An interesting experience about customer service.

Joachim De Posada

By Joachim De Posada

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I received an email that Macy's was holding a great sale last week so needing a couple of suits, I headed there. I found a great sale and actually bought 4 suits instead of 2.
While I was trying them on, the salesman approaches me and says that Macy's is going to hold another sale in a week and that they were going to slash 25% off the prices I was buying. I would save a lot more money. He then said that he would give me the 25% discount right there and then.
That is great customer service and has made me loyal to that particular salesman and to Macy's in general.

I go to Books and Books yesterday since I had an hour to kill before meeting my sister and brother in law in Houston's in Coral Gables.
I just love Books and Books. It is my favorite book store and I buy lots of books and I do my own book signings there. Many of my friends visit it and often we meet at the restaurant at the back to eat and have some quality time to chat. Mitch the owner is a great guy and a very close friend to my very close friend Bruce Turquel.

I write about what happened now  so as to help them change their ways and also to help readers of my blog.

I saw a book that had great information that I could use in a meeting I had a few hours later so I decided to buy it. I had received an email a couple of days ago that said that Books and Books was holding a sale on July 4th discounting 30% of all books.  I always get a 10% author's discount there but I couldn't add my 10% to the 30% and I am ok with that an understand it.

I go to the register to pay and I tell the very nice lady there that I had received the email announcing the sale and I wanted to buy the book right there and then with the 30% discount.

She said that she didn't know if she could do that but she was willing to go to the manager and ask.

She did go to the manager and came back and said that she was so sorry, that the manager said it couldn't be done.

I needed the book right then and there but just to see what she would do, I  asked her if she could then hold the book for me, in other words, reserve it so that I could get it the 4th of July. She told me that she couldn't do that either.

I would like all of you to analyze this. Here I am at the store, I have the book in my hands, I want to buy it right there and they say no because I am a couple of days early.

While she was checking with the manager, I opened my Ipad, went to Amazon and looked for the book. They had it for 20.00 plus the 3.99 roughly equal to the 30% discount I could get in Books and Books.

I then saw thye had it on Kindle which would allow me to have it right away for 14.99.

So, right there, in my favorite store, I was forced to buy from a competitor with one click because I needed the information in the book for my afternoon meeting and with the kindle I could get it right away.

Companies, stores, businessess need to keep up with client's demands and they need to solve a client's problem when it is so easy to do so.

I felt bad having to buy from a competitor when I really wanted to buy from Books and Books, an independent bookstore, because I am a loyal client, they are a very important part of our community and we all need to support them in their effort to compete with national stores.

I hope they will learn this lesson because I plan to remain a loyal client.

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