Get the Bear Facts

Happy new year all, may this year bring you all you would wish and nothing that you would not.

Ok Christmas has come and gone, My wife's birthday being the 27th has also come and gone and much has happened in the Anslow household.

During the Christmas holiday I experienced many incidents of customer service and leadership in action, some of them good and some of them not so good as you will imagine.

I'm sure that you all will have similar stories to tell, the assistant and I use the term lightly, in Woolies who chewed gum and looked down her nose at you when she eventually deigned to serve, the schoolgirl cashier in Next who didn't know what a tank top was, the guy in Dixons who went out of his way to get you that camera you wanted etc.

My own experience was affected somewhat by my habit of Christmas shopping all year so for me it was a case of wrapping more than buying but I did have one pleasurable experience that I thought I'd share with you.

For my wife's birthday I purchased a gift card for the Teddy Bear Workshop in Croydon, it's in the Centrale Centre in case you want to go, She is wild about cuddly toys and I knew that she'd just love going along and making her own.

We toddled along all excited on a rather wet Wednesday and were greeted at the door by a bear wielding staff member, I explained that it was a birthday treat for M and the lady and her bear explained the process to us and offered help should we need it.

I don't know if you've been to one of these shops so I'll list what happens.

1. Select empty skin
2. Choose sound machine
3. Get a heart
4. Get it Stuffed
5. Fluff it
6. Choose Outfit
7. Produce Birth Certificate
8. Pay and leave

Well as you can imagine M was in raptures about it all, she spent ages choosing which bear she wanted, as usual she wanted them all, then I recorded a short message for the bear to play when you squeeze its paw, she chose a heart and we took it to the stuffer.

Imagine liposuction in reverse and you've got a good idea of how that worked, she was squirming around and muttering about how it must be hurting the poor thing, the poor assistant who was doing it was mightily uncomfortable.

We took it over to fluff and preen it with bear paw shaped brushes and an air shower thing before trying to choose an outfit.

You should see the range of outfits these people stock and at about the same price as kiddy clothes I'm not surprised ! We ended up with a fisherman's outfit, complete with fishing rod, fish and wellington boots, M naturally decided to call him Fisher !

We generated his birth certificate on one of a row of PC's and went to pay, I was watching the customers and staff while we waited for our turn and it was fascinating to watch people so obviously enjoying themselves, not just the customers but the staff.

Let's face it 8 hrs a day stuffing bears can't be all that great so there must be something else going on to account for all the smiling faces, and then it struck me it was the smiling faces, and that led me to another obvious revelation, happiness breeds happiness.

Happiness breeds happiness.

Now whether it was the customers infecting the staff or the staff infecting the customers who can say but it certainly made for a pleasant environment for both, I believe it is the managers responsibility to foster happiness as much as fostering good customer service skills or financial management because the happiness factor does make a difference.

Look back over your Christmas at the examples of excellent customer service that you had, were they given by people with a smile on their face by any chance?