When was the last time a Customer gave you a reason to THANK them?
I had the most amazing customer today; his name was George Zac. If anyone else has a story like this please post it, and we can all have a good cry. Maybe I'm over reacting or caught in the moment because this just happened but anyway...
So I opened today and just as I was leaving at four, I hopped on register to help out with a line and I get this gentleman of about 8o years, who has a book on hold. He starts telling me about the book as I was ringing him up, it's on a POW camp in WWII and he was getting it for a friend who had been held there with him. He starts explaining how he was taken and the conditions; he was transported in cattle cars with way too many men packed into them, which prompted me to ask if Kurt Vonnegut was accurate and he said he later found out that Vonnegut was on the same convoy. Just before Christmas they where stopped in a train-yard and left in the trains, in the cold and dark, and he said that one of the men started singing Christmas Carols. He had a beautiful voice, my customer said, and just after singing Silent Night there was a bright light. It was flares from a British Plane. Dropping them as markers for the following bomber plains. The idea being to take out the rails and cut off supplies. As bombs started being dropped they where eventually let out of the cars and men where being killed left and right and after it all passed they where herded back onto the trains. He said it was a lot emptier even though they had been sorted back into the same trains, and as the train got moving again one of the men yelled out in the dark 'How about some more of your singing to cheer us up?' and no one said a word. And my customer started to choke up and almost started crying at this point, and quite honestly I almost did too, and I almost am now. 'He was killed' he said. I said I was sorry, I introduced myself and thanked him for his story. And he apologized for taking my time and I thanked him again.
So I opened today and just as I was leaving at four, I hopped on register to help out with a line and I get this gentleman of about 8o years, who has a book on hold. He starts telling me about the book as I was ringing him up, it's on a POW camp in WWII and he was getting it for a friend who had been held there with him. He starts explaining how he was taken and the conditions; he was transported in cattle cars with way too many men packed into them, which prompted me to ask if Kurt Vonnegut was accurate and he said he later found out that Vonnegut was on the same convoy. Just before Christmas they where stopped in a train-yard and left in the trains, in the cold and dark, and he said that one of the men started singing Christmas Carols. He had a beautiful voice, my customer said, and just after singing Silent Night there was a bright light. It was flares from a British Plane. Dropping them as markers for the following bomber plains. The idea being to take out the rails and cut off supplies. As bombs started being dropped they where eventually let out of the cars and men where being killed left and right and after it all passed they where herded back onto the trains. He said it was a lot emptier even though they had been sorted back into the same trains, and as the train got moving again one of the men yelled out in the dark 'How about some more of your singing to cheer us up?' and no one said a word. And my customer started to choke up and almost started crying at this point, and quite honestly I almost did too, and I almost am now. 'He was killed' he said. I said I was sorry, I introduced myself and thanked him for his story. And he apologized for taking my time and I thanked him again.