CUSTOMERS TURN INTO FRIENDS

CUSTOMERS TURN INTO FRIENDS

 

Hubby and I have owned our interior decorating business for about 50 years and you could say we don’t run it like normal businesses.  We don’t advertise other than word of mouth and referrals, we are very laid back and no high pressure. We are concerned about their family if someone is ill, we are excited to hear about their children and grandchildren and we hug them when they head out the door.  Our customers turn into friends and many have come back many times throughout the years as they move not only from city to city but also state to state.  The suggested topic of the Ultimate Blog Challenge today is to profile a customer and it wasn’t hard to come up with one in particular.

 

This person didn’t start as a customer, we went over to measure for a designer.  While we were there, she showed my hubby and me around her beautiful home but the one room that stood out was her meditation/prayer room. She had beautiful Angel statues and I too collect them, we seemed to immediately connect to each other. She mentioned to me if we had anyone in need of prayers, she would love to add them to her prayer list.  It just so happened, our 20-year-old granddaughter was going through a scary time with a tumor in her lung that had infiltrated into her spinal column so I asked if she would please keep Alexandra in her prayers.

 

 

A few weeks later her husband stopped over to our store and presented my hubby and me with a beautiful prayer quilt for Alexandra, made by the quilters at her church.  It was signed by the members and we also had many of our customers and friends add thoughts and prayers to the back of the quilt.  But there was also something very special about this quilt, not only the love and care that went in it from the quilters but some of the fabrics were ones that we had donated to them many years ago when Alexandra was maybe 7 or 8 years old.  We took the quilt to Ohio when Alexandra’s surgery was scheduled in November and as soon as she saw it, she immediately remember the fabrics that she had made little pillows out of when she “worked” with us at the store.  From the pre-op to ICU, the quilt was always with Alexandra. Here is her story:  http://themarthareview.com/finally-time-for-alexandras-surgery/

 

 

Our new-found friend would constantly text, call or stop over to see how Alex was doing and she happened to share a photo of some sheers that someone had fabricated and installed but they were too long.  They would not return to correct the issue and she wondered what her options were. Hubby and I went over to check the situation out and it was a simple fix of just re-positioning the drapery pins.  It took maybe 10 minutes to put a smile on her face.  We hugged (I told you we are huggers) and left feeling good that we were able to help her in this dilemma.

 

We received a text message asking if we were at the shop, she wanted to bring something over.  When our friend walked in, she had a package wrapped in pretty paper, I opened it and it was a tin of giant Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups! She sure knows my eating habits and since hubby doesn’t eat candy, I got to have lots of snacks!  This definitely called for another hug!  She wanted to thank us for coming over to help with the sheers that were dragging and not charging anything. We love to be able to help others, even on a small fix as this one.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, it was Easter Sunday and I passed out plus had extremely high blood pressure. Hubby rushed me to the emergency room and after I was stabilized with tests, scans and IV’s, hubby was wheeling me out and I saw our friend and her husband at the check in counter. I immediately get worried and asked what was wrong.  She had seen the message hubby posted on Facebook of where I was so they came up to see if we needed anything. Now mind you, this was Easter Sunday and I’m sure they had family or dinner plans but they set them aside to check on us.

 

Many of our customers turn into friends but Sheri and her husband have not only become friends, they have become more like family.