What Would You Do...?

We have been awarded and commended for our approach to Customer Service over the last few years and recently we have another opportunity to set ourselves apart from the pack.

Lot's of you have contacted me with your horror stories about really shoddy customer service so I thought it would be a great idea to present you with one of our recent examples to see what you would do if you were managing a business...

The Scenario
We sell a Ride-on Retro Racer that includes a personalised set of stickers with the child's name on the side and their initials on the rear number plate.

We stick these on for the customer before the car is delivered because we want the first impression to be WOW. This means we have to take the car out of it's custom polytyrene housing and unwrap it.

We were doing just such a task for a car ordered by Hector Eden for his nephew Hugo when I noticed some blemishes on the silver paint at the rear of the car. To be honest, I only noticed because I was working on the rear to apply the number plate and the marks were not horrendous but even so the car was not perfect.

I then pulled the other six silver cars from the shelf, and they were all the same. After talking to the US company that make the car, it became clear that the whole batch of 1200 cars were affected.

What Would You Do?

So that's the situation I was faced with. As the owner of the business with a customer waiting patiently for his order, Christmas looming and one little boy that will light up at the sight of this gorgeous little car - what would you do next?

I'm not going to preach right or wrong but I would love to hear what you guys would do in my position faced with this situation. Please try and be honest and not second guess what you think I did and if you really don't want to play along, that's cool and you can see my reply here:

http://www.wheniwasakid.co.uk/index.asp?function=WEBPAGE&page=63

Please leave me a comment, it would mean SO much to hear from you.

Kind regards, Paul. Daddy & Owner, When I Was a Kid.

The WIWAK Weekly

Every week I record a short video blog summing up the week of a small shopkeeper, this week find out why mummy bloggers appeared on my radar!

The WIWAK Weekly

Every week I record a short video blog summing up the week of a small shopkeeper, this week find out why Costa Coffee have appeared on my radar!

The Daddy Daughter Breakfast

The wonderful Naomi at The Kids Coach wrote a blog earlier this year about Family Time and reading it got me thinking about how a Daddy needs to have that children dialogue too... So once every 3 weeks, I take one on my daughters out for a Daddy Daughter Breakfast which is a great time to have a catch up and talk through life. The Agenda is entirely down to them, they are allowed to ask me anything they want including stuff about the business and I will give them a totally honest answer. By having it as open as this, they cant help but ask questions and that really opens up all sorts of stuff including their feelings or how they would solve a problem I have so the benefit has been truly massive to the point where they now come along with a list! The only rule we have is that whatever we discuss is never shared with Mummy which has bought out some very interesting subjects :)

With the kind permission of Naomi, here is the original blog in full:

Family Night

A busy family with time constraints and a crazy schedule can provide little opportunity for children and their parents to talk and communicate effectively. Through speaking and listening parents are able to learn the wants and needs of their kids and are able to diffuse arguments and problems quickly. Parents can get to grips with what is going on in their childrens lives and keep up with their emotional and behavioural changes as well as their interests. The only solution for busy lives is to make time.

If you don’t family communication will not happen. It may not always be easy to sit down for dinner and have a ‘how was your day?’ chat. It may be that you can find other opportunities to talk to your children. Perhaps in the car on a journey, or when you are making dinner together, doing homework or you might talk while watching television together. There is less pressure on you both to have a conversation which seems forced and more relaxed. And more relaxed means your children may want to share more information with you and listen to what you have to say.

What time do you find most effective to communicate and have a good chat with your children?

PS. Naomi can also be found on twitter @thekidscoach

Imaginary Play

When I was a kid, did I have an imaginary friend?  You know, I can't actually remember.  I think I must have bossed my sister around instead to be honest.  The strangest thing is, though, both my eldest children had imaginary friends and they were both called Jamie.