The (Un) Secret Shopper

 

Hello shoppers…

 

Have you noticed how happy everyone seems this week? 

Maybe everyone seems so happy to me because I’m so happy. Guess I’ve been too happy to think about it.

Maybe it’s The Christmas Effect.

It has been such incredible fun to walk - okay, float - through malls and stores this week (to really shop, not secret shop) and see hundreds of smiling faces – employees and shoppers alike. You see those smiles, you want to smile right back, but you were smiling, anyway, so there’s no need for reciprocity.

There are huge crowds (as the “last minuters” edge closer to becoming the “last seconders”). But shoppers are pleasant, patient and polite; they say “excuse me” and smile as they squeeze by, hands carrying bags full of gifts.

The store employees in the aisles and at registers are busting their backsides to keep up with the massive shopping throngs, but are still smiley and engaging, exchanging pleasantries with customers, offering help (with closed-ended questions but I’m too stinkin happy to notice) and meaning it, and sending shoppers out the store door with Merry Christmas wishes. (Okay, so it’s usually “Happy Holidays!” but we know what they mean.)

It’s been just one big fat wet happy week-long non-stop gift-buying card-sending carol-playing bell-ringing Santa-ho-ho-ho’ing church-going cookie-eating holiday TV special-watching love fest.

Does everyone else seem so happy because I’m so happy? I don’t know – I’ve been too happy to think about what came first, the happy chicken or the happy egg.

I normally post an Unsecret Shopper Goes Shopping review of a business on Thursdays. But there’s not a critical/analytical/cynical bone in my body right now; I’m just one big blob of happy mush.

May you feel as happy as I feel. May Santa bring you everything you asked for, plus two things you never thought of. May the music, the food, the celebration and the joy last and last and last and last and last…

Merry Christmas, everyone. He said with a smile.

 

Jonnie Wright is a customer service evaluator and trainer, professional secret shopper, marketing strategist and host of The Unsecret Shopper Radio Show, Saturday mornings 8-9am, on 1350, KRNT.       

    

    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s Facebook page    

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Click to email Jonnie (jonnie@theunsecretshopper.com)    

Phone: 515-480-4190

 

Hello shoppers…

 

Yesterday I got to spend two extraordinary hours talking about customer service with Steve Deace, the popular afternoon radio talk-show host on 1040, WHO.

The fact that we were sitting inside a radio studio (joined by Jen Green, his sweet and engaging sidekick) in front of microphones that were turned on during many of those 120 minutes of conversation between 4 and 6pm, was icing on my personal cake. (Microphones that are left on too long during local talk shows can lead to baaad things.)

I am happy to say that I knew Steve, and worked with him back in 2001, before he became Des Moines’ best known and most listened-to radio personality. I met him when I was working as a commercial writer for the long gone but never forgotten, 107.1 The Jock. Steve was a sports writer for the Des Moines Register and had never hosted a radio show in his life. But the station manager, J. Michael McKoy, had a great eye/ear for talent, and knew the 26 year-old kid had “it.”

Anyone who listened to Steve back then, knew that Mac was right.

Steve was – and still is – the smartest person I’ve ever personally known. He had – and has – a vocabulary that would impress William F. Buckley, if the dude was still alive. Steve also had – and, thank goodness, still has – a lightning-quick wit and wonderful sense of humor. 

Engaging Steve on almost any subject is like bringing a knife to a gun fight, and it’s a butter knife, to boot.

For two hours yesterday, Steve let me feel like I knew more than he did. There aren’t enough words in my head to tell you how much fun that was.

Thanks, Steve. Long Live Tommy Turrets. :)

      

Jonnie Wright is a customer service evaluator and trainer, professional secret shopper, marketing strategist and host of The Unsecret Shopper Radio Show, Saturday mornings 8-9am, on 1350, KRNT.       

    

    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s Facebook page    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s Twitter page    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s blog    

Click to email Jonnie (jonnie@theunsecretshopper.com)    

Phone: 515-480-4190

 

Hello shoppers…

 

The photo above is the digital readout of the scales on the 2nd floor of the Walnut Creek YMCA in Windsor Heights, taken yesterday afternoon, with your truly standing on it.

335 days earlier,  on Monday, January 4th, the same scales (stood on by the same dude) said “242.6 lb.” (There’s no photographic evidence of that day’s weigh-in, understandably.)

The difference in those two numbers is about 80 pounds, or roughly the weight of your 6-foot real Christmas Tree, fully ornamentalized, without the cat climbing in it, but including the stand.

Yes, life is better, thinner. Wait – not just thinner. Thin. I can see my ribs without sucking it in. I can make out my pelvic bone. When I sit down on a hard surface, it feels like I’m sitting on my keys, which is actually my tailbone. My Body Mass Index is 23.6 – perfect for my 5-9 and a half-inch frame. I’m wearing size 33-34 pants (down from 40′s in January). When I walk upstairs, I feel like I’m floating.

And I can’t stop smiling.

There’s much more to this story – as in, I once weighed 320 pounds. Yeah, that’s definitely more. The more accurate truth is that I’ve lost 80 pounds in 12 months and 160 pounds in 13 years. I am half the man I used to be. 

Yet I feel as if I am twice the man I once was. Perhaps that has something to do with the weight loss.

What I want to share with you is my roadmap for losing all of this weight. It is my Jonnie diet. I invented it and perfected it. It works for me – maybe it, or parts of it, can work for you.

1. I eat half of the things I really like to eat.

I once allowed food to control me. Now I control it.

I’ll buy a candy bar and throw half away. I’ll buy a small bag of popcorn at the concession stand and dump half of it into the trash before walking into the theater, often to the shock of onlooking patrons. If I eat a piece of pizza, or cake, I’ll eat half and gladly heave the rest into the garbage. If I crave a pack of M and M’s, I’ll buy the newer ones with pretzels in them, count out all 14, and hand 7 to a friend. I used to dump out half a bottle of Pepsi, until I discovered the joys of Diet Pepsi, and later, its more healthy, caffeine-free relative.

2. I eat about every 90 minutes.

I almost never get hungry. I’ll start eating around 7:30am, and won’t stop until 10 minutes before I fall asleep. When I’m not flapping my gums as a customer service trainer, I’m chomping them on chow – small amounts, spread out over the 15 or so hours I’m awake each day.

3. I eat the same thing every day.

I’m an emotional eater. I eat when I’m happy, when I’m sad, when I’m angry, when I’m (insert feeling). The best thing I can do is take the emotions out of my food choices, and make it strictly about eating to stay alive. Also, by eating the same foods all the time, I know exactly how many calories are in them, so there’s no guessing, which leads to uncertainty, which leads to stress, which leads to stuffing my face.

Here’s my typical day’s food intake:

Meal 1: Ham and Cheese breakfast sandwich on pretzel bread (from Quik Trip, as is most of why I buy) and a bottle of caffeine-free diet Pepsi – 330 calories

Meal 2: Reese’s Mini Peanut Butter Cup and bottle of caffeine-free diet Pepsi – 45 calories

Meal 3: Apple – 120 calories

Meal 4: Beef jerky and bottle of caffeine-free diet Pepsi - 75 calories

Meal 5: Reese’s Mini Peanut Butter Cup and bottle of caffeine-free diet Pepsi – 45 calories

Meal 6: 2 ounce hunk of Kraft cheddar cheese - 200 calories

Meal 7: Apple – 120 calories

Meal 8: 12 ounces of baby bella mushrooms sprayed with Pam butter flavored vegetable oil, seasoned with Mrs. Dash Fiesta Lime seasoning, plus salt and pepper and microwaved for 3 minutes – 70 calories

Meal 9: Birdseye Three Cheese Chicken Dinner – 630 calories, plus salsa, 100 calories and a bottle of caffeine-free diet Pepsi - 730 calories 

Meal 10: Swiss Miss Tapioca Pudding - 140 calories

Total for the day: 1855 calories

4. I buy only what I’m going to eat that day, as I eat it.

I have the emptiest refrigerator in town. I can’t stuff my face late at night because there’s nothing to stuff it with. Plus, spending money makes me happy, so the act of buying – and there is a lot of transactional buying during my day - satiates part of my brain. It also provides a level of socialization – I meet and interact with a lot of store clerks.

5. I don’t worry about exercising.

The most brilliant thing I ever heard about losing weight came from Rush Limbaugh, a man who has gained and lost his share of pounds. He said that weight loss is about food, not exercise. Focus on the food, and you’ll lose the weight. Focus on the exercise, and you’ll stress yourself out, which will make you want to eat more.

He was right.  

I used to jog 6-8 miles a day and lift weights every other, until I’d screwed up my knees, my back and my shoulder – and was still fat. 

Today, I jog once or twice a week, but only when it sounds like something fun to do – which it sometimes does, since I no longer feel like I have to.

6. I’m fulfilled.

The greatest advice I can give anyone is to never stop seeking their own happiness.

Overeating for most of my adult life has been my way of numbing myself to the pain of not being happy; that unhappiness came from not living up to my own expectations.

The process of finding myself, of understanding what I’m supposed to do with my life, has been long and difficult, with many wrong turns and many missteps. Yet the most important part of my journey has been to not stop asking myself: Am I doing what makes me happy?

It is only recently that the answer has consistently been “yes.”

The results of that single word, and of the journey it has taken to find it, speak for themself.

 

                                                                    1998 – 320 pounds

 

                                                    December 2009 – 242 pounds

                                                                      Today

      

Jonnie Wright is a customer service evaluator and trainer, professional secret shopper, marketing strategist and host of The Unsecret Shopper Radio Show, Saturday mornings 8-9am, on 1350, KRNT.       

    

    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s Facebook page    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s Twitter page    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s blog    

Click to email Jonnie (jonnie@theunsecretshopper.com)    

Phone: 515-480-4190 

 

Hello shoppers…

Many holidays have their story-telling traditions, although it’s the “Big Three” we remember best. 

At Christmas, it’s the story of the birth of Jesus, read from the New Testament in churches around the world. The Fourth of July is always accompanied by the reading of the Declaration of Independence. The story of Thanksgiving usually begins in elementary classrooms with “The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock…” and ends with “…broke bread with the Indians, and lived happily ever after.”

In my family, the story of Thanksgiving goes something like this…

 

Thanksgiving Day, 2002,

just hours before my family’s traditional celebration

of starches

 

 It is 8:13am in Huxley, Iowa (and a lot of other places).

 At this particular moment in time, a dozen family members, a handful of their friends, and a few reluctant tagalongs who were guilted into going (“You can’t be alone on Thanksgiving!”) are standing in their assorted kitchens, preparing nourishment for the yearly ritualistic holiday carnage known as Thanksgiving at my Aunt Candy’s house.

The participants rummage through refrigerators and cupboards with differing degrees of enthusiasm – grabbing containers, popping lids, sniffing contents, measuring ingredients, frantically stirring, patiently baking, and eventually preparing enough food for a large Somalian air drop.

They stuff the fruit of their labors into jam-packed Tupperware bowls, overflowing pans, barely covered plates and Reynolds wrapped trays. They place these securely in laps, and haphazardly tossed in back seats. They travel on baby skin-smooth four lane interstates and gravel roads unnavigatible by Martian land rovers. They chit-chat as they go and clam up in ambivalent silence as they ride, all wondering if they’ll be home in time for Must See TV!

Upon arriving, they will quickly remove lids, pop tops and peel back foil to reveal: everybody brought potatoes. 

My aunt’s husband’s sister made regular mashed taters, right out of the Ore-ida box. So did her brother, but he used real spuds, boiled until tender, added milk and butter, and mashed with a fork. The brother’s brother mixed garlic and chives into his batch, then pureed it with a blender. A fourth potato prepare-er, a friend of the second brother, haphazardly smashed taters into large pieces and left the skins on, then added a layer of cheddar cheese, and baked. The second brother’s cousin went with mashed potatoes with ham chunks.  His wife cooked sweet potatoes, the night before. Her sister brought whole boiled potatoes, mashing not included. Their invited neighbor carried in a large bowl of potato corn mash. Three others have three versions of potato salad.

And I’ve got a stale, half-eaten bag of Ruffles in my trunk.

I’m not at my aunt’s house. I’m hiding.

At 11:04am, I peer out from under my bed, admit to myself that Thanksgiving is going on as scheduled, and prepare for it as I have for the past 17: thinking of a way to injure myself and avoid participating.

I consider slicing my leg open, but then remember that I used that excuse to miss last year’s Christmas festivities. How many times can I claim to have cut my leg shaving? Besides, family members will likely suggest I come anyway, and have the wound packed with au gratin potatoes.

No more excuses. It’s time to take my holiday like a man.

Once, when I was 14, my mother set our oven on fire, trying to cook steaks. Not a small grease flare-up. I’m talking about an oven engulfed in flames. I remember it lighting up the kitchen, not at all unpleasantly, in the middle of the afternoon. My shadow was burned into the wall. As for Mom – what she lacked in culinary talent, she made up for in her ability to put out appliance fires. And we ate the steaks, straight up, without ketchup. 

I now bring everything I learned from that horrible tragedy, to this moment.

I begin working on my contribution to our family’s Thanksgiving pot-luck stuff-a-thon by:

1. Popping open three boxes of my old traditional holiday favorite, Kraft Family-Sized Macaroni and Cheese Dinner.

2. Carefully pouring the contents of all three boxes – 12 cups of uncooked elbow macaroni, into a saucepan designed to hold 6.

3. Placing the pan on a gas burner…then deciding that water might aid the cooking process.

4. Flooding the pan to the brim with tap water.

5. Watching the pasta elbows lay submerged, cleverly waiting for their moment to escape, as water boils in the pan, then evaporates, getting the heck out of there before something bad happens.

The expanding macaroni moves vertically up the sides of the pan (like a really cool Brady Bunch chemistry experiment) except for the shells at the bottom, which stick to it like bubble gum on hot pavement.

Eventually, the remaining water boils up and over the side of the saucepan, taking the macaroni elbows with it, which then stick to the electric burner, creating flames that lick up the saucepan sides. 

 This is fun when cooking over a campfire, less so when ruining a four burner stove in a rented apartment.

 I’m on top of the developing situation, watching ESPN in the living room.

 They’re showing a game-winning TD from the night before. The crowd is going insane. Sirens are blaring. They cut to a commercial for Right Guard. The sirens continue. Don’t remember that in the ad.

 That’s when I realize that the burning smell I smelled 10 minutes ago was, indeed, something burning, which has now set off my smoke alarm.

 I (very calmly) sprint to the kitchen, to find culinary chaos: fire, a bubbling cauldron, charred elbows.

Big deal. I’ve seen steaks explode.

Using a nearby pair of dirty underwear as a potholder, I calmly lift the 47-pound saucepan (hot noodles spilling on my feet) off the burner and into the sink (which is full of pans with stuff burnt on them), where the steaming mess sits while I survey the carnage, and collect my thoughts.  

Burnt, smoldering elbows litter the burner. The catch plate underneath looks like the surface of Mercury. The counter is dotted with a half serving of raw noodles that never made the saucepan. And I’m missing Sportscenter.

I contemplate testing the pasta to see if it’s ready - by tossing the entire pan against the wall and seeing if it sticks.

Instead, using a fork, I discover that, out of 7,258 macaroni shells, 3 aren’t crunchy. To finish the cooking process with a Betty Crocker flourish, I Kraft-ily scoop the still scalding-hot macaroni by hand into 2, non-microwave-able storage bowls, then microwave them until the plastic begins to melt.

There…done! 

Then — are you writing this down? Then, using a huge bowl originally designed for mixing concrete at construction sites, I thoroughly stir three packets of Kraft sharp imitation cheddar cheese ooze into the shells, until each and every elbow is coated with an equal amount of artery-clogging goo.

Even using the king-size container, the ready-to-eat macaroni and cheese level is ready-to-spill-on-the-floor. Wanting to avoid any more pasta calamities, I grab a fork, stab it into the bowl and stuff prong-fulls of mac and cheese into my mouth. I ditch the fork and use my hands (time is of the essence).

Three inches of macaroni and cheese down later, the bowl isn’t so top-heavy. I wipe away the cheese ring and fork-scrape evidence with a paper towel.

All ready for the family to enjoy.

1:13 pm: With one hand I grab the bowl, my car keys, and a Baker’s Square pecan pie I’d purchased the day before. With the other I pick up my cell phone, and Wally, my weinerdog, then head for the car.

Wally is a robust 23-pound “miniature” daschund of good German design, twice the size of a bowling ball (but should never be gripped like one).

Wally is a much-beloved pet. He will challenge that designation in the next 21 minutes.

The car is started. Wally puts on his seat belt. We hit the road, towards Aunt Candy’s house.

On the way – with Wally sitting comfortably in my 99’ Chrysler Sebring Convertible’s leather passenger seat, the boxed pie sitting securely on the passenger side floor, and the top-heavy bowl of Mac and cheese sitting precariously on the dash – I pull into a local convenience store to grab a Pepsi. All that starch has coated my throat, plus I want to disguise my “cheesy” breath from suspicious relatives.        

I open my door and begin to get out of the car, then turn back around.  

“Wally?” I address the living organism beside me, as I move the pie from the floor and tuck it up on the dash, next to its friend, the macaroni and cheese.

His tail wags three times, then stops, tired from the exercise. He looks at me through glazed-over cataract dog eyes, but appears to be listening. It’s a look I’ve seen before, on the faces of friends after reading something I’ve written, like this story.

“Do NOT eat that pie,” I say to him, looking over the top of my glasses, as if he understands this gesture. 

I point at the pie, to illustrate my point(ing). “DON’T eat that. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. It is not for you. Just sit and be good. Stay! STAY!” I say it 26 more times, as if he heard the first 25. Then I close the car door, trusting Wally’s good instinct and self-control. 

This is the same dog that once urinated on my shoe while I was wearing it.

Historians, laughing, will look back years from now at written records from this day, and wonder:

a)        Why did I leave the pie in the car with a pie-eating dog?

b)        Why would I trust an animal that eats his own poop, to not eat a pie?

c)         Why didn’t I roll the dice with “Sorry! Can’t make it – cut my leg shaving again!”

d)        Why didn’t I go with a cat from the ARL?

143 seconds later, I return to the car and open the door, Pepsi in hand.

Wally is not in his seat. The pie is not on the dash. 

My mind begins to leave my brain. Maybe I forgot both of them at home.

“Hello?” I call out, hoping only the pie will answer, because the dog has been kidnapped.

No such luck. The latter is hunkered down on the floor – where the fox I hired to guard the chickens, is now eating them.

Wally – a dog so inactive that a friend once mistook him for a stuffed animal - has managed to a) pull the pie down from the dash and land it right-side up, b) butt the once-secure pie box open with his head, and c) carefully begin licking each and every square inch of the surface, like a mother cat tenderly licking her newborn kitten, right before she eats it.

Frankly, I’m initially too mesmerized by the fact that the pie landed bottom down (like cats are supposed to) to halt the damage being inflicted on the pie.

Then, suddenly, it hit me: you pie licking Nazi.

 “STOOOOOOOOP!” I beller, at a dog normally impervious to bellering.

Wally, surprisingly, jumps up, startled, like he just saw Chet Culver wearing a thong.

I snap. “(expletive deleted) DOG!” I yell loud enough to startle a nearby elderly man, who just wants to fill his Ford F-150 and head to the VFW. Wally braces for the poop storm.  I raise my hand up.

 “I TOLD…

(Smack!)

…you NOT…”

(Smack!)

“to MOOVE!”

(Smack!)

I beat the seat into submission. It will never try to eat a pie again. 

Wally, meanwhile, licks his lips, searching for extra pie goo while he glances sideways at me, concerned that Daddy has finally gone to ”the dark place.”

I compose myself – three days later. Then and there, I’m still freaking out. I look down at the pie, expecting the worst…

$7.24 of the $8.95 pecan pie appears to be intact - the victim of a bite or two and a lick and run. I move a dislodged pecan here, push some pie goo there, trying to cover teeth marks. Wally begins panting, filling the car interior with “stinky breath.” Considering the state of Wally’s oral hygiene, the pie should immediately be quarantined. It’s Thanksgiving – getting hazardous waste disposal experts flown in from Atlanta’s Center for Disease Control at this late hour seems unlikely.

Pie first-aid applied, and dessert re-secured, “baaaaaad dog” and I get back on the road and head down it, not saying a word to each other.

We eventually arrive at my Aunt’s house, where my pie, mac and cheese and dog are welcomed with fawning, and high praise. You can have all three of them, people.

The pie is placed on dessert row. Dead pie walking!

Lines are formed. Hot food is served. Conversation is exchanged. Interest is feigned. Pants are unzipped. Naps are taken – none more soundly than Wally’s.

Later, I hear the clink-clink of plates being removed from a shelf.

“Who wants pie?”

I jump up. “I’m beat!” (Battle fatigue, no doubt.) “We’re gonna head out.”

“Don’t you want some pecan pie?”  Candy asks, as I head (walk, don’t run, Jonnie…walk don’t run) toward the door, quipping, “A merry Thanksgiving to all, and to all, a good pie…uh, night!”   

I heard the pecan pie was the hit of the afternoon.

As for The Thanksgiving Pie Incident? I would eventually have my revenge (which is a dish best served cold, but no doubt, licked).

 

Wally (who passed away in 2006) and I (who still miss the silliest pie-licking weinerdog in the world) wish you a wonderfully sweet Thanksgiving.

Jonnie Wright is a customer service evaluator and trainer, professional secret shopper, marketing strategist and host of The Unsecret Shopper Radio Show, Saturday mornings 8-9am, on 1350, KRNT.       

    

    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s Facebook page    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s Twitter page    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s blog    

Click to email Jonnie (jonnie@theunsecretshopper.com)    

Phone: 515-480-4190

 

 

Hello shoppers…

I, like most of you, tend to ignore directions: “Service engine soon.” “Never feed Mogwai after Midnight.” “Vote on Tuesday.”

“Dry clean only”? You only have to wash a suit once to know that conformity has its place.

My dry cleaner of preference - my brand new favorite extra special groovy crib for getting the stink and wrinkles outta fancy-schmancy duds - is Victoria Cleaners, at 2164 108th Street in Clive.

This became so about four weeks ago, after calling every cleaner in town to see who wasn’t so pressed for time on a Friday that they couldn’t dry clean (my lucky) dress pants and have them done by Saturday, for a last-minute meeting.

Victoria Cleaners was it. That made VC great, out of the gate.

But if they were frowny and pouty and mean and American TV-ish and stuff, I’d go back to the frowny, pouty, mean dry-cleaner that couldn’t churn and burn, but was closer to my crib.

Just the opposite. Jeff, at the counter, made me want to return with Mr. Lucky Pants, and bring his friends.

Jeff greeted me with a huge “Hi! How are you? What can we do for you?” delivered through a smile that he meant. He engaged me in personal chit-chat while he keyed in my britches. He also thanked me at the end, and added, “Have a nice day, Jon!”

Was this (light starch) Heaven?

I returned a week later with more clothes, and Jeff was just as nice the 2nd time. Another visit had Yoisi at the counter, who was just as smiley and engagey as Jeffey. I also noticed that the employees who were walking around behind them, busting their rumps to get stuff pressed and hung were doing so with smiles on their pusses. It was like Build-A-Bear meets Perchloroethylene.

Now I wear two shirts, two pants and two ties to work, which means more VC visits. Yeaaa! Their new branding statement is: It’s right. It’s ready. It sucks, sure, to dry clean other people’s gross dirty duds for 12 hours a day, but why not do it with a smile?

We’ll see if Neal Thuente also sees the genius in this tag line redux.

The Ackley native and 11-year owner of Victoria Cleaners (seven locations in Des Moines, plus provides dry-cleaning for Dahl’s) sat down and chatted about his very simple customer service philosophy.

“Be nice to customers, and they’ll keep coming back to us, even if somebody else has a ten-cent shirt.”

That attention to “happy” vs. “cheap” is one of the likely reasons Victoria Cleaners has been helping us Des Moines folk look our best for 70 years, although the Ackley native and CPA only accounts for the past 11.

“I wanted to be a business owner, something in manufacturing,” he said. “This was the next best thing.”

While building and maintaining a dry-cleaning empire has been more of a struggle in these recent economic times, Thuente says, “We’ve seen it come back in the 2nd half of 2010.”

Part of that success is due to a recent commitment to a more proactive approach to customer service.

“We have monthly manager meetings, which focus on how we can do a better job with customers,” he said. Thuente has also hired an outside consultant (not yours truly) to do some customer service training with his 30 plus staff members.

That, says Thuente, also helps head off problems down the road.

“If you are a customer long enough, we’re going to have an issue,” he admitted. “But if you like the person at the counter, you’ll come back, even if they build another cleaners between you and us.”

Build away. It looks like this happy crew is ready to be pressed into action.

Jonnie Wright is a customer service evaluator and trainer, professional secret shopper, marketing strategist and host of The Unsecret Shopper Radio Show, Saturday mornings 8-9am, on 1350, KRNT.       

    

    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s Facebook page    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s Twitter page    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s blog    

Click to email Jonnie (jonnie@theunsecretshopper.com)    

Phone: 515-480-4190 

 

Hello shoppers…

“There are no accidents. There are only encounters in history.” -Pablo Picasso

 

Meeting Virginia Wiggins was an accident. So was her being met head-on by a drunk driver.

The first happened on Tuesday. The second occurred 34 years ago.

One event makes sense. The other makes us shake our head at its senselessness.

Out of the luck of randomness and the soundness of reason, comes Virginia’s incredible story.

We discovered each other at the checkout counter of the Git N’ Go at 2911 Douglas. She was there because she manages the store. I’d popped in because I needed a break from working on a Secret Shopper review (which you can read next Thursday).

I’d never been inside that Git N’ Go before Tuesday.

The early election day morning air felt cold and harsh, perhaps foreshadowing the rapidly approaching political storm, as well as ole’ man winter himself.

The feel of one and the thought of the other, however, was no match for the sound and sight of Virginia’s unexpectedly warm greeting and inviting smile, which she offered from the get (n) go.

Her beautiful smile continued to find its rightful place on her face as she scanned the 20 ounce bottle of caffeine free diet Pepsi and Kit-Kat bar that pose as a healthy breakfast for certain bloggers.

I gave her my debit card. She gave me a thank you. That was that – just another retail transaction on a day and in a store full of them.

Yet as I walked out and got into my car, I knew I’d be getting back out, and walking back in.

There was something about her smile.

It’s not as common as one would hope, for us shoppers to see an employee smile during a retail transaction: it happens just 60% of the time, according to The Des Moines Customer Service Survey. 

I’ve seen a total of 9 employee grins since the end of March, when I started The Smile Project, a program designed to reward employees for doing exactly what Virginia did.

I had $25 in my wallet, and time to kill. I went back in, told her who I was, what I did and that she was Smile Project Winner #10. I asked her why she smiled, and seemed so happy. I started to take notes about what I thought would be a nice little ”feel good” story.

I had no idea.

Virginia Wiggins was just a year and a half old in the spring of 1976, when she, along with her mother, brother, sister and aunt piled into the family car, her aunt at the wheel.

The vehicle was started, the engine put into gear and away they went, happily motoring down a random road in Virginia’s hometown of Kinsley, Kansas, which lies in the western part of the state, about 130 miles west and slightly north of Wichita, on Highway 50.

“I don’t know where we were going,” she told me. “We were all just together, just out for the day.”

A local man was also  out and about in Kinsley that day, making the rounds. He stopped into a liquor store, purchased a bottle, got back in his car, tucked the bottle securely between his legs, and began driving.

“They said he was drunk before he got to the liquor store,” Virginia recalls, her smile fading slightly. “They shouldn’t have sold him anything.”

There are hundreds of streets in Kinsley, pop. 1,500. Virginia’s family used them every day, and knew them well, as did their neighbors and friends. That’s part of the reason we live in small towns, part of the allure of living in rural America: we feel secure.

Virginia was not in a child safety seat.

She also wasn’t wearing a seat belt. Neither was anyone else in the car.

“It was 1976,” she says, shrugging her shoulders. “Nobody knew any better.”

Hundreds of streets. Just not enough. 

The cars met head on.

The impact killed Virginia’s aunt. Virginia’s brother suffered a broken leg and collar bone. Her mother and sister were also injured.

Virginia’s injuries were the worst.

The force of the collision snapped the baby girl’s neck against the seat so violently that it severed nerves, paralyzing the right side of Virginia’s face.

“I have no memory of it,” she says now, sharing the painful memories that do exist for her, in the long, slow wake of years since the accident.

“I was taunted by kids as I grew up…I went through a lot.”

There were also years of speech therapy.

The accident, the death of a loved one, the life-long disfigurement, the teasing, the trauma - Virginia’s life could have taken a lot of dark turns, and no one would have blamed her.

Virginia decided to take a different road.

“I developed a coping mechanism. I decided to kill ‘em with kindness.”

Instead of walling herself off, Virginia reached out. Instead of allowing bitterness to imprison her spirit, she gave her joy free reign.

“I was raised in a happy family,” she says, through a grin that proved the truth of her words. “Much of my attitude had to do with my mom.”

Perhaps most important in explaining how Virginia got here from where she was, is what she said next.

“I’ve forgiven him.”

The drunk driver was charged, found guilty (Virginia doesn’t know how long his prison sentence was or even if he served time, or what became of the man) and forced to pay $50,000 in restitution to the victims.

“My mother put my share in the bank. Savings account interest rates were very high, at the time,” she says, with a chuckle.

Virginia has much to laugh and smile about, she will tell you: a good husband, a healthy 8 year-old son, a five year career with Git N’ Go (“A GREAT company!”).

She also believes in sharing her happiness with every patron who enters her location.

“Who wants to come into a store and hear your problems?”

Be smiled at, greeted, engaged and thanked by Virginia sometime – and you’ll never suspect she’s had any.

And that’s no accident.

      

Jonnie Wright is a customer service evaluator and trainer, professional secret shopper, marketing strategist and host of The Unsecret Shopper Radio Show, Saturday mornings 8-9am, on 1350, KRNT.       

    

    

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Phone: 515-480-4190 

 

Hello shoppers…

 

First, let me write outloud what we all silently know inside our skulls as an inarguable fact: The Exorcist is the greatest customer service movie of all time.

Second, there may be as many as 666 people worldwide who dispute this.

Third, here are the reasons why I’m right and they’re full of pea soup.

A. All retail is about problem-solving.

B. Someone possessed by the devil has a problem.

C. Exorcists solve the problem.

D. The Exorcist is a documentary about B and C.

“D” is especially important, since most exorcism stores (usually owned by Catholic churches) have gone out of business (blame it on a sluggish economy) and so all we have left is this one film, which tells a simple retail story about…

A Customer (Regan)

 

An Employee (Father Karras)

 

And a Problem (Pure Evil)

Let me demonstrate why the retail interaction between Father Karras and Regan should be required viewing in Business 101, using The Six Pillars of Great Customer Service: 

1. Does Father Karras smile at Regan?



Answer: YES! TWICE!



And what happens when an employee smiles at a customer…?

BINGO!

2.  Does Father Karras greet Regan?

Father Karras: “Hello, Regan. I’m a friend of your mother’s, I’d like to help you.”

Regan: “Then loosen these straps.”

Awesome job, FK! He uses part 1 of the greeting (salutation) and takes part 2 (the open-ended question) and turns it into a thoughtful statement that demonstrates how much he wants to help her.

He also skillfully avoids asking the clunky closed-ended,“Can I help you?”

But Father Karras doesn’t stop there! He also tosses in an introduction.

“Let’s introduce ourselves…I’m Damien Karras.”

“And I’m the Devil! Now kindly undo these straps!”

Now everybody’s on a first name basis – they’re already friends! Fansatanastic!



3. Does Father Karras engage Regan?

Hellaciously!

In fact, he deftly uses the kind of friendly, light-hearted banter that knocks down walls between two people who have never met:

Regan: “What an excellent day for an exorcism.”

Father Karras: “You’d like that?”

Regan: “Intensely.”

Father Karras: “But wouldn’t that drive you out of Regan?”

Regan: “It would bring us together.”

Father Karras: “You and Regan?”

Regan: “You and us.”

You can really feel those two warming up to each other!

But Father Karras doesn’t stop there.

He also utilizes something I preach about in training: touch. Touch releases endorphins. Touch makes us feel connected to the person we’re touching. Touch makes even Satan all gooey.

I usually recommend a hand shake, but FK takes it to another level.

Awwwww! They’re bonding!

4. Does Father Karras thank Regan?

Although FK is running late for his next exorcism…

…he does express a quick “thank you” before he skidaddles.

5. Does Father Karras follow up with Regan?

He’s sort of indisposed at the end of The Exorcist…

…but someone does follow up with Regan in The Exorcist II.

“Are you happy with your exorcism? If you were shopping for another exorcism, would you come back? Is there anything we can do to make your next exorcism most pleasant?”

6. Does Father Karras give chocolate to Regan?

Absolutely. Look how bad she’s broken out!

There you have it - the Six Pillars of Great Customer Service, in one great customer service movie.

Yet the most important thing to take away from The Exorcist is that employees give a tremendous amount of their time, attention and effort to help solve the problems of shoppers…

…who occasionally act like little devils.

 

Employees don’t do it for money (although that’s part of it) or recognition (which they usually only get when they screw up); they do it because it’s the right thing to do.

 

They are the unsung everyday working class heroes among us.  

 

So honor them today…

…with your smile, and your thanks.

      

Jonnie Wright is a customer service evaluator and trainer, professional secret shopper, marketing strategist and host of The Unsecret Shopper Radio Show, Saturday mornings 8-9am, on 1350, KRNT.       

    

    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s Facebook page    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s Twitter page    

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s blog    

Click to email Jonnie (jonnie@theunsecretshopper.com)    

Phone: 515-480-4190

 

Hello shoppers…

Before you get all excited that a new high-end boutique called Michael Libbie has opened in Des Moines’ downtown Skywalk, let me clarify that a) Michael Libbie does not carry designer wear although he must wear it, since the guy looks like a million bucks, and b) my Secret Shopper score of Michael Libbie, based upon my Five Pillars of Great Customer Service is BOFFO!

That’s in spite of the fact that Michael, President and CEO of, and mad evil scientist for Insight Advertising, Marketing and Communications, a highly successful advertising agency in Des Moines, temporarily lost his good sense and invited me to appear on his wonderful webcast show called Insight On Business, which he hosts every weekday from Noon to 1 on Webcast One Live, ensconced in plush, ornate boy-toy-filled studios inside the Skywalk.

Michael is somewhat older than me, looks better than me and has forgotten more about marketing, advertising and life in general than I know, or will ever figure out. Because of this, I had to subdue the strong urge to beat him with his own microphone. I eventually managed to relax and enjoy the hour we spent together, watching a media genius and genuinely nice man, at play.

Go to the link to Monday’s show by clicking this sentence.  (If you watch and listen while Michael is on camera, talking, then cover your eyes whenever I chime in, you’ll be happier.)

Michael followed the Five Pillars of Great Customer Service to a T (smiled, greeted, engaged, thanked and followed up), then added about a thousand more of his own.

Maybe a Michael Libbie boutique isn’t such a nutty idea after all; call your banker, Michael.

Bank on me having Michael on my terrestrial radio show (Saturday mornings 8-9am on 1350 KRNT) in the very near future.

Tomorrow’s Unsecret Shopper Radio Show, speaking of which, will feature what is kindly referred to as “an encore presentation” and more commonly known as “I’ll be in Kansas City watching the Iowa State Cyclone football team try to prove that Northern Illinois wasn’t a fluke and the Hawkeyes aren’t a trend.”

Prediction: ‘Clones 20, Kansas State slightly less.

The weather(wo)man’s prediction for the weekend seems more secure: rain. Enjoy dancing between the drops. See you back here on Monday.

Please shop and serve happy – for yourself, and the rest of us.

 

Jonnie Wright is a customer service evaluator and trainer, professional secret shopper, marketing strategist and host of The Unsecret Shopper Radio Show, Saturday mornings 8-9am, on 1350, KRNT.      

   

   

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s Facebook page   

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s Twitter page   

Click to be taken to Jonnie’s blog   

Click to email Jonnie (jonnie@theunsecretshopper.com)   

Phone: 515-480-4190