Customers always right.... a right nutter.

Thursday, 15 July 2010 - You head in to your local Starbucks (I know... there is a topic I know NOTHING about), you step up to the till, and viola... they know your beverage, right down to the 3/4 full instruction.  This is service. It is all about knowing your customer, and knowing what their beverage of choice might not be that big a deal but it is a little something with a big payoff.  Not only do you get your caffeine headache cured quicker, but you'll likely come back again, thus increasing your caffeine intake, and ultimately, creating a larger headache earlier tomorrow.  It is the ultimate marketing play. What's better than a dime defense?  You got it... a coffee offense... no matter how many dimes it might cost.

In some industry's getting to know your customer is a good thing. Coffee shops? Check. Restaurants? Check * and cheque please*  Hookers? Check *and STD check please*. Pro Shop? Check. Dress shop? Check.  Shoe store? Check and Check.  Public transit? Oh dear god no. (Well, maybe that hot lawyer who commutes from Aberdeen... you know who you are.)  Yes, there are all kinds of folks on the public transit system you may just not want to get to know. They guy with the Pitt Bull Terrier and the dreads... not so much.  The nipple tweaker (his own), gotta go with no on that one too. The flower picker (not his own), ya no.  There is Kung Fu Panda, and Kung Fu Kodiak. They are entertaining enough, but just not someone you want to invite around your good china or the crystal. So Get to Know Your Customers Day should maybe not be celebrated universally. Maybe today there are a few professions that should refrain from ordering cake... police, methadone clinic workers, sooth sayers, gong farmer, body snatcher (well, depending on your personal 'bent'), chicken sexer (again, depending on your thang), psychiatrist. Regardless of your industry, if you do want to get to know your customers, today is a great day to make that commitment. if you are a psychiatrist, I don't think it's the same thing to have your customers committed.

It is now the middle of July, and that puts on a very fast downhill slope from the peak of summer to the valleys of winter.It won't be long before we switch from complaining about the heat, to whining about the cold and the rain. I'm not sure what it is about us that we seem to always have a complaint about what Mother Nature sends our way.  As her customer, I would just like to say... I will NEVER complain about the heat. If you were really willing to get to know me, Dear Mom Nature, you would know that what I really want is another 40 days of pure, unadulterated, unclouded heat! In order to fulfill that order, I would need today to be a fabulous summer day. Legend has it that whatever the weather is like on St. Swithin's Day, the weather will continue to be the same for the next 40 days.  As the saying goes:

St. Swithin's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St. Swithin's day if thou be fair
For forty days 'twill rain nae mair.¹

There doesn't seem to be any meteorological proof this holds up, but hey... if the weather is good today, I'll be hoping it will.  If it isn't, I can only hope that the English again got their lumps in there arse.

1. Info on St. Swithin's Day found at http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/stswithun.html