Glenn Beck is the host of a syndicated talk radio show, the third most listened-to radio program in the United States. He's a conservative commentator, but this has nothing to do with politics so please read on, regardless of your political persuasion.
Beck was in Philadelphia on a speaking tour when his watch band broke. He asked someone where he could go to get it fixed or replaced and was sent to a big jewelry store on Chestnut Street. To make a long story short, the clerks in the store were busy talking to each other and treated Beck like something that was stuck on the bottom of their shoes.
Leaving the store, he spotted another smaller store on the other side of the street, William Schwartz Jewelry. He went in and was greeted by a man with a jeweler's eye piece and and apron, Russell Schwartz. Beck showed Schwartz his watch and asked him if he could fix it. He said he'd try. He searched through boxes of old watch parts looking for the piece he needed to make the repair, coming up empty. "Wait", he said, "I'm not done."
He walked Beck down the street to another jewelry store to see if they had the part. "No, sorry" they said. Again Schwartz said, "I'm not done." They went back to his store. He dug some more, found an old part and took it to his bench where he proceeded to fabricate the part he needed for the repair. It worked perfectly.
Beck asked how much he owed Schwartz, and he said there was no charge. It was just an old spare part. "But you spent 25 minutes!" Beck told him. "How much do I owe you."
"OK, $5.00." Beck gave him a fifty dollar bill.
But, there's more to the story. On the wall was a picture of Russell Schwartz with President George W. Bush. "How did you meet the president," Beck asked. It turns out that one day one of the President's aides came into the store to get an emergency repair on his boss' watch. He didn't tell Schwartz who his boss was. He repaired the watch in minutes and the man left. Shortly afterwards, the man came back and told Schwartz his boss wanted to meet him. "OK. Who's your boss?"
"President George Bush." He met the President, had his picture taken, and was praised by the President of the United States for his excellent customer service.
In a similar situation, Schwartz did some work for a man who turned out to be a hotel concierge. Later the man returned to the store and said that his client wanted to purchase a 5 carat canary diamond. Now, I have no idea what a 5 carat canary diamond sells for, but I'm pretty sure it's worth quite a few watch bands.
What's Schwart's secret? He says, "You've gotta like doing your job. It always pays off in the end."
So Russell Schwartz gives good, old-fashioned customer service. He's the third-generation owner of William Schwartz Jewelry. The business started in 1929, not exactly the best year to go into any kind of business. By giving excellent service he's gotten the chance to meet a US President. He's sold a 5 carat canary diamond. And he's gotten more than ten minutes of free air time on the third most listened-to radio program in the country. Beck has even put a link to Schwartz' web site on his home page.
The moral of the story is that you never know who might walk into your store, but if you treat every customer as someone special, only good things can follow.
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