What else can we do to help?

We are building a TV studio at our offices for a new project to be launched later in the year. The studio is almost complete and recording is about to get into full flow. We need to hang some special fabric on the walls to offer some extra sound absorption, so yesterday it was decided to buy some, to hang around the perimeter, just as I’ve seen in other TV recording studios.

There is a bit of an ‘Arthur Daly’ side of me that many folk wouldn’t know about. I love the challenge of finding the unusual and getting it at a good price. I think many things are over-priced and I have no scruples about buying second hand – after all, that’s how we furnished our beautiful Georgian offices when we bought Quorn House 16 years ago. In the offices themselves (in the old bedrooms of the house) almost every desk is second hand, bought at auction from companies who had closed down. You would never guess as they all look immaculate!

But buying eighty meters of black felt-like fabric is not your normal purchase so I rang a friend at the auction house we furnished Quorn House from all those years ago. The auctioneer, Nigel Dearman, knows everyone. He suggested I ring ‘Mrs M’ who sells all kinds of fabric, so I did. Mrs. M’s shop is only open at weekends but she would be ‘happy to open up to meet me there in an hour’. I popped in on my way to my fitness classes. Mrs M was serving two other customers while she was waiting for me. They were buying sari material and Mrs M explained that they were ‘lucky to find her open on a Monday’ but she was there to meet Mrs Rosemary – but if there was anything else they wanted, ‘here is my mobile number, I could open up for you anytime if that would be helpful!’

Mrs M didn’t have the right fabric for me but she was happy to offer to go to the wholesalers to get it. ‘I will give you a very good price and I will call you tomorrow afternoon when I have it’.

I came away imaging the response I might have received from another shop. ‘No, sorry we don’t sell that’ ‘No, we’re closed till Saturday’. Our customers are the life-blood of any business and we should do everything we can to look after them. I hear of the extra-mile that our franchisees go to in order to support their members. They are genuinely caring by nature and interested enough to do anything to make their business a success because it is in their interest to do so. That’s why they still have good classes, even in a recession. It is all about genuine customer care. It is something I have held so importantly in the way I have worked in the thirty eight years I have been in business. Every letter I get receives a reply, if we can answer a request we will, and if a product isn’t right, we’ll sort it. And our company is flourishing.

Perhaps the whole country could learn a lesson from Mrs M! It really was a case of ‘I will do anything I can to help you’.

For details of your nearest caring Rosemary Conley franchisee, visit www.rosemaryconley.com