That’s what Derek said when someone asked him how it’s going with our move to Wallaceburg. “All my stuff is here, everything I care about is here, so it must be home!”
We are attempting to do as much business as we can here in our adopted town. That means looking around Wallaceburg first for what we need, then Chatham or Sarnia, and radiating out after that. I have had to make a couple of purchases from Amazon and Wayfair, but we have also been able to shop locally.
Tom and Al’s Furniture has been a Wallaceburg mainstay for more than 50 years. I suppose I expected a quaint, slightly out-of-date selection but my supposition was turned on its ear with a huge, modern showroom filled with beautiful, top-name furnishings at competitive prices. We’re going to purchase a laundry pair from them and take advantage of free delivery and set-up. On the downside, I sent them an email containing a question five days ago and haven’t yet had a response.
It’s the same with a local tailor who’s on Facebook. Five days and counting for her as well. If you’re going to bother creating a Facebook page, check in at least once a day and see if anything is going on.
This doesn’t just happen in small towns. Plenty of businesses didn’t bother to update their holiday hours on their websites or social media platforms. It takes a couple of minutes to say ‘we’ll be closed until ___’. Really, it ought to be considered part of the routine anymore.
A restaurant in town, for example, where we took our friends Ed and Jenny for dinner on Saturday, had only one vegan meal listed on its online menu. Jenny is vegan. When we arrived, they had four! It was a delightful surprise but it also would have been nice to know ahead of time.
Some people have commented that I’m not as quickly responsive to emails and texts as I used to be. My phone isn’t always with me. It’s liberating to leave it in another room for a few hours while I take on a task. But there is no way I’d ignore messages for days at a time. If I have, you can be sure that I’ve lost/overlooked/not gotten/accidentally deleted them. A couple of my friends work for very successful companies and part of their mantra is, quick customer response. It’s expected, appreciated, and if you don’t answer in a timely manner, you can be sure your competitor will.
Abslutely agree that there is no reason not to respond to clients/customers. One of my clients left it open last week if she should book a session today. I checked email last night after our dinner guests left and there was a message asking for a session today. I replied last night and just got a message back. We’re meeting this morning.