The Customer is always right.

Well it’s been one of those weeks.

Monday morning I went into town to meet the director of the BBC 4 project that I had been asked to audition for. A woman who quite clearly should have stood closer to her razor! I thought I read reasonably well, but as I said in last week’s blog I find it difficult to judge. They liked me a great deal I was told, so as you can guess, I didn’t get the job.

The trip up to Yorkshire this week took me and Mum out to purchase a new fireside chair for her. Some of the things in mum’s house have been around longer than some people I know have been on this earth. The Parker Knoll chair that she sits in on a daily basis by the fire moved house with her in 1984 and had already been in situ at the old house behind the shop for four years at that time. It’s given good service, but as now she spends a large part of the day sitting in it, I was intent on getting her one that was orthopaedically correct, didn’t have a sagging bottom (the chair, not my mother!), and was hopefully more comfortable for several hours of soap watching. Persuading my mother that anything new is a good idea is quite hard work so I was quite pleased the other week when on suggesting that the present she might need for her birthday and Christmas was a new chair, she didn’t throw the idea straight out.

We went to a local branch of Eden Mobility on a rather damp Wednesday afternoon at about three o’clock. As I’m sure you can imagine they weren’t actually rushed off their feet, and to salesmen both greeted us. My mother worked behind the counter of a shop for over 30 years so she knows how she likes to be treated when she’s buying something. Except on this occasion of course, she wasn’t buying something. I was. I greeted the salesman by saying “my mother is looking for a chair”. I might as well have said “please ignore me for the next 15 minutes” as that’s exactly what he proceeded to do. Mercifully my mother is someone who knows what she wants. She decided before entering the shop she was having nothing to do with “recliner chairs” and she immediately pooh-poohed any idea that the salesman might have of selling her one.

Instead she headed to the back of the shop where there were a couple of nice Parker Knoll type chairs that caught her fancy. She sat in one only for the salesman to immediately start extolling its virtues and how it would be altered to make sure it was exactly the right height for her. He made the fatal mistake of course that salesmen often make. He hadn’t asked her a single question or tried to find out what she wanted. Mum likes to have her “her bits” with her in the chair, so the open armed model he was proffering was of no use whatsoever. He had also made another mistake, in that he hadn’t actually worked out who would be paying for the chair. Eventually we settled on a very nice autumnal green chair with closed wing arms, and this was measured so that the legs would be made exactly the right height for mum to be comfortable. He then told her the price. At this point I stepped in and said that I was the one who was actually paying for the chair. He looked a little alarmed. I asked if that was his best price, and he went into a spiel about how good the chair was. I said I don’t doubt it, but it was still a little too highly priced for what I’d intended to pay. Again he said I was getting the benefit of a quality chair. I said I wouldn’t be buying it if it wasn’t, but I didn’t intend to spend more than £300. He was asking for £330. I said “Well it’s been really nice to get the chance to try the chair, but if you feel you can’t do it for £300 I’m sure I can look on the Internet and find it somewhere at the price I want to pay. Alternatively I could buy it here and now for £300.” Funnily enough we got it for £300 and he threw in free delivery and the taking away of mums old chair.

It just shows you. Ask for what you want. Be polite but firm and don’t accept rubbish service.

A bizarre but pleasing little footnote to this story is that on my way back to London on Thursday evening I was travelling on East Coast trains. The train was delayed. They did actually announce over the tannoy “leaves on the line”. So it is a real excuse. The guard was exceptional giving people information over the tannoy as to connection times for the newly delayed train and also checking as he walked through the carriage that people who were connecting to other trains knew where to go.

The catering staff were slightly less efficient and charming - so much so that I posted on Facebook the fact that I felt they been trained by the General Pinochet School of charm. Imagine my surprise when an old school friend of mine who’s a contact of mine on Facebook messaged me to say that she was the company secretary of East Coast trains. She was extremely displeased that I had suffered bad service on the train and would I please give her the details of what had happened so that she could deal with it.

So for all our benefits when you get bad service in a place flag it up, speak out, let them know and tell the world. But don’t forget to do it when you get good service too. That’s the important part.

It’s easy to criticise. As actors we know that. Let’s make it easier to praise people as well. and celebrate the fact that some people get it very right.

Unlike our director friend at BBC 4!