6 Degrees of Adam Morrison

I graduated in '99 from Mead High School.
While I was at Mead, for three years I did stats for the men's varsity Basketball team. Being short, I think I was largely invisible to most of them.
A couple of years after I graduated, a kid named Adam Morrison came to Mead.
From what I hear, he helped take the team to state, which is more then can be said for the three years I was doing stats for them.
He got a scholarship to Gonzaga University.
He's currently on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a consideration for player of the year.

When a local kid makes the cover of Sports Illustrated, this is undoubtedly big news. We got a huge shipment of Sports illustrateds in to meet the demand. And how we did the wait list was retarded.

We kind of got a late shipment in, so we started taking down people's names and told them to call us back. Now, when you just take down people's names for a magazine that can be bought just about anywhere with a newstand, there is a good chance that these people may end up getting this magazine somewhere else.

Unfortunately for me, I looked at this issue with logic, and a thought about Customer Service, as opposed to the brilliant item at hand that would undoubtedly leave a couple people pissed.

We took down the names of about 12 people, when the first shipment of magazines came in. It was our regular shipment, and totaled about nine magazines. We were expecting more, we just didn't know when they would come in.

One gentlemen came in looking for the magazine and put his name down on the list, at number 13 or something. He said he would be back around noon, though of course, there was no guarantees that we would get more magazines by that time. He mentioned that he lived kind of far away and it would be inconveniant for him to come back after he was done with his class.

Well, luck be have it, we hadn't gotten our second shipment in yet, and out of the nine people on the list, one person had claimed the magazine.

Statistics would show that of the original nine people that put their name down, some will not come back to get it. Especially when we took down their names and expected them to contact us. I even told the GSM (Guest Service Manager) on duty that I would bet him money that those people would not come back.

The gentlemen came back to get the magazine, he was number 13 on a list when we were expecting more magazines in, and the GSM refused to give him one. That customer knew we had magazines and left very irritable. I would wager that he was at a point where he wouldn't come back to the store. So we lost a sale and potentially we also lost a customer.

So, here is where Kami Logic comes in. We have 9 magazines. We have a list of over thirteen people on a list. We are expecting more magazines, one gentlement not in the nines comes back before we get the shipment. So far, of the nine magazines, we've only had one person come back to claim it.

This is the gamble. Do I guarantee to piss this customer off in favor of 8 customers that may or may not show up, or do I make the effort to please the customer that is right here in the store at the risk of pissing off one of those eight customers that I sold the magazine to? Now, keep in mind, this is to assume that all eight of these customers will be back in the store before we get another shipment in.

Does my logic make sense? I would rather take a risk and please a customer that is right there with money in hand wanting to make the purchase rather then slap him to the side in favor of making sure 8 out of 8 customers have their magazine in case all 8 people make it before the next shipment arrives.

Guess what? My odds were correct. Within an hour of that customer leaving, I think 2 people came and picked up the magazine before the next shipment arrived. So we lost the customer, in favor of pleasing 6 other customers that never showed up before the shipment.

I wasn't suggesting we do that for every customer, I've just known in my experience in retail that you often have to deal with your customers on a case by case basis. Some customers need to be treated differently then others. And seeing that this man came in the store, put his name down, left, and then came back makes him a special case.

When I left, our shipment of over 50 magazines came in. Overall, about 15 people vouched to put their name on a waiting list. Five or six came back before the rest of the shipment came in. We denied at least one the sale.

I discovered, after getting really irritated with this whole process, that maybe I need to get out of the customer service business.

Becuase I discovered that I don't deal well when I'm working under somebody I disagree with. Especially since technically we are actually in the same position (I'm a GSM too, I just wasn't working in the capacity of the GSM at the time, and I've held the position longer then this other guy has).

When other people came in, he started ranting about the problem to them.

I'm beginning to suspect that I might not be working there much longer. I have several reasons to quit.