DISCRIMINATION AMONG CUSTOMERS
The practice of playing favorites by giving one customer more considerate service than another is unnatural. It is unfair and furthermore is not good business. Any short-measure of service is bound to be noticed and as a result the business is lost to the salesman and probably lost also to the house. Nothing can be said to illustrate with more force the advisability of serving all customers honestly and without discrimination than an experience of a few months ago as told by the retailer who was successful in securing the business that had gone a-begging. Such cases are bound to occur continually unless there is a fixed standard of service.
A certain customer entered one of the city stores, having just arrived from a camp where he had been spending the summer. Dressed as he was at the time, his appearance was that of a laborer, and evidently, on that account, he was treated indifferently by the salesman. Being dissatisfied the man left without having made a purchase and then entered another store where he was treated with all the respect and consideration due him. Before leaving, he had purchased shoes to the value of seventy dollars, paid cash for them and then presented his card with the request that the shoes be delivered. Not until then was it learned that he was one of the most influential men in that section of the country.
The secret of success in serving people is to treat them all alike, but to make each one feel the distinction of individual attention.