Guest post from NGPF Fellow, Brian Johnson

It was the middle of the Christmas shopping season.  I was the warehouse supervisor at Best Buy.  At the time we were a new store to the market and the “Grab-and-Go” philosophy was a fresh approach to providing consumer electronics.  But our success was also a curse.  The distribution centers were shipping product to us daily and we still struggled with out of stock issues. 

As a warehouse supervisor, I didn’t have a lot of interaction with customers.  But one afternoon I was walking through the store and saw a customer who looked like they needed help.  He wanted an audio shelf system and we were wiped out.  I had access to the shipping manifests and saw that the system he wanted was on that night’s truck.  I took his name and number and told him I would set one aside for him. 

We unloaded the truck that night and I followed through by setting the product aside on my desk and called the customer.  The system was gone from my desk when I came back the next day.  Life went on and I had really forgotten the interaction.

About six months to a year later we had a new general manager.  Mike Lutes had a supportive and empowering leadership style.  During staff meetings he challenged us to grow beyond our roles as retail department supervisors and develop ourselves professionally.  As a young manager I felt like I grew so much under his tutelage. After he was there for a few months he pulled me aside and asked me, “You don’t remember me, do you?”  I replied, “What do you mean?”  Mike went on to tell me that he was that customer that I had helped out months earlier. 

I learned an important lesson that day.  Through life’s twists I became a business and personal finance teacher.  I share this story with my students in my career unit.  Follow through on what you say and treat every customer with respect.  They just might end up being your boss someday!

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After reading Brian's story, I came across an additional examples of how a positive customer encounter led to bigger things:

• Bike mechanic lands job at NASA after impressing customer by keeping his bike running smoothly (Cycling Weekly)
• Then there was my brother who had the misfortune of graduating during a recession in early 80s. While working as bellhop at a local inn, he talked himself into an interview with one of the guests at the hotel and ultimately got a job as a chemical engineer (his major in college) from that encounter. 

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.