The best customers in the world, chapter 357

This morning a new customer entered our store. Her priest told her to visit us to shop for a new study bible. She has worn out her old one. (!)

I offered four books for her consideration and encouraged her to sit at the nearby desk, opened them to the beginning of the Gospel of John, and suggested that she read the study resources in each one for comparison. Twenty minutes later she said that she had decided on the book that she wanted. It surprised her because it was not the one that she thought that she was going to choose when she began.

She also informed me that she had inadvertently tore one page of one of the books, not the one she was buying. It was page 1884. She had laid another bible on top of it, then slid the top one off which tore the thin paper on the bible beneath. She was willing to purchase the $52.00 bible with the tear on page 1884.

We negotiated a compromise. I reduced the price of that volume by four dollars and wrote on the price label, “As is” “Page 1884” and the reduced price.

The woman insisted that she pay the $4.00.

How many customers in how many stores would have quietly closed the bible with the torn page and returned it to the shelf? Not this one. Not our customer.

We have the best customers in the world!