Poor Ray!

A couple of days ago we headed out on our regular afternoon walk with Ray and, as we had not been to Lululemon for quite a while, decided to let Ray take us there… which of course he did. There was only a water bowl outside (no biscuit bowl!) and Ray was clearly perturbed as he looked all around for it. He decided that he needed to go into the store and get this obvious oversight resolved!

Once in the store, we couldn’t see any familiar faces, so we caught the attention of the nearest staff person to us and explained why Ray was in the store. Ray got a condescending smile, and the person then went off to serve a customer!

We gave Ray a treat (a poor trade-off for a Lululemon biscuit!), and directed him further downtown to another store that often had biscuits outside, but there was nothing there.

I decided that although I really did not need any money, we would go to the bank anyway so that at least Ray didn’t think that the whole walk was a waste of time! We arrived at the bank… and it was closed! We had been out longer than we had anticipated. Again we gave Ray one of his regular treats, but the poor guy must have thought that the whole world was against him.

We eventually made him happy because we stopped at Tim Hortons and bought him a plain TimBit! His stars had once again aligned themselves, and he no longer looked dejected. I am going to have to talk to Lululemon though!

25 thoughts on “Poor Ray!”

    • Possibly they were just having a bad day. They are allowed that once in a while, but make a habit of it and I will be expressing myself on Ray’s behalf. If a store encourages dogs, then they have to accept the inherent responsibilities that go with it! Lululemon’s track record over the past four years has been excellent so I am not unduly concerned. 🙂

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  3. You can’t find good workers these days. None of them want to have to work. Dogs really love a routine, especially when it comes to treats. I’m glad you found him something to lift his spirits.

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    • Somebody once said to me “While everybody seems to be looking for a job, not too many are actually looking for work!” Anyway, I think Ray has allowed us to get to know him sufficiently well that we can accommodate most circumstances. He has trained us well! 🙂

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      • Tink agrees that ANY treat is a good end to a disappointing walk, but I don’t. Customer service = consistency = customer acquisition and retention.

        YOU may have known this was the first time in 4 years that you and Ray have been disappointed, but if I were a relatively new customer I might take the store off our route following treatment that was dismissive, if not actually rude – and never go back. That employee sent the wrong message, i.e, “Money is all we care about here; you don’t count if you’re not spending money TODAY.”

        The ONLY appropriate mindset consistent with your 4 year experience is, “Thank you so much for letting me know. Let me take care of this customer and I’ll be back with Ray’s treat and will find somebody to get that treat bowl out there” (besides an apology and explanation for why they were out of treats *today*)

        I hope you DO talk to Lululemon. If I were the manager (or owner) of the store, I’d want to know about this experience so I could reinforce the customer relation skills of EACH of my employees. In this economy especially, no owner or manager can afford to offend their customers – and I would have been HIGHLY offended, first month or fifth year.
        xx,
        mgh
        (Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMORE dot com)
        ADD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder
        “It takes a village to transform a world!”

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