Ndfust plywood tlmbers too

You know you can get the plywood you want at Crown Plywood. But did you know thatwe also carry complete inventories on rolled roofing, redwood and cedarfencing, Doug Fir timbers, pine commons, redwood bender and lath, and plywood sidings?

You can get it all with one call from Crown Plywood. The lumber you need, ?nd the service you expect.

So give us a call at 714-530-39^ l.

To our L.A. area customers, you asked for it, you got it213-598-9675

DAVID CUTLER editor-publisher

EDITORilAI

Too Busy for What?

n N ONE OF OUR periodic field survey V trips, we happened to encounter three times in one day that particular irritant to the serious shopper: the clerk too "busy with business" to give adequate attention to the paying customer.

It would be less surprising if these minor moments in life occured in run-down, second rate stores. Such was not the case. Each time, they were in home improvement stores that would be considered top notch in any neighborhood in the country. None was a discount operation where excellent service is not really expected.

Certainly what is important here is not the few moments of minor irritation. but rather that otherwise (apparently) well run facilities have so misordered priorities that paperwork, inventories and even, in one case, an employees' meeting, resulted in floor salespersons "too busy" to help the serious buyer. It was a disturbing thing to encounter as we had recently heard reports of an increase in such inattention to customers.

This sort of thing is bound to happen once in awhile in the best run stores. But employees of more than one major Western retailer tell us that paperwork and other non-sales related work has increased noticeably. Good employees, who really care about the calibre of customer service they perform, are especially put off by this type of sloppy management thinking. It is occasionally heard that top sales people finally depart in frustration for firm's which truly appreciate the value of an excellent sales clerk. Management's attitude is even harder to understand when you consider how scarce and valuable are productive sales people, wherever they are in any organization.

Some people think the decline of service reflects a downturn in employee attitude toward the customer. We doubt it. Rather it looks to us that in most cases the unacceptable actions of sales people are more often the result of bad practices and attitudes coming down from the top of the organization. If the boss doesn't give a hoot, will anyone else?

Thorough sales training, with full, continuing followup and a commitment to.make certain bad practices don't reoccur is still the best way to make sure the customer buys this time and returns to buy again.