Believe it: Stay will help you buy American products
‘Miracle on 34th Street,’ set at Macy’s in New York City, offers a lesson in customer service.
It’s February, but I’m having a hard time shaking Christmas. Specifically, the original “Miracle on 34th Street” from 1947 has been on my mind for the lesson it offers in customer service.
Young Peter wants a fire engine for Christmas. Kris Kringle, newly installed as the Macy’s department store Santa, promises Peter that his wish will come true. Peter’s mother has looked everywhere for the fire engine, including Macy’s, to no avail.
“You can get those fire engines at Schoenfeld’s on Lexington,” Kris tells her.
Incredulous, the mother responds:
“Macy’s sending people to other stores. Are you kidding me?”
Customers start lining up to thank Macy’s for putting their needs ahead of the store’s, in the process earning their loyalty.
R.H. Macy himself is so impressed with the response that it becomes official company policy:
“If we haven't got exactly what the customer wants, we’ll send him where he can get it,” he says. “No high-pressuring and forcing a customer to take something he doesn’t really want. We’ll be known as the helpful store, the friendly store, the store with a heart, the store that places public service ahead of profits.
“And consequently we’ll make more profits than ever before.”
Better for our communities
People and profits can co-exist, of course. Yet so many companies for so long have given short-shrift to customer service, outsourcing it, off-shoring it, replacing people with bots, making it nearly impossible to find a customer care phone number.
With so much of retail, it seems that employees barely know their own company’s products, so poor are the training and education and so generic are the products. How could these employees, movie-Macy’s-like, begin to send customers to rival Gimbels?
It’s tempting to discount the lesson of “Miracle on 34th Street” as filmic fantasy, but it’s actually applicable to Stay’s passion for Made in America. So for us, it’s less about steering customers to other T-shirt purveyors (although we have done that) than being a resource for customers who are interested in U.S.-made options for whatever they buy.
We had a mini-Macy’s moment on Jan. 7, not coincidentally the day after the assault on the Capitol. Along with a photo of our USA felt pennant, we posted to Instagram:
The next day, an Instagram post featuring our Pennsylvania Craft Beer Tee secured to string lights by a couple of wooden clothespins begat an exchange with someone about sources of U.S.-made clothespins. That same morning, another follower sent us a direct message seeking domestic options for sheets and comforters.
We are happy to share our knowledge of Made in the USA options or to do a little research. We’re fiercely passionate about the American-made movement and uniting Americans behind local jobs and revitalized communities.
We want a long-term relationship with our customers, and providing this little bit of added value is part of that strategy.
And we wouldn’t mind being known as the helpful store, the friendly store, the store with a heart.