A customer came in yesterday and said that we were holding a book for her that was a present. I looked and looked on the special order shelves and there was nothing. She was perplexed because her brother had told her to come in today, her birthday.
Janie gave my her brother’s name and I looked him up. But the inventory record showed that he hadn’t bought a book from us. I started scratching my head and Janie was about to call her sibling when I saw that I had his phone number. This led me to believe that he’d been here or phoned in an order. Sadly, I could find no special order for her or her brother.
Rather than keep her in the store while I tried to figure out what on earth had happened, I told Janie that I would call the minute I knew something. I started scrambling. I hate calling customers about orders until I’ve exhausted everything I know about looking up their book. I noticed he was entered in the computer system (we never sell our list, it’s a great way to enter folks in our frequent buyers club) in October. “Ah ha!” Now, I had something to go on.
Lo and behold, after looking up that day’s receipts in the computer I saw that he paid for a $100 gift card, which for some reason isn’t tracked as a purchase. With the information, I looked in the special drawer where we keep these things and, voila!, there was the gift card. I sprinted to the parking lot in the hopes that Janie hadn’t left yet. I saw a blue car about to enter traffic and I tapped on the window. Well, honestly, I knocked loudly. Poor Janie practically jumped out of the car. She rolled down the window and I explained what had happened.
She thanked me very much for my digging and we both started laughing as we caught our breath. I apologized again for scaring her and smiled as I walked back into the store. I suspect next time, we’ll be mailing her birthday gift card.