{"id":17609,"date":"2015-12-08T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T13:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=17609"},"modified":"2015-12-08T08:00:18","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T13:00:18","slug":"turning-a-customers-day-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=17609","title":{"rendered":"Turning a Customer’s Day Around"},"content":{"rendered":"

Holiday shopping flip-flops between\u00a0stressful and fun. Our goal at the bookstore is to be on the\u00a0enjoyable\u00a0side of that teeter-totter, and sometimes that takes a little bit of work.
\nRecently, a woman came in with her two children, ages 10\u00a0and 12. In addition to buying some presents for other families, they were looking for a family read-aloud book. The mom was clearly frazzled and a little bit cranky. When we had to inform her that all but one of her favorite Bruce Coville Shakespeare retellings were out of stock indefinitely, she was mad. At us.
\n
\nAt some level, she likely knew that we weren’t personally responsible for the demise of this excellent series, but on this afternoon, it didn’t matter. She scolded us for not having them. (We were just as sorry not to be able to carry them any more; they are terrific.)
\nSo we did what we do — tried to\u00a0redirect the frustration with another suggestion. We showed her Gareth Hindss’ graphic novel versions of\u00a0Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet<\/em>. She read aloud snippets of each to the children, an activity that mollified her until she\u00a0came upon this unexpurgated Shakespearean line of Lady Macbeth’s:<\/p>\n

I have given suck, and know<\/em>
\nHow tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me.<\/em>
\nI would, while it was smiling in my face,<\/em>
\nHave plucked my nipple from his boneless gums<\/em>
\nAnd dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you<\/em>
\nHave done to this.<\/em><\/p>\n

She was ready to put the book back until her children pleaded earnestly with her to choose it despite\u00a0(though probably, secretly, because of) the nipple and brain dashing. It sounded like Shakespeare’s own language, they said–accurately–and they had been wanting to read Macbeth<\/em>. Their mom\u00a0did like the artwork and the fact that the adaptation stays as true to the original language as possible while make some abridgments for length and small, thoughtfully considered textual adaptations for modern audiences, so she considered, and finally consented, her\u00a0Coville-adaptation sorrow put on a back burner.
\nThen her daughter noticed No-Churn Ice Cream<\/a>\u00a0in our Cookbook section, and eagerly showed it to her mom. Apparently, they had just been talking about experimenting with frozen treats that didn’t require an ice cream machine, and voila! Here was the perfect book. Our customer’s mood took another turn for the better.
\nWhen her son asked for a book “like Artemis Fowl but different,” we offered him\u00a0one of our favorites, Catherine Jinks’s fabulous Evil Genius.<\/em>\u00a0His eyes lit up at the description\u00a0and he tucked the shiny\u00a0paperback under his arm.
\nMissions accomplished, they brought their\u00a0selections to the counter and then noticed the little bowl of delicious\u00a0sugar plum candies<\/a> we give to customers throughout the holidays.\u00a0The three of them left the store chatting animatedly, each with a book, munching on a sugar plum. The best part for us was hearing the mom thank her daughter for insisting they come to the bookstore today. If we can send customers out feeling better than they did on the way in, that is a successful day at the Flying Pig. And that is the power of great books!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Booksellers can never expect some customer frustrations, but we can usually make them better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}