I hate bad service. It’s right up there with bad medicine. Bad men. Bad milk. And a bad toothache. I just don’t like it. I work too hard for my money. When I buy something, no matter how big it is, or how expensive it is, or not, I expect to have my eggs and apples placed into a brown paper bag, apples down and eggs up. Then I expect the clerk to say thank you like she really means it.

Every business can have its day. A secretary is worried about a sick family member and is uncharacteristically rude. A product is defective and the store sells it because it is not obvious the thingamajig is broken until the customer actually uses it. The answering machine went on the fritz and the window man doesn’t even know you called. But chronic bad service is the reason I’ve boycotted a certain department store chain and cell phone company. There is no excuse for chronic bad service except for those in charge just don’t care. And the employees care even less. I prefer to take my business elsewhere.

What amazes me is that in this day and age when so many people are out of work, those who have jobs are not trying harder to keep them. You’d think they’d be jumping through hoops to keep the customer happy! Good service is easy to do. Be nice. Give them what they paid for. Say you’re sorry if something goes wrong. But bad service is as prevalent as ever. Employees still come in late like they own the place. Storekeepers ignore you when you need assistance. Companies don’t return phone calls, show up or act like they are happy to hear from you when you do reach them.

One time I called someone to do some electrical work. A month later I got a call back. A whole month. He acted surprised that I already got the work done weeks ago. Another time I hired someone to do plumbing work. A week after the job was completed, there was a problem with one of the fixtures. I called him back. He never came. I thought, “Oh, I got it. You already got my money.”

In all fairness, it’s not everyone. The young girl waiting on us in Maurice’s where we were buying our daughter new shirts went above and beyond the call of duty, waiting on us like we were rich people in a French boutique. (I need to send a little note to her manager.) There’s a guy in Food Lion who always offers to carry my bags and though I say no, I like it that he asks. The guy who runs this newspaper always makes me feel like the customer is always right. Even when I’m wrong.

My company, Shop-At-Home-Floors, gives good service. Not only because we know who butters our bread, but because we simply like doing it. Some of our customers call us back to do more jobs or they refer us to their friends because they like our service. It’s great. We’re in business to make a living. That’s the whole point. But some customers have even become our friends. Just like in the old days.

Shop-At-Home Floors

We sell and install carpet, hardwood, laminate, vinyl, tile, bamboo, cork, green products, kid-safe and American-made flooring. Also carpet binding, repairs, restretches, measures, inspections.

That sounds harsh. Perhaps threatening. Especially coming from “the little guy.” But it’s true. And if you are loyal to it, not only will it help you keep your job but it will insure that you get a better product and better service. Here’s why:

Mr. Jones has been working at one of the big box stores since he lost his job at the whirligig plant. They don’t make whirligigs here anymore. All the plants moved to Asia and India where there is nary a regulation in sight and whirligigs are made willy-nilly by children who should be playing with whirligigs.

Not only does Mr. Jones work at one of the big box stores now, but he does all his shopping there because, let’s face it, they have pretty cheap stuff and since he’s not making the same kind of money he used to make fastening whirligigs, he doesn’t have a lot of choice. (If this keeps up, one day there will be no choice.)

He’s getting by. However there’s not a lot extra for things like putting on a new roof or paying for college. And so rather than selling off a piece of his land, he logs it. It’s a good way to get some money.

After the trees get cut down, the wood gets shipped to China where it is made into whirligigs and… flooring. Then they ship their inferior products back here to be sold in the big box stores. I was shocked when I learned this. What? We are growing the trees here in Virginia and then shipping them to China where they are made into hardwood floors and then we ship them back here to Virginia to be sold in stores like where Mr. Jones had to take a job?! It doesn’t make sense! People are out of work here! We grew the trees! How can it be cheaper to ship them across the ocean and back again, considering the high cost of fuel? Why don’t we turn them into products right here?

Of course the flooring that comes back is not the same quality as the flooring that’s made here. It may look the same. In fact, they pride themselves on that. So it appears to be cheaper. It’s the way the big box stores and their foreign cohorts compete against the American-made products sold in small, local stores. They are putting the little stores out of business, and guys like Mr. Jones out of a job, who then has to work for the big box store for less wages and only be able to afford their junk. I call it“feeding the beast.” It’s not unlike what happened in The Grapes of Wrathwhere the workers could only buy flour and beans from the company store.

Next time I will talk about deceptive practices regarding the service you are paying for. In the meantime, here are a couple of tips to make sure you are getting value.

1. Compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. Ask for proof if a salesperson says the laminate is the best. Why? What are the specifications?

2. Buy products made by a name-brand manufacturer; not the big box store’s label made especially for them by the Chinese.

3, If you want the good stuff, and a better deal for real, patronize the small guy.

Shop-At-Home Floors

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Kurt says I watch too many decorating shows on HGTV. Every time I see a show I like, he claims it’s trouble for him. That’s how I got the cream-colored shag, reminiscent of the inside of a sleeve on a cowboy’s jacket, in the living room. Luckily, we already had hardwood floors, so he didn’t have to put them in too. But if we didn’t, I am attracted to that new Eco-Timber bamboo that is all the rage. Even though it doesn’t go with my western theme.

Kelly has shag carpet too. Lime green. I let her pick whatever she wanted for her bedroom as long it was kid- and pet-friendly. I guess she’s on a western theme too because she said it reminded her of pasture. It’s the perfect place to play with her Breyer horses.

Yes, we’re all horse-crazy. Which brings me to the vinyl in the barn. My tack room has a wood-look Tarkett floor. It’s easy to keep clean (very important in an area of high manure production) and soft on my feet. My neighbor, Pearl, couldn’t believe we were putting vinyl flooring in the barn. She said,“I believe that’s the prettiest barn I ever did see.”

Maybe she was just being polite and, secretly, she was thinking, “These Van Cleaves are crazier than a sack of rabid raccoons.” But it’s not as crazy as it might seem. We’ve put flooring everywhere for our customers. We’ve put it in people’s boathouses, sheds, RVs, basements, and an indoor putting green. We’ve installed tile in a lighthouse, hardwood in a fancy loft, and laminate in churches. We even carpeted somebody’s walls. Went right up to the ceiling in a lovely color the decorating people on HGTV would call persimmons. Or was it periwinkle?

The point is, flooring shouldn’t be boring. And neither should where you install it. You get the most bang for your buck when you put in new flooring. It’s the one thing that will make the biggest impact and if you’re like me, you want people to come into your home, or your barn, and notice.

If you’d like to know more about us and how we can help you get exciting flooring, look for our TV commercial on the Home-and-Garden channel or access it through our website: www.ShopAtHomeFloors.net

Let us sell you some junk flooring

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That’s right. If that’s what you want, we have it. (We carry everything from the real cheap junk to the high-end wool carpet rich people buy.) But we’re not going to lie to you about it. We’re not going to tell you something is great, if it’s junk, just to get the sale.

Sometimes Kurt comes back to the shop very frustrated because he gave a great deal to a customer and though she loved us, she apologized for going with one of the big box stores. They promised her something better. They lied.

That’s the thing. They are masters at making you think something is better than what it is. They package it real pretty with ribbons and bows. They stage the product, like the fake scenery on a set. Sometimes it’s trendy displays designed to lure you. Sometimes it’s a big sale, i.e. laminate with inflated prices to begin with, lowered to the realprice to get you excited—A deal! A deal!

Sometimes it’s an attractive offer such as free installation. (Now think about that—no installer is going to put in your new floor for free—it’s built into your price somewhere.)

Or they give you a long warranty even though they know the floor will fail long before the warranty is over. That is okay with them because they count on you not being able to use it. Maybe there will be documents you are required to provide that are likely to be long lost. Chances are you won’t even be living in the same house. According to studies, one out of five people move on average every three years. Or if you’re anything like me, you’re going to change out that carpet as soon as it gets dirty or dated. And if worse comes to worse and you pop up five years later trying to get them to stand by the promises they made, they will blame their flooring installers for the failure, who will, trust me, be long gone. Either way, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.

Kurt rants and raves, “How can we compete with that?! They are selling junk but they make the people think it’s something else!”

“Well, we can’t lie.”

We never have. We do very little advertising and we count on repeat business. With us, quality is more important than quantity, not only in the product, but in our service. And we just wouldn’t do it. We don’t like when it’s done to us and we don’t do it to anyone else.

So all we can do when someone has been bamboozled is wait for the next time. When they’ve had it up to here with the big box stores and their Chinese junk, their false promises and unknowledgeable salespeople interchangeable from one department to the next—Plumbing? Gardening? Hardwood floors? What’s the difference? When they’re sick of all that, they call us.

So if you want junk, we’ll sell you junk. But we’re not going to lie and say it’s better than what it is.