Sometimes you walk into a store and you see the attention to details and design. The music is funky. All is design for the customer experience. Yet, one day I needed to buy shoes. I was desperate. I needed business shoes as I was going to Armonk to my company headquarter meeting and took only my casual brown shoes. This is the kind of situation were efficiency is the most important. I entered into this mall in white plain and wandered around for a place to buy shoes. There was plenty. I drop in Banana Republic which was my favorite brand. I continue walking in the mall and stop in this Kenneth Cole shoe store. There was at that point the best customer experience I ever had buying shoes. As I am European, this brand do not tell me a thing about the quality, services, image, and products that particular store was carrying. Today, I still don't know if this is a good brand. The store was classic and generic. No fancy music either. As I entered the store, the sales person offers to polish my shoes! My brown shoes were in a terrible state. Walking around the store with my socks on there was nowhere else where I would have gone. I selected the shoes with the help of the sales person. I tried them. Paid with my credit card this $ 140 black business shoes and was given back my sparkling brown shoes (pro bono) and walk away amazed by the level of service I just experienced. I was on my way to the parking lot and went through the other store that carries fancy brands (Brands I would have recognized). The sales people were chatting with each other like good Parisian sales clerk. My feeling at that moment was that there was no way I would have bough shoes in those stores. I've told now that story a hundred time. I still use it as a consulting pitch about service and what really matter. The experience was certainly created in the store but it focused on the basics. It was brilliant.

Cedric Canu Coordinator Cof Paris

Even though very basic, this is one of the best customer service stories I have heard in a long time. Cedric's experience was certainly not haphazard; experiences like this stem from awareness and attitude on the part of the service providers. An organization must hire for those traits in people, and then encourage and foster them.

Stories like Cedric's are such great examples for us all to strive for. But I wonder if anyone has any similar stories in a B2B situation or with professional services?