The Aardvark Blog

An email from an unhappy customer and my response
25/07/2020

Received this morning from an unhappy customer:

'I visited the cafe bookshop today and was greeted with a big sign which said welcome and then went on to list all the requirements to entry! You probably mean well but we didn't come in and won't be back. Perhaps you'd remove my name from your mailing list too.'

My response:

Dear XXXX,

I will certainly remove your name from our database and I am sorry that we will not be able to welcome you to the shop again.

I am sorry also that you feel aggrieved by the signs we have put up at our entrance. I too feel strongly about them. You cannot begin to imagine how long I have agonised about finding the right balance between protecting my staff and customers, complying with the laws of this country, and continuing to provide the kind of service that I have hitherto provided – one in which bossy signs etc have I am glad to say not played a part. It was 50/50 that we would choose not to re-open to customers and continue only selling online, but ultimately I decided that to offer some service – even one compromised by restrictions - was better than to withdraw service entirely. For doing so I have received a steady flow of thanks from existing and new customers and one expressed complaint (your email).

I hope that you won’t mind if I take a little time to explain why I have imposed the restrictions that I have. My wife Sarah is a high risk asthmatic and my father in law who is currently ill with a bone marrow disease akin to Leukaemia and who I have to drive to hospital from time to time, has little or no immune system as a result of the treatment and of the disease itself. I should also add that my mother has advanced age-related vascular Dementia and is thus also in a high risk group. If I get Covid 19 or a member of my staff gets Covid 19 and passes it on to me, my ability to support the people I love will for a period of time be negligible. I am just doing my best to make sure that that doesn’t happen.

 I understand your frustration with what we are all going through and in many ways I share it, but I would ask that before sending out an email to any-one else like the one you sent me, you think for a second about the realities of the lives that other people are living currently and the responsibilities they also have to balance.

With best wishes,

Sheridan Swinson

Managing Director

Aardvark Books