Customers are the lifeblood of every business. That is true in all types of enterprises but is especially so for retail establishments, from the behemoths like Walmart to your local Mom and Pop store. Dave’s Deli, where I worked as a teenager, was a bit larger than a typical Mom and Pop, and it was owned by a true Mom and Pop along with their daughter and son-in-law. Danny was that son-in-law, and he managed the store with an attention to detail that, I realize in retrospect, was quite phenomenal.
To me, he was more than a boss. He taught me through his words and example how to manage, lead and achieve business success. To Danny, it all began and ended with the customers. They brought in the dollars that allowed the deli to remain profitable and support not only the four owners but also provided income to a cast of fifteen mostly part-time employees. The key was to ensure that each customer returned week after week. And many, many did, week after week, year after year.
The first element was to provide quality products that the regulars wanted, and Dave’s Deli did that. Its sliced preserved/lunch meats and smoked fish were superior to anything you might be able to purchase at a supermarket, such the Pathmark that was just down Bustleton Avenue. The second, and more crucial element, though, was personal customer service.
Danny made it clear to me that every person who came through the door was to be treated like royalty. And, the vanity of every customer, which in some individuals could be almost overwhelming, was to be accepted and embraced by each employee. So, a client with a huge ego, a large wallet and particular demands to be met, would be pampered, so that he or she left the store with a reinforced self-image.
At the other end of the scale were senior citizens, often with small wallets, who also could be quite demanding. The men were to be treated as kings and the women as queens, even as they might ask for “three bagels with small holes.” She might just be buying a few bagels and some corned beef and lox, but the point was that she came in every Saturday to buy from Dave’s. That small dollar flow of commerce had to be kept robust just as the big dollar business also had to be sustained.
Danny taught me that even though a customer is not always right, I should serve them as if they were right. So, if sorting through dozens of bagels to find a few with smaller holes was the request, I needed to do it. He also educated me on the boundaries and at what point a customer needed to be handed off to him or to another senior member of the store’s staff.
Now, I was an obedient kid in my first real job, so I did what Danny told me to do and saw the customers as the people who were paying my salary. But there were others employed at Dave’s Deli who were much older, jaded and not necessarily excited about dealing with the whims of difficult customers.
Saturday was the busiest day of the week, and there were normally three or four deli men who would work just that day, supplementing the fulltime weekday jobs they held elsewhere. They were veterans of the retail food environment, and they were Philadelphia characters. One would sing standards fairly loudly, substituting “funny” lyrics for the originals such as, “You must remember this, a knish is still a knish.” Others would simply tell jokes to the customers.
With patrons they disliked, they would get their revenge in subtle ways. One’s approach was simply to say, “Asshole” from behind the counter, and the customer would hear it as “Is that all?” It satisfied the deli man’s need to assert his own self-worth, while it left the customer none the wiser. Needless to say, this did not happen if Danny was nearby.
Probably the nicest deli man was named Reuben, but everyone called him Ruby. He was an older man, slow to anger and with a sweet disposition. A customer, though, put him over the edge on one memorable occasion. She was quite advanced in age, used a cane and was one of the deli’s weekly regulars who made small purchases. We didn’t know her name. This one particular Saturday, she moved slowly, making her way in through the front door and toward the area with corned beefs, pastramis and other meats lined up in a glass-fronted refrigerated case. Ruby moved out to greet her.
“My darling young lady, how can I help you today?”
In a thick Yiddish accent, he said, “I want six pounds of corned beef, sliced thin.”
Ruby did a doubletake, “Six pounds? Are you having a party?”
She repeated, “I want six pounds of corned beef, sliced thin, and I want it from that one.” She pointed to one of the corned beefs in the case.
Dave’s was well-known for its delicious corned beef. Danny or Dave, his father-in-law, would boil the salted briskets three to five at a time in a huge cauldron back in the kitchen/stock room. Once they cooled, they were placed on display in the case. When a customer wanted some, they would point to one of the pieces of meat, and the deli man would place it on a flatbed meat slicer that would automatically go back and forth while advancing the meat a slight bit toward the blade after each slice. The deli man would just have to stand there and catch each slice as it fell from the blade and place it in a neat pile on while deli paper.
A typical customer order would be for half a pound, or maybe a pound, of sliced corned beef. So, Ruby asked one more time, “Six pounds?”
The woman, growing a bit perturbed responded, “That’s what I said!”
So, Ruby set to work slicing six pounds of corned beef. As you might imagine, it was a lengthy process, and that automatic slicer was working overtime. Other deli men were taking notice, as was I. Ruby got through the entire piece of meat the woman had selected and then pulled another out of the case to continue filling the order. In the meantime, the customer was turned around, looking at the small produce section across the aisle from the meats case.
He was wrapping the slices in one-pound packages, had finished the fifth pound, and was well into building the sixth. The woman then turned around, peaked her head through an opening between the refrigerated display cases to speak to Ruby and said, “Do you have my six ounces yet?”
Ruby’s head nearly exploded. “Six ounces! You said six pounds!”
“No,” she said, “six ounces.”
Ruby’s face had turned red. “I asked you twice. You said six pounds!”
She wasn’t going to engage. “Do you have my six ounces?”
I thought Ruby was going to hit her. One of the other deli men jumped in, “I’ve got it,” and he pushed Ruby toward the back kitchen and away from the lady.
Ruby came back out a few minutes later, after the woman and her six ounces had departed. He was still steaming as he looked upon the pile of packages neatly wrapped in deli paper containing over five pounds of corned beef. I believe he may have uttered a profanity or two.
What happened with those five pounds of corned beef? Remember that automatic slicer that would go back and forth, advancing a tiny bit after each slice? Well, there is a setting that allows it to go back and forth but not advance. As the rest of the day progressed, when customers would ask for corned beef and not be particular about which one was the source, Ruby would place a piece of meat on the automatic slicer and set it to not advance. Then, as it would go back and forth, he would simply take slices one-by-one from the previous cuttings. It was impossible for the customers to see what was happening. And I am sure that the corned beef was just as delicious as if it had been cut to order. It actually had been cut to order, just not for them. What’s the lesson offered by the lady who wanted six ounces and asked for six pounds? It’s what Danny taught me – customers are not always right, even if they think they are right – and any business needs to treat them as if they are right.