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The Correct Thing In Good Society

In Shopping

The Correct Thing
For employees to be patient, cheerful, and obliging.
For employees to remember that it is their business to wait upon customers, and to be civil to them.
For a salesman to prove that he respects himself by showing due respect to others.
For a salesman to advise a customer, or assist her in making a choice, if asked to do so.
For a shopkeeper to be as polite to a poor customer as to a rich one.
For a salesman to remember that customers cannot always know just what they want until they have seen the new fabrics of the season, and that a customer has a right to walk through a shop looking at articles for a reasonable length of time, without being compelled to purchase anything.
To remember that the feminine for "man" is "woman;" for "salesman." "saleswoman;" and that while a salesWOMAN, like any other person of her gender, may or may not be a lady, she is still a woman, and if she be engaged in selling, a saleswoman.
For a customer to know beforehand as nearly as possible what she wishes to buy.
When one intends only to look at articles, and not to buy until another day, to say so in the first instance.
If one wish to see a piece of goods nearer the light, to ask the clerk politely if he cannot bring or send the material to the desired spot.
To hold the door open for a person who is entering or coming out of a shop just behind one. The second comer should in turn take hold of the door as she passes through the doorway.
To shut the door!
For a salesman and customer both to say "Thank you!" when a sale is completed, and the package or change, handed to the latter.
It is Not the Correct Thing
For employees to be uncivil or cross to customers because the shop is crowded, or because they are tired.
For employees to talk to each other while customers are awaiting their attention.
For employees to be impertinent to customers, or to make remarks upon them in the hearing of other customers.
For a salesman to advise a customer when he has not been asked to do so.
For customers to look over goods and take up the time of the salesman, without any real intention of making a purchase, or because they wish to see the new styles, in order to copy them in their home dress-making.
For a salesman to be sulky of a customer do not purchase his goods.
For employees to be harsh or arbitrary in their treatment of employees, especially where these are children.
To use the expression "sales-lady," which is quite as absurd as to say " a sales-GENTLEMAN."
For customers to speak sharply to employees or to be rude to them.
For customers to expect to be allowed to carry valuable dress-goods or other articles to the door of a shop, or to scold and make an outcry because such an unreasonable request is refused.
For gentlemen(?) to try to flirt with saleswomen and annoy them with foolish speeches.
To let the door of a shop slam in the face of another person, or to allow a stranger to hold the door open while one passes through the doorway, without making any attempt to hold the door open for one's self.
For sales men or women to insist that an article matches another perfectly, or that it is "just what the customer wants," when the customer expresses a contrary opinion.
To allow a person to buy damaged goods without their knowing their real condition.
Found in 1880 | Victorian Living 1840-1900 | Browse By Era | Browse By Subject | Etiquette and Social Life
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