Allison, a mom of two toddlers, works for Trainertainment and recently wrote an excellent article for this very newsletter. (check it out here) She talked about the hassle of getting everyone in and out of cars, taking a change of clothes, and wanting to be in a clean, safe environment. Those are very important things to young moms.
Guess What? Those are very important things to old folks too.
Yours truly will be 55 this year.
(pause while I grab some kleenex)
Getting dressed, (and as Allison wisely pointed out) confirming you have a change of whatever garments you may need (none of your business), getting to the car, buckling up, DRIVING in traffic, getting out and walking in ANYWHERE, better be Clean, Comfortable and Inviting. We want fun too, but we want what I call, the CCI first.
If I walk in and there is litter, unrecognizable stuff on the floor or worse yet, a smell, strike one. If no one acknowledges or greets me, strike two. If staff act like I’m putting them out for being a customer, Strike three I’M OUT! Alison let us know Mom groups all over Facebook light up when there is a story-good or bad about a particular establishment. As a trainer and Facebook Manager for Trainertainment, believe me, I get my point across on social media as well. When I’m happy, okay when “we” (the collective “elderly”) are happy, we spend more, we come back more often, we tell our friends. (Take Note: When we are happy we tip BETTER)
And it is actually easy to make most of us happy.
(yes, like with every generation and age level, we have ours who cannot be made happy under any circumstance. Ignore it.)
For the rest of us. Try this. Seriously, just try it… Smile. Here is what the smile says to us. “WELCOME. We want you here. We know that because of you we have a job.” (We already know this, we just want you to know it too) So Smile and wipe down the tables. And if you smile while you wipe down the tables, not only will we notice, the BOSS will notice. If we notice, we tip better. (did I already say this?) And if I am happy I tell two people, they tell two people. Except in the case of Facebook, I tell 681 people and they tell, well you get the point. You might say don’t threaten me old lady, old people aren’t on Facebook. (LOL, SMH) Yes we are, and as a matter of fact, my boyfriend’s 91-year-old mother hopped on FB 2 months ago on her iPad and has begun to use a lot of !!!, LOL’s and words like “awesome”. We are on Facebook.
My generation has money to spend on CCI, so while I’m not in Depends yet (as far as you know) and I can still get myself to the car, buckle myself in and drive myself around, please make it worth my time, energy and money.
