It Looks Like This Technology Actually DID Bring People Together!

We have a gentleman come in once or twice a week just to browse. My coworkers always became irritated that he would come in and wander, “kicking tires” and hurting our conversion rate.

I on the other hand usually tried to take the time with our older retiree customers to have a chat and see how they were doing and how their day was going. My grandmother had been widowed a few years earlier and didn’t get out much, so I knew how much it meant to our aging customers that were just browsing to have some human interaction that wasn’t all about a sale.

This gentleman and I eventually built a rapport between each other and we became good friends. He even eventually brought his wife in to meet me, and after that they would both stop in to chat while they were out and about.

About two years later (after we’d started talking regularly when they came in), imagine my surprise when I went to visit my Gramma in her condo and there was the gentleman and his wife sitting down in the lobby! Turns out they lived in the same condo!

After that, the gentleman and his wife would come into my store to chat, and they would wait for me down in the lobby of the condo as well on days they knew I’d be popping in to see my Gramma.

We had a wonderful relationship, and the wife would also check in on my Gramma for me during the week before my weekly visit, just to see if there was anything she could help Gramma with too.

I’ll never forget the day that I went to visit my Gramma, and the wife was downstairs in the lobby as usual, but my gentleman friend was nowhere to be seen. Turns out, he had passed that week, and his wife was alone now. I sat down with her and cried with her over his loss because we had built such a wonderful friendship.

After that, she wasn’t downstairs as often when I went to visit, but every once in a while when she was, I made sure to sit with her to have a talk and see how she was managing.

Eventually, my Gramma became too sick to stay on her own, and had to move to a retirement home, and then passed a couple of years later. But to this day, I still think about that couple, and wonder how she is.

They really were very sweet; I miss them a lot. He usually would come into the store while he waited for his wife to get her shopping done. And I was so touched when she began reaching out to my Gramma to help her too. It’s amazing the people you meet and the stories you hear if you just take the time.