Firstly thank you to Avon for having me on the blog tour.
I cannot wait to get stuck in to this book.
For today’s slot on the tour I will be sharing a extract from the book.
Enjoy and do check out the other blogs
Barrie and Les saw customer care as an essential part of their role as Porno merchants. Some might laugh at that notion , given pornographys normal place in the world. It was all very well people pretending it was near enough respectable now but the reality was that even if you use porn you tended not to talk about it. You weren’t generally interested in building a rapport with the providers -you just wanted to acquire your goods and go (said good and then to residents in a secret compartment in your home where hopefully no one would effectively find them ). No one wouldn’t normally have thought this a business where the friendly touch would pay dividendsecurely, but barrie and les who’d jointly and successfully managed Sadie a dungeon their street corner sex shop for twelve years didn’t see it that way at all.
Certainly barrie didnt and he was the thinker of the twosome.
In Barties opinion it was all about improving the customer’s experience so that he would happily return . Happily that 2 as the key . Yes it was about providing quality material but at same time doing it with a smile and a quip or two and being helpful with it -if someone requested information or advice, you actually tried to assist, you didn’t just stand there with that bored bovine expression so common among service industry staff throughout the UK.
This way the customer would more likely buy from sadies dungeon again -it wasn’t difficult to understand. And it worked.
Even in this day and age there was something apparently disquieting about the act of buying smut. Barrie and les had seen every kind of person in her, from scruffy drunken louts to well dressed businessmen and yet all had ventured through the front door in similar fashion :rigid aroundthe shoulders, licks of sweat gleaming on their browse, eyes darting left and right as though fearful they were about to encounter their father in law -and always apparently eager to engage in an ice breaking matter with the unexpectedly friendly guys behalf the counter,though this was usually while their merchandise was being bagged;it was almost as if they were so relived the experience was over that they suddenly felt free to gabble to let quote that pent up humiliation pour out more them.
It was probably also a relief to them that sadies dungeon was so neat and tidy. The old cliché about sex shops being seedy backstreet establishments with grubby windows and broken neon signs,populated by the dirty raincoat brigade and trading solely in well thumbed mags and second hand videotapes covered in suspiciouslysticky fingerprints, was a thing of the past. . Sadies dungeon was a clean, model boutique. OK it’s main window was blacked out and it still announced its presence at the end of buckeye Lane with garish luminous lettering, but behind the dangling ribbons in the doorway it was spacious clean and very well lit. There was no tacky carpet here to make you feel physically sick , no thumping rock music or lurid light show to create an air of inotification. Perhaps more to the point, Barrie and les were local lads,born and raised here in Bradburn. It wasn’t a small borough as Lancashire towns went more a sprawling post industrial wasteland but even for those punters who didn’t know them,athey least their native accents ,along with their friendly demeanourevoked an air of familiarity. Made it feel a littlemore welcoming ,all. the wholesome.
‘Fucking shit!’ Les snarled from his stool behind the toll ‘bastArd! ‘
” what’s up?”barrie said only half hearing.
‘Fucking takings are crap again ‘
“Yeah?’ Barrie was distracted by the adjustments he was making to one of the displays. When sadies dungeon had first opened, sales had initially been great ,but ever since then thanks mainly to the Internet, and despite the lads conscientious cus timer care routine business had steadily declined.
‘Dony get you undies in a twist ‘ Barrie said , determinedly relaxed’ about it ‘they’re not that far down. We’re doing all right ‘
Though les didn’t share such airy optimism he tended to listen to Barrie who was undoubtedly the brains behind sadies dungeon, and in les’s eyes a very smart cookie.
‘Sonja we’re almost done! ‘ les shouted down the corridor behind the counter.
“Kay … getting dressed “,came a female voice.
Which was when the bell rang as the shops outer door was opened. The breeze set the ribbons fluttering as a bulky shape backed In, lugging something heavy behind him.
Les turned from the rack of dvds he was busy reorders. ‘Sorry sir we’re closing ‘
supermum ......... wheres my cape ??? 