Blog 21: Exit Interview

1. My essential question is "What is the best way to achieve customer satisfaction for a comic store?".

Three Answers:

• Know Your Products
• Communication/Builing Relationships with Customers
• Have Customers Feel Apart of The Team

My best answer is Communication/Building Relationships with Customers because it has shown to be very effective while mentoring at JPM, and it considered the "Golden Rule" at various retail stores. I have have used this method in the store myself and have seen great results from the customers and have even become friends with most of them.

2. The process I took to arrive to this answer was asking how important customer satisfaction was in my interviews and all answers came out to be that it was very important and should not be ignored. So I chose to focus most of my attention towards that specific answer and had found great research on it.

3. I ran into very few problems while finding my answers and going to my Mentorship. The only thing that would have been the main problem was the repetitive information on customer service for my WB, since a lot of the research could be the same thing but just altered in different ways.

4. My two significant sources would have to be the many online articles I had found online, my mentor and Jean Pierre, the owner of the JPM Comics. Although the articles gave me a lot of good sources on business owning and customer service itself, I found that my mentor, Jason Cox, and Pierre gave me the information better in a way that I could understand it more and have me chances to practice them within the store with them.

Extra April Blog

This past month has actually been very helpful towards my senior project. I had gone more to my mentorship during the weekdays than the weekends. This was really fun to see the different environment in the store. There a lot more people that come in on Wednesdays so it was fun to talk to all of the regulars and we how friendly they are to one another.

This helped towards my second answer that involves talking to the customer and providing a friendly environment for them. I got to work more with the owner Pierre and I feel like he has more trust in me the more I work with him. He even asked me to help out with Free Comic Book Day, which happens to be this Saturday because it is one of the busiest days of the year. So I will be going to help out with that.

Independent Component 2

LITERAL

(a) "I, Gabriel Marquez, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 32 hours of work."

(b) The only source that was needed for my Independent Component 2 was my mentorship. Since all I did for Independent Component 2 was extra mentorship hours it was fairly easy getting my sources for it. I mostly did extra mentorship hours to get as much experience in the store and learn new things when I had the chance too.

(c) Independent Component 2 Log has been updated.

(d) What I completed during my extra mentorship hours was what I usually do during my regular hours. I will run register, put together bags and boards, do some order forms for the new books coming in, and other small things here and there. What I also did for about the last three days of my extra hours was go in during the week, since I usually go in on the weekend. It is a completely new environment during the week. There are many more people on Wednesdays due to the new books coming out. Everyone is talking to each other since they are all friends with each other. Other than that I learned how we stock the new books and the special rules when it comes to the new books. I would say what they are, but it's a secret. I also got to work more with the owner Pierre and gets some hands on experience and tips from him.

INTERPRETIVE

These are some of the regular customers that come to the store every Wednesday to pick up the new books that just came out. As you can see, they form a circle and just talk among themselves.

This my view from behind the register when I ring people up. When the picture was taken there happened to be no one in the store so my mentor Jason Cox decided to be in the picture.

This is what he do when we put new books on the shelf to prepare them. See the white comics in the back of me? They are just turned over, so when it's time to sell them we just flip them back and sell them away!

APPLIED

This helps me for my EQ because it gave me more experience dealing with new customers I have never dealt with before. I quickly befriended them and I talk to a lot of them as well. This becomes very helpful information towards my EQ that deals with employee/customer relationships within the store.

Extra March Blog

I have started to learn how to do order forms at my mentorship. The are fairly easy. Just very tedious. I may start doing full days on Sunday now and might also do weekdays to just knock out a few more hours during the week. I will be mentoring during spring break to help myself out as well.

As for my independent component, I might start watching comic book documentaries and taking Cornell Notes when I have time to do use up as some hours too.

Blog 18: Fourth Interview Preparation

1. How does growing close relationships with customers make them want to come back to your store?

2. Do you find it hard to keep up with the new material? Why or why not.

3. How is the experience of owning a comic book shop?

4. What makes a happy customer?

5. How do you try to get the word out about your store to draw in new faces?

6. How are you guys when it comes to customer satisfaction?

7. How helpful are websites, like Yelp, when it comes to people seeing how your store experience is?

8. How are the different location of comic stores affect the way a specific book is sold?

9. On average, how many people would you get in the store per day?

10. Do different days affect the amount of people coming into the store?

11. Have you ever had a customer what has had a bad experience here?

12. What would be the best way to deal with a stubborn customer?

13. In your opinion, what would be the best way to sell a book?

14. Are there certain ways you do your sales pitch?

15. What would be the best way to deal with children that want to buy something?

16. How often would you have special deals for the store?

17. How helpful is it to keep a customer updated on new material that is coming out?

18. Are there ever days that are just completely dead?

19. How do you deal with "dead" days?

20. What is the busiest day you have ever had?

Blog 17: Answer 3

Essential Question - What is the best way to achieve customer satisfaction for a comic store?

• Answer #3 - Have customers feel more involved with the employees and the store as a whole. Let them take surveys and help give feedback on how their experience was (hopefully it was good) so they can feel apart of the team.

• Subway does this with the online surveys, which you get a free cookie if you do, and this allows them to see what they can approve upon. Yelp is a great way to have customers give feedback on your store. If you have a website, which JPM Comic does not have,  you can have a section where customers say how the experience was great in the store so other new comers can see it.

• My mentor Jason Cox is a very important resource to this answer. Various different articles have this as an important way to achieve your customers' satisfaction. And personal experience.

• Even though this is a very helpful answer that goes toward my essential question, it is not the best answer for my essential question.

Extra February Blog

The time has finally come, we finally have food to eat! We aren't starving anymore, so that's good. Anyways, I have talked to my mentor Jason about teaching me more of the business size of a comic store. He agreed to show me. Also, he agreed to show me how to do some computer work (order merchandise, check if we have stuff in stock, etc.) so it can help me more with my final presentation. My first mentor, Kevin, is finally coming back after being gone for three months. He is returning in about two weeks, and I have no idea if he will become my mentor again. I like Jason better though as a mentor.

We will see how things work out in the end, but hopefully I can keep Jason as a mentor.