'Tis the season for....home shows! We start relatively early by attending the Maine Home and Garden Show in Portland in February, and we always find it a great way to kick off the home improvement season.

This weekend we spent our time at the Maine Home Show in Lewiston - our home town - and had the chance to visit with lots of people from right here in our backyard. Mitch and Ron report that the best thing about this show is reconnecting with the other exhibitors - people like Floor Systems, Hammond Lumber, International Door, and all the great local banks, especially Androscoggin Savings.

Thanks to our great team, our booth always has some design changes, and this weekend we showcased some of our great new lamps. We are working with some new vendors, and we received lots of compliments on bringing in the styles you see in all the home-fashion magazines.

Also new to our booth is our exciting wireless power window shades by Lutron. Lutron has been a great lighting provider in our showroom for years, so we were thrilled to take on this new line of window dressings. The honeycomb-style shades are available in several fabrics and lots of fashionable colors - but the really unique feature is the ability to raise or lower them from the comfort of your favorite chair (or couch, or bed, or dining room chair...). The entire system is wireless, so no unsightly cords to get tangled, and it's virtually silent in operation. Many of our existing customers who came by our booth this weekend have asked us to come by their homes to discuss incorporating Lutron window shades.

Our next show is next weekend - we will be at Pine Knoll Landscape all day on Saturday, May 4. We will offer free advice on landscape lighting to anyone who stops by. Hope we see you there!

Customer Service Tops Our Priorities

I like to shop. The older I get, however, the more I appreciate customer service. Just recently I checked several stores for a particular biking shirt for my husband. I finally found it - but after struggling to reach it while two "salespeople" chatted 20 feet away, I decided to leave. When I was on my way out the door, one of the salespeople called after me, "have a nice day." Really? I was, until I went into your store and experienced blatant disregard for customer service.

I'm proud to share our example of excellent customer service, which I heard from customers Chip and Marcia Amergian:

We visited your company on March 26th to look at lights for our kitchen/dining room area. We had been to other lighting stores (sorry), but nothing seemed to jump right out at us and the customer service was lacking almost at every place we went. When we walked into your company we looked around at some lights and then Mary Menard came over to see if we needed some help, which we did. Mary showed us some of the lights that you had on display and nothing seemed to fit. We explained to Mary what we were looking for and she said that she would go get a catalog and be right back. Well she brought up 3 or 4 catalogs for us to look at. She pointed out some lights to us but again nothing jumped out at us. She did not give up on us. She said she would be right back with another catalog. Mary brought up this catalog and already had it opened to a page and said "how about this light" and explained the features of this light. My wife and I said "that is the one" almost at the same time -- that is a good sign!

...the service that Mary gave us was exceptional. She did not give up on us like a couple of other places did by just walking away and saying if you find something let me know. You have a very good employee at your store and an asset to your company. We will recommend your store to all of our friends.

Kudos to Mary - she certainly made an impression on these customers! We have all been in Chip and Marcia's situation, going store to store and getting more and more frustrated. I'm glad Mary reminded you what fun shopping can be.