In the name of customer service

One late afternoon in mid December, as I was delivering some creams to one of my ladies who wasn’t feeling well enough to pick them up herself, I had a wee adventure.

It was only about 6pm but it may as well have been midnight, so dark it seemd early in the evening. As I walked back home after dropping off the creams, I was stopped by a lady in the street asking me to look up at the deep inky sky.

Simultaneously, I could hear a young child getting excited about something which made me think, ‘Good on you, you don’t let these dark evenings get you down.’ As it turned out, she was curious about the lights too, she thought they were stars.

I looked up and could see some lights moving very slowly but orderly. They seemed like hot air balloon flames, except they weren’t, or at least I didn’t think they were.

“Look, look at those lights, all in a perfect line” the lady repeated. They indeed looked like four floating lamps all in a perfect diagonal line moving across the horizon.

“Do you think they are planes?” she asked.

“No”, I answered, “they are too close for planes”.

At one point two of the lights crossed each other, surely they couldn’t be balloons either.

In the background, full moon seemed to be playing hide and seek amongst the clouds. I had just crossed a bridge above the A14, which was very busy at the time, but the traffic also lit up the motorway - contrast of red one way and yellow the other was striking. All seemed to be in a rush to be somewhere or with someone.

I parted with the lady and her toddler without reaching a conclusion on what those lights were. We joked about them being UFO’s or part of some Astronomical phenomenon. If anyone out there can explain it, I'll be pleased to know.

Why am I telling you this? Because that little exchange on the way home from delivering some of my products made me realise that when it comes to customer service, a personal touch doesn’t just help my customers, it helps me too. It gives me new experiences, even little ones like watching unknown lights in the sky with strangers.