WR Mattress Gallery co-owner Mark Nagra attributes recent awards received by his company to customer service.
More specifically, however, he points to the hard work done by his business partner Raman Dhaliwal, an employee he recruited from Staples Copy & Print before he opened his South Surrey store.
Nagra, who also owns M&N Mattress in Parksville, was in the process of opening a franchise in the South Surrey area when he met Dhaliwal, a manager at Staples in South Surrey.
“If you’ve ever met her, within 30 seconds on the phone or in person, you’ll be like ‘wow.’ She smiles about everything, always smiling. It was great to deal with her,” Nagra said last week.
Even when Dhaliwal was transferred to the Staples in Delta, Nagra said he would travel the distance just for her customer service.
While waiting in line in the copy centre, Nagra noticed customers giving Dhaliwal their business card, offering her a job if she decided to leave.
“I said, ‘look, I’m going to be opening a store, if you want, I will make you a partner and give you a $1,500 raise from whatever you’re getting here,'” Nagra recalled.
“That’s how it started, four years ago.”
One of Dhaliwal’s first tasks was to make a note of the number of cars passing through the 152 Street and 24 Avenue intersection. She lost count after five minutes, which indicated the intersection was a prime location to open the business.”
The company, which has grown by 30 to 40 per cent every year since, has won the 2017 Better Business Bureau Torch Awards People’s Pick. The award is granted to the company that receives the most votes through the BBB voting system.
“I think every business, if you want to be successful, you have to have a couple of things,” Nagra said. “You have to have a great product, great pricing, but you have to have excellent customer service. Without that, you fail.”
Nagra said being raised in Campbell River, a small town on Vancouver Island, shaped his customer-service approach.
“It’s really hard to duplicate if you haven’t lived that life. It’s hard because we know our neighbours, you know everyone, see each other at the hockey games, soccer games, the beach, the mall. You better be doing good service, people talked to each other. Now they just post it (online), good or bad, it can kill you.”
Nagra said Dhaliwal has an exceptional memory, a skill that’s an asset to the company.
“For me, it’s more about building a relationship with the customer than actually selling a product,” Dhaliwal said. “By the end of a conversation with a customer, I know everything about them. Where they work, what they do, how old they are, if they’re married, how many times they’ve been married, how many kids they have.
“I have a great memory, so if they come back in three or four months, I still know who they are. I think that’s what builds customer service.”
