Warning: This may get a little ‘Pooterish’ for some.

I wrote a while ago about the good service I received from an online white goods retailer. I make no apologies for blogging about another example (well, two actually) I’ve received this week. We’re all very quick to complain, especially we bloggers, so it is nice to write something positive when the opportunity presents itself.

We’re very lucky down here in Canterbury, despite the best efforts of the Luftwaffe and the 1950′s town planners we still have a beautiful city, and a very vibrant high street, although we have the usual chain store and eatery suspects, there is also a healthy dose of indie retailers and dining establishments. Even on a weekday in school term time the high street is usually busy, and whilst the tourism from the cathedral obviously helps I think the excellent shopping and eating choices attract just as many visitors as the cathedral does religious pilgrims.

Your favourite lupine blogger has been feeling a bit off recently, I’ve been tired, a little crotchety, a long standing knee injury has been playing up and I’ve had a kidney infection. Nothing dramatic, just enough to make one feel a bit bleurrrgh. Having had a few days off work to recharge the batteries I woke up this morning to an unbearably itchy chin bought about by around a week of leaving the razor sat unmolested in the pot in the bathroom.

I am a man of simple pleasures, and recently espied a old fashioned barbers which opened up at the bottom of the high street, no more than a five minute walk from my door, they advertise old fashioned cut throat razor shaves. So I strode out this morning with the intention of getting some manly pampering.

As I sit here now, I have a chin which hasn’t been as smooth since I was at primary school and all is well with the world. I got the full treatment, a sea of hot shaving soap applied with a brush that in earlier times would probably have been made from badger hair, with a little tidy up around the extremities of the barnet. A deft, swift and incredibly close shave with the old Sweeney Todd job was followed up with the hot towel treatment and, surprisingly, a neck and shoulder massage as I sat back in hot and humid bliss. Then came the moisturiser and aftershave. There are few things as viscerally pleasing as an old fashioned shave. The best bit? A princely £6.50 for the experience, and a loyalty card where your sixth haircut and/or shave is gratis.

There used to be places like this in every town in the country, and I’ve noticed them starting to creep back of late. The big difference between now and then? Today the establishments seem to be exclusively run by Turks. That is no criticism of the Turks at all, far from it. These guys are the embodiment of what I support in people, see a gap in the market, open a shop, exploit that gap and provide a killer service at a great price. I’ll certainly be back, they even gave me a little chupa-chup lolly on exiting, we seem to have lost something in our service ethos. The appearance of this shop was basic, no avant garde designs with staff dressed in black sporting ridiculous hair cuts where you pay over the odds, just a bunch of chaps doing what they do very well, and given that I was fourth in line on a weekday morning, it suggests that they are very successful at it. I wish them well.

If you find yourself in Canterbury with twenty minutes to kill, I can heartily recommend Kent Barbers at the bottom of the high street opposite the Jaguar dealership.

Which brings me to my next point. The Jaguar dealership is run by a local firm called Barretts. They opened on the Jaguar site around the turn of the last century as a bicycle dealership, which seems a little odd to us now, but I suppose a hundred years ago when cars were the preserve of the rich it was a shrewd move. Obviously. Now they represent not only Jaguar, but also Honda, Mini, Land Rover, BMW, Seat and Citroen, all at different sites around the city.

My car needed some work doing, a minor job, so I scheduled this for yesterday and dropped my car off at the relevant dealership which sits about two miles from my gaff. However they run a free shuttle bus back into town which I gratefully took advantage of. I received a call not long after I’d dropped the old girl off diagnosing the problem and giving me a reasonable and accurate price for the job, and an estimated time for when it would be finished. About half an hour before the appointed time I received another call telling me they’d finished, so made my way round to pick the shuttle bus back up. I was greeted in a friendly fashion when I picked up the car and found that it had also been cleaned inside and out. All this led to a very pleasant experience. I probably paid more than I would have done elsewhere, but I wouldn’t have got my ride home and accurate and concise communication. I certainly wouldn’t have found the vehicle looking like it had just left the forecourt.

Well done Barretts.

In an era when service is so often lacking, I do think it is important to tell as many people as possible, and the businesses themselves, when they get it right.