Yesterday, (3rd October), I accompanied a gentleman to the Thurrock Lakeside Retail Park Extra EE outlet. It is important that I set the scene in order that our experience at the store is appreciated. The gentleman is in his late seventies and is suffering from anxiety. He struggles to cope or deal with many of the quite basic necessities of life. He doesn’t always look after himself very well, so his appearance is dishevelled and can be disagreeable. He has a low tolerance of anything that he doesn’t fully understand and of situations that make him uncomfortable. He needed an easy to use simple mobile phone with no ‘frills’ and it needed to be on a contract so he didn’t have to worry about topping up, or passwords or anything that would complicate matters for him. I explained his needs to Luke – the manager. From the outset I was very comfortable with the way Luke just ‘got it’. He was sensitive to the situation without showing that he realised there was a situation. His tone and his language were exactly right. He suggested a mobile phone that met the gentleman’s needs and he didn’t dwell on the features that he knew would not be used. He didn’t go to any special efforts that would over-compensate for the situation. His colleague Mark, who I understand was on secondment from the Basildon store, had been attending to another customer, and when he was free he joined Luke to deal with the technical aspects e.g. switching from the previous provider and transferring data to the new phone. I was grateful for this because it did cut down the visit by a few minutes. Mark was also intuitive. Their banter was easy going and appropriately comical, and never technically above our grasp. I am a firm believer that good service and in this case outstanding customer care, should be recognised and I wish to thank Luke and Mark for the way they handled a potentially stressful situation.