Mrs SudsMuffin

I love it when everybody is happy. I am so pleased with this partnership. It is proving to be great for everybody. If you are ever in Port Alberni BC, be sure to check out Allure Bath & Body and tell them SudsMuffin sent you.

On to other news, I have just recently enrolled in a correspondence course to help increase my business knowledge. I think that this is going to help me a great deal in future endeavors.

Stay tuned for great new things coming this Fall as well as our 10 year anniversary celebration in October.

I want to thank Terri Munn from A Tanners Home Inn, for the invite to her Saint John 225 birthday party at the Inn's Garden Deck. It was a delightful setting with some of the best vendors around. The beautiful day was shared by people whom stopped by for cake and punch, then had the privilege of touring this amazing house. For those of you who have folks coming into town I suggest you turn them on to this awesome B&B. They won't be disappointed.

Thanks to Wine and Stein for the samples of incredible homemade wines I will be paying them a visit in the very near future.

Well we have been busy little beavers. Things at the shop have been hopping, with dozens of custom orders for boutiques and weddings. We also ran a special on teacher baskets that proved to be a HUGE hit!

We now have a brand new scent to offer called "Cabana Boy". This awesome scent is reminiscent of a day on a sandy Caribbean beach with a delicious rum drink. Now I brought this in at the request of a customer who was looking for a real coconut scent. I think that she deserves a big thank you hug because this scent is off the hook! I think you will love this tropical delight.

The Cabana boy bath bombs and lotion are superb and I did something I never thought I would do; I added some of this scent to my Whipped Shea Butter and the result was Superfantabulous. Thanks goes out to LC for this idea. Cabana Boy is an excellent addition to my tropical line of scents that includes Satsuma, Key Lime, Melon Slush, and Yuzu.

I just love trying new scents and doing whatever I can to make the lives of my customers happier. I get excited when my customers suggest new products or scents. The most excitement that I get is when I have a new customer come in and tell me that their Mom, friend, cousin, Sister, etc, has been raving over this soap or that lotion. I love hearing these kinds of stories so please keep the feedback coming.

In the meantime, don't forget to come in and stock up on our tropical scents. You won't regret it!

I had a super time at the Maritime Green Living Expo. A great big **Thank You** goes out to Terri-Ann from Naturally For Life. The turn out was better than I had expected and I know the next one will be even better. I had a good number of sales from the event and made some new friends and that is always good.

Thanks again to Terri-Ann for a ton of hard work in organizing this event. I featured most of my "green" scented line: soap, shampoo, conditioner, whipped shea butter, and bath bombs. The Rosemary Lemongrass proved to be the biggest hit.

Update: I have received enormous feedback from our Mother's Day baskets. Everyone loved them and I have had some recipients come in to replenish their baskets. Thank you so much to all who purchased from me.

Mother's Day has come and gone and I would love to take the time to thank each and every person who purchased one of our great baskets for their mother, wife, other loved one in their life. I hope that the person receiving the basket enjoys using the products as much as I enjoy making them. Look for us at the Maritime Green Living Expo at the end of May at the Saint John Trade and Convention Center.

This past Saturday was a really new experience for me. For the first time ever, we held a birthday party right in the shop. Now this was no ordinary party. I usually do a party for 8 to 12 kids. This one was 16 excited little girls, all crammed in to my tiny little shop. It was a tight fit(ok it was a lot tight, sardines have more room) but it worked, and best of all, the girls all had a fantastic time! It required the moving around of the store, it was still cramped but we managed to make it work. The mother and father where of great help and there was an extra parent there also. Between the four of us we managed to keep order and the kids all had fun. I was really surprised by how well the kids followed instructions and obeyed the safety rules I laid down.
I want to thank this eager group of for choosing me to make their day special. I hope they had as much fun as I did.

Hi everyone! I would like to send out a nice heartfelt thank you to the wonderful people that hosted the two birthday parties this weekend. I had a huge amount of fun at both parties and know that the girls all had fun too. The Hostesses where both awesome and even helped with the projects.

The older girls made fizzy bath crystals, little vials of perfume, pretty soaps soap, and nicely scented lotion. The younger ladies had great fun making their soaps, fizzy bath salts and lotions. It was a hoot watching everyone working with great concentration to bottle the lotions. Everybody did well and only one mess was made.

I took some time this week to make a new product for our line: Whipped Soap. I think that they turned out quite nice. I still have to work on getting the color I want right but for this first attempt, I am pleased with the results. I have put a few in my window display for everyone to see.

I also have a brand new soap on the shelves. The new Key Lime is awesome! It has a bright natural lime scent and a dynamic yellow/green swirl. I really enjoy this one.

I have also just sent a new order to Allure Bath and Body in BC and have 4 other Soap Cakes curing for a trip to another client. I am also starting to prepare for a Wedding Favor order going to Pennsylvania.

Spring is just around the corner and the weather here is beautiful and record breaking for this time of year. I hope you can all get out there and enjoy it too.

Customer service? What does it mean to you? How do you qualify exceptional customer service? I think that customer service is one of the hardest concepts to get right all the time. Why? Simply because of the main component of the equation: the customer. Customers are people just like business owners and each of them has an expectation as to what they think customer service should be.

I try to always go a little above and beyond that which most people might expect. I may print a Google map for somebody trying to make their way to another address. I may hand out a free sample if I think my product might help somebody. I might refer them to another business if I don't have what they are looking for. I may not be able to satisfy every customer but I always listen and do my best to make it right. I try to give my customers all the tools they need to make the best purchasing decision for themselves.

I always try to treat everyone that comes through my shop door with the same attention. Just the other day, a very elderly lady came into the shop. She was not really interested in buying but she was curious about everything in the store. I took the time to answer all her questions, in between listening to stories about her daughters and great, great grandchildren. She promised to tell them all about the store. I don't know if she will but I know that I paid her the respect of listening and giving her my time. To me the most important thing was her smile when she left.

Tell us about some of the great customer service you have received from a business. Or even let me know if there are ways that I can serve you better. I look forward to reading about it.