Princeton Merchants Association

Zingerman's: The Art of Giving Great Service

A Special Offer for Our Sustaining Members

This November, the Princeton Merchants Association is hosting an innovative and energizing customer service training workshop for our member businesses. We are happy to offer our Sustaining Members the opportunity to register for this workshop before we open it up to the regular membership. See all the details below. We are expecting a full house so sign up today!

Building a Customer-Friendly Community for the Holidays and Beyond

When Princeton-area residents hit the streets this holiday season they will be looking for shopping, dining, and service experiences that satisfy their needs in a variety of ways. Price matters but the quality of the experience still rules. One important way to make Princeton an attractive alternative to online or Route 1 shopping, is for all of our businesses to provide friendly, knowledgeable, energetic service that leaves our customers feeling good about their choice to spend their dollars in town. 

Finding the time and resources to provide customer service training is a challenge. That's why the Princeton Merchants Association is bringing the nation's best known--and loved--customer-service training program right here to town. In partnership with the Princeton Public Library, the PMA is proud to host the legendary Zingerman's for a 4-hour high-energy customer-service training program that will help you jump start your holiday sales, and keep them growing throughout the year!

About the Workshop:

Zingerman’s has set the standard for great customer service in the specialty foods industry.  This success has come from combining an innovative service philosophy with practical working systems, all of which ZingTrain will share in this workshop. Zingerman’s approach has been successfully applied in a wide variety of businesses and non-profits that are committed to improving the quality of their customer service, including banks, insurance agencies, schools, health care providers, museums, libraries, and non-food retailers.

Create a customer-service training program that engages and energizes your staff. The workshop will be informal and interactive, providing opportunities for discussion and hands-on practice. The focus of the session will be on developing a Culture of Great Service, with an opportunity to develop individual Action Plans of customer service improvements that participants can implement in their business or department. Participant workbooks will include samples of tools and training materials used at Zingerman’s.

The more you send, the more you save! The cost of this workshop is $80 per person. Send 6 to 10 staff members and the price goes down to $70 per person. For 11 or more, it is $65 per person. You get an additional 10% off when you register and pay in full by September 15, 2010!

What is Zingerman’s?

Since they opened their doors in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1982, Zingerman’s Delicatessen has become one of the country’s leading specialty food stores. With an emphasis on education, flavor, tradition and integrity of ingredients, they’ve worked to create a living, breathing, active culinary laboratory where one can experience everything from corned beef and noodle kugel, to hand-picked Kalamata olives, to hand made croissants and pretty much everything in between. And in the process they’ve gained a reputation for sourcing unique, full flavored, traditionally made foodstuffs from all over the world.

In essence, Zingerman’s has become an Ann Arbor institution. In building on that success, the standard model would dictate opening dozens, or even hundreds, of additional Delis all over the country. Instead they decided to pursue a more unusual plan, one which they felt would allow them to build on what they’d successfully started while establishing positive growth opportunities for people within their organization. Zingerman's chose to create what they call the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses—a collection of Zingerman’s businesses, each with its own food specialty, all located in the Ann Arbor area, each working to help make the shopping and eating in every aspect of Zingerman’s more flavorful and more enjoyable than ever. In each business they’ve sought out a managing partner or partners so that there will be someone to bring passion and persistence into play on a day to day basis. Paul and Ari (the founders of Zingerman's) are there to provide guidance, support, leadership and whatever else they need to do, which includes everything from tracking down great food, contributing to the community, providing plenty of training classes, leadership work at all levels all the way through clearing tables and emptying the trash.

On any given day, the Zingerman’s Experience is made and delivered by nearly five hundred people—partners, managers and staff in seven different businesses in addition to the Deli—to the tune of roughly $36,000,000 in annual sales.

Learn more about Zingerman's: The Coolest Small Company in America.