Prestons’ owner goes extra mile for couple
9:00am Tuesday 22nd February 2011 in Business News
WHEN London-based construction project manager Fraser Brown wanted to propose to his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, only a ring from Prestons of Bolton would do.
But the 28-year-old thought that his romantic proposal would have to be postponed when the diamond and sapphire cluster ring was stranded hundreds of miles away.
So when Prestons’ owner Karl Massey heard about Mr Brown’s plight, he grabbed the ring and jumped on a train to London to deliver it personally.
He took a cab from Euston and presented the ring to a startled Mr Brown at his building site.
Mr Brown ordered the ring from Prestons via its website and wanted it to be delivered to London in time for an evening proposal to his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day.
But the ring was only adapted to her finger size on Valentine’s Day — too late to be posted to London in time.
At first, Mr Brown thought that he would have to call off his carefully laid plans to propose to 26-yearold PR executive Nikki Woolf.
But he didn’t bargain for the dedicated devotion to customer service from the owner of the diamond centre of the north.
He said: “I was really surprised when he turned up at the site in a black cab and presented me with the ring along with chocolates and champagne.
“Then he left and went back up north on the train. My family couldn’t believe it when I told them what happened.
“I took Nikki out for a meal and was going to propose outside, but it rained so I thought I would wait for the most inappropriate moment — so I asked her when she was cleaning her teeth—luckily she said ‘yes’. We will be getting married in a couple of years and we will certainly be choosing our wedding bands from Prestons.”
Mr Massey, who bought the store out of administration in 2005, said he was determined Mr Brown would get his ring in time to propose.
He said: “We couldn’t get the ring posted in time so after he sent us an email saying he was disappointed I pulled out all the stops and got the ring and took it to London myself.
“I was the only one in the office who was free at the time so I got a train and two and-a-half hours later I was in London, and then I took a cab across to his site in Shepherd’s Bush. I gave him the ring and and he was really surprised, but was really pleased that we had made the effort.
“In the end, I didn’t want to disappoint him and it’s all about going that extra mile to deliver good customer service.”
Since Mr Massey bought Prestons, he has quadrupled the turnover to £8 million a year and credits the staff helping turn the store around from out of administration into a successful business.
He has spent about £1.1 million refurbishing the store and about £600,000 on TV, radio and press advertising.
