Not every customer who comes into a store is there to make a purchase. Some just need a little human interaction.

That was the case in this story for a gentleman who came into an electronics store every week to have the latest technology explained to him.

Even after having the same things explained multiple times, he just kept coming back to hear more.

Read through the full story to see just how well the employees at this location served the non-customer.

The loneliest customer in the electronics section

I’ve been working at a mid-size electronics store for about three years now. We get all kinds of people, the usual stuff, but there’s this one regular I think about a lot.

Some people are very interested in the latest technologies.

His name I obviously can’t share, but we all called him “the professor” among ourselves because he always came in wearing the same brown cardigan and carrying a little notepad.

Every single week, sometimes twice a week, he’d walk straight to the smart home section and ask whoever was nearby to explain how the devices worked. Voice assistants, smart bulbs, thermostats, you name it. Full demonstrations, lots of questions, very engaged.

He is just wasting their time.

For the first few months, diffrent people on the team kept giving him the full walkthrough each time not realising he’d already had it. Multiple times. I personally explained the same smart speaker to him atleast four times before it clicked.

One slow Tuesday, I finally asked him gently if he’d ever thought about buying one of the devices since he seemed so interested. He got quiet for a second, smiled, and said “oh I don’t really need any of that, my apartment is small and I live alone”.

What is this guy doing?

Then he asked if I had time to show him how the video doorbell worked. I showed him the doorbell. Took about twenty minutes.

He asked good questions and wrote some things in his notepad. Before he left he shook my hand and said it was very helpful and that he’d see me next week.

Maybe he just liked the human interaction.

He did come back the next week. I was off that day but my coworker mentioned him. Apparently he asked about the doorbell again.

We never pushed a sale. Not once. Some of the managers noticed and let it go without saying anything, which I think says somthing nice about the people I work with.

Hopefully, he is ok.

He stopped coming in about four months ago.

I don’t know why and I try not to think about it too much.

It is really great that everyone treated him so well and took the time to talk with him. You never know how much that helped.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about this story.

Now this would be funny.

This commenter had a similar story. But not as friendly.

Let’s hope that he just moved to another store.

There are many lonely older people out there.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an accountant who sticks to 40-hour weeks after overtime guidance, and finds he likes it.

It is always best to start with kindness.

They were kind to that man, and that is better than making a sale. It is surprising that management let people keep ‘wasting’ their time with him, though.

You never know what makes people do things like this, so it is best to treat them right.