“An email thank you is never going to take the place of a written thank you,” predicts Betsy Swango, co-owner of Preston Hollow’s The Write Selection.
“Even the younger generation, I hope, will be taught that you still need to write a person a thank you note or respond to a wedding in a written way.”
It may sound like the formalities of a bygone era, but the subtle impression of personalization was what swayed Swango some 22 years ago to open her Preston Hollow shop. While working in a bank just around the corner from a store where “everything had a monogram or name on it,” Swango became a devotee of all things detailed.
“When we (my partner and I) first went into business, we made our own little invitations. Everything had a ribbon or a sticker or sequins, or something on it that was real creative,” she says.
Now, the companies producing her merchandise seem to have taken over that part of the process themselves, but her staff still likes to add details to make their merchandise more distinctive.
“We still like to glitter when we can, add a background to something, or put it in an envelopment when we can,” she says.
Since beginning in retail, Swango has primarily offered folded notes for thank yous and all types of invitations for customers aiming to please loved ones on memorable occasions.
“Unfortunately,” Swango says, “the truth is that letter writing really has kind of gone by the wayside.”
So as the years passed, votives and leather-bound journals found their way into the store and next to imported French note sets, milled soaps and nightgowns. Yes, nightgowns. Diversify or perish.
What has set this shop apart for its first 22 years is a combination of things, not the least of which is the relationships Swango has been cultivating with her customers, relationships befitting those her merchandise helps them to maintain.
“We’ll do anything for a customer,” she says. “Sometimes if you don’t have an hour to spend, you’re in trouble because we have customers that have been with us for so long!
“I had a customer yesterday who wants to send a thank you to a man, and these gifts are one of the hardest things to find in this store because we don’t sell shirts and ties. So I came up with a wine coaster, but now I have to go buy a bottle of wine, bring it here, and then we’ll wrap it all funky and cute, and have it delivered to this person.”
That type of attention in retail service is difficult to find these days as ownership and staff changes are made with seasonal frequency at so many stores. But, after all, that’s the reason Swango opened the store in the first place.
“I design, I don’t really do the work. They try to keep me from tying even a bow,” she says of her dedicated staff, which Swango describes as being “the best of friends.”
“Really! Once in a while when they get in a pinch, they’ll let me pull the wiggles through,” she laughs, but in all earnestness adds, “I don’t know how to tie a bow. I always say that I’m clever, I’m not creative.”
Perhaps not clever, then, but accomplished.
“I have a great feeling of achievement for what I have done with this business,” she says.
“I could never have done it without my first partner, and I could never have carried on without my second partner. I think it has made me a better mother and a better mother-in-law because I’m busy with my own business here and I’m not in their lives,” she says.
“I’m not in their lives, and they can carry on and yet they know where I am,” she says of her two grown children.
And if they can’t reach her by phone, another method of communication that would please their mother greatly does spring to mind.
