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RIDING his red and white bike up and down the hill in his native Puerto Rico, Samuel Mejía was more introverted than most kids. When he wasn't doing long wheelies on his bicycle, he was drawing characters from his imagination or listening to movie soundtracks on vinyl records. He loved drawing, music and Star Wars more than any sport. At the age of 16, his family moved to Georgia, settling in Decatur. After graduating from Shamrock High School (presently Druid Hills Middle School) he studied mechanical drafting at DeKalb Technical Institute (presently GA Piedmont Technical College). In 1992 he moved to upstate New York and worked as a volunteer for a Bible society. Three years later he settled in Jersey City, NJ and started a family, soon becoming a father to a cute baby girl. While supporting his family he learned the meaning of customer service from two very different lines of business, each providing valuable lessons that would be formative to Home Clean Home's service to its clients.
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Taking a quick break, 1984
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Sam's service to people expanded as a delivery driver for Coffee Associates, Inc., a long-established coffee-roasting company serving restaurants in New York City, the tri-state area and beyond. Being a delivery driver meant being the face of the company. Sam learned that true customer service is dedicated work. Restaurants, diners and pastry shops depended on the company's coffee delivery to keep customers coming through their doors. He even delivered coffee to the original Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken, NJ, featured in TLC's Cake Boss. Sam quickly realized that timely response and building rapport with customers were key to building customer satisfaction. Of course, building rapport with restaurant owners and managers could be tricky at times because of the high levels of stress that they work with. Then there was the hustle and bustle of Manhattan's streets which demanded everything from swift driving maneuvers to carefully slipping his cargo van between stopped vehicles, sometimes with no more than a 2-inch clearance on each side! With parking nearly impossible, he would double-park his van, unload anywhere between 50 to 200 pounds of coffee, take it to the restaurant basement, exchange pleasantries with the manager and collect payment; then run back to his van before NYPD could pin a ticket on the windshield. Honing diplomacy skills while working against the clock proved a superb way for Sam to develop his customer service skills. After two and a half years, he was promoted to Assistant Plant Manager.
In 2000, Sam changed gears when he joined the sales and service department of a major telecommunications company, regularly interacting with customers across 10 states. Although he was taught to be empathetic when serving a customer, he found frustrating that corporate leadership was not in tune with customers' concerns. Like a locomotive engineer who is oblivious to his passengers' needs, corporate leadership's preoccupation with spearheading the business isolated it from customers. Experiencing senior management's one-track mind clearly engraved in Sam's mind how detrimental their airtight seclusion was to customers; for example, they often provided instructions to employees that were more a knee-jerk reaction than a well-aimed effort to address customers' needs. Such void in sensitivity trained him to be keen on customers' concerns, listening to them and doing everything he could to make people feel valued. This crucial lesson also taught him how the intimacy of a small business is better suited to serve a community, ensuring that people's concerns are readily handled in a perceptive, friendly way from the leadership. Despite the job's challenges, he endeavored to serve customers the smart way and went on to gain valuable experience at the company for 14 years.
After widowing, however, Sam would realize the need to focus on his daughter, seek support, rediscover his daughter as well as himself. Eventually, he returned to Decatur with his daughter in 2014.
Having spent over 20 years serving people, Sam is happy to serve Atlanta's communities, bringing satisfaction to our clients with the help of our teammates. His customer service experience helps to provide Atlantans with the kind of service they have been waiting for: a quality home cleaning service and good value from a hard-working team of friends. Now Atlanta's homes radiate bliss with Home Clean Home.
In 2000, Sam changed gears when he joined the sales and service department of a major telecommunications company, regularly interacting with customers across 10 states. Although he was taught to be empathetic when serving a customer, he found frustrating that corporate leadership was not in tune with customers' concerns. Like a locomotive engineer who is oblivious to his passengers' needs, corporate leadership's preoccupation with spearheading the business isolated it from customers. Experiencing senior management's one-track mind clearly engraved in Sam's mind how detrimental their airtight seclusion was to customers; for example, they often provided instructions to employees that were more a knee-jerk reaction than a well-aimed effort to address customers' needs. Such void in sensitivity trained him to be keen on customers' concerns, listening to them and doing everything he could to make people feel valued. This crucial lesson also taught him how the intimacy of a small business is better suited to serve a community, ensuring that people's concerns are readily handled in a perceptive, friendly way from the leadership. Despite the job's challenges, he endeavored to serve customers the smart way and went on to gain valuable experience at the company for 14 years.
After widowing, however, Sam would realize the need to focus on his daughter, seek support, rediscover his daughter as well as himself. Eventually, he returned to Decatur with his daughter in 2014.
Having spent over 20 years serving people, Sam is happy to serve Atlanta's communities, bringing satisfaction to our clients with the help of our teammates. His customer service experience helps to provide Atlantans with the kind of service they have been waiting for: a quality home cleaning service and good value from a hard-working team of friends. Now Atlanta's homes radiate bliss with Home Clean Home.
A dad and his little girl
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