If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? –John Wooden

Day 23 of 365.

Meet Kelli Allen. She’s a mom and wife. Her kids are (almost) all grown. She’s basically in my wheelhouse there. She’s got one more little chick left at home to help along and I always enjoy hearing the latest.

I stole this photo from her Facebook page, and looking at it is making me want to take a vacation out west, but I digress. Kelli works at Regions Bank. To be exact, her desk is planted almost in the dead center of the building at the Regions branch near 116th and Allisonville Road in Fishers. She’s been working there as long as I can recall.

Sarcastic, but not in an acrimonious way, Kelli has a way of making her customers feel known and appreciated with her dry sense of humor. What makes her exceptional is that she ALWAYS goes out of her way to take care of the needs of all who enter. She’s not the branch manager, but she’s the branch manager if you catch my drift. “I’m waiting for Kelli” is the phrase I often hear repeated by long-timers who wander in and out of her place of work. We like her and we trust her. Period.

To be fair, the entire crew working at this branch is exceptional. Today, I’m focused on my gratefulness for all the times she wrestled the paperwork, finagled the beguiling systems challenges, or called the house to make sure our needs were met. When the bank at large was underwhelming due to some brilliant corporate strategy that seemed great at the head office but didn’t really work for real people….I stuck with Regions because I knew Kelli had my back.

In a world where customer service increasingly means I am scanning and bagging my own items, or waiting “on hold” indefinitely, it’s kind, capable and truly fantastic people like Kelli who make ALL THE DIFFERENCE!

Some famous guy said “There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” I can’t find his name right now but HOW TRUE. Thank You, Kelli, for being a terrific human. The Starbucks will be on me again real soon!