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Most people have experienced bad customer service at least a handful of times and simply shrug it off. Maria Singman is not most people; after just one day of bad service in a toy store, she decided to launch her own.

Nearly nine years later, Singman is the founder and owner of Toy Genius, a specialty toy chain with four locations throughout New Jersey that puts customer service at the core of everything they do.

“Without the experience, people can just click a button online,” says Maria Singman. “We’re offering knowledge. All the toys are hand picked by myself and my staff. We don’t bring something in that we don’t believe in. That’s where my staff gets the confidence to sell whatever’s in the store.”

Upon entering any one of Toy Genius’ locations, guests can easily distinguish its staff as well as see their “toy genius” status by the lab coats they wear. Staff go through training on every product that comes in—what it is, who it’s for, play benefits, etc.—as well as the right questions to ask to help guests select the perfect toy. In fact, poor customer service when waiting in the check-out line during the Toys “R” Us liquidation even drew new visitors to leave TRU without purchases and head to Toy Genius, says Maria Singman.

“Another reason I opened Toy Genius locations is because I’m not a big online shopper,” “I’m not saying I never have, I’m just not a big one, especially when it comes to toys,” she says. “When my kids were younger, I felt violated. A toy was talked up to be all this and that, and when it arrived it wasn’t all that.”

But much as Toy Genius was founded to be a solution to poor customer service in-store, it’s now working to fix the online shopping experience and bring its in-store experience online. Toy Genius now offers real-time communications to help create a curated shopping experience online thanks to the Kandy.io platform, developed by husband Jeffrey Singman’s company Vizicom as an e-commerce solution.

“We’re seeing a trend in the e-commerce world where a company can do a billion dollars in retail with a curated sale, with a stylist,” says Jeffrey Singman. “If you use that as an analog, we believe that it’s not enough to just read the description, you want to talk to an expert. We curate our selection and the shopping experience around the child’s needs and around fun.”

Toy Genius connects its online visitors with its toy experts (Toy Techs) with the push of a button. Think of it like Skype with service; Toy Techs can share media with shoppers, demo the toys with videos, help shoppers check out, all through the course of a conversation (but without seeing the shopper). Online purchases even offer Toy Genius’ signature free gift wrapping. Now the toy retailer is also working to implement chat and other capabilities to engage customers in more immersive ways as well as partnering with vendors, such as Endless Games, to support their e-commerce initiatives from a fulfillment perspective.

“We are one of the first toy retailers out there with this kind of online service, offering that same in-store experience,” says Maria Singman. “I think one day it will be the norm.”

This article first appeared in the May/June 2018 issue of Toys & Family Entertainment.