Kym Haywood II
Atlanta native
“My experience with black businesses has been good and bad. I would say good customer service has been a problem within the black business industry. So they have a lot of room to improve there. But overall, the products, the materials, and things that you get from black businesses are really, really good. A thing that I would give black businesses is to be open to critique. Allow others to provide feedback to you and be accepted.”
Lamyah Jones
Atlanta
“One thing I feel like Black businesses should work on is being more professional and able to take feedback and push back against this criticism. My experience has been great. They need to learn how to work on constructive criticism, you know, being more professional, being able to answer questions without being upset, or just having an attitude. I love it.”
Rob Clark
Atlanta
“My experience with black businesses has been 50-50. You have some businesses like Westside Cigars and ATL. Customer service is great. The product is great, the quality of the product is great, and you always have a great experience when you come here. I’ve been coming here for a long time. Never had a bad experience whatsoever. Then there are other black businesses that kind of want support because they are a black business. Experience is not always so good, but my advice to all black businesses is that just because you’re a black business does not mean you deserve support because of that. You have to offer a quality product. You have offered quality service as well. You do that, people won’t mind paying a price.”
Kayla Chase
Atlanta
“My experiences with black businesses have been… Good and bad. One thing I recommend is better customer service at some of the spots that I go to. My best experience has been Westside Cigars ATL. I come here often, every week. They have the best customer service and a nice experience. It’s my place to wind down, so that’s my favorite experience.”
Jared Foster
Atlanta
“My overall experience with Black-owned businesses is that, number one, I enjoy shopping and working with Black-owned businesses. However, I would like to see better customer service. Coming into a business, I wanna feel like somebody wants me there, I wanna feel like I am welcomed into the place, whether I look like I have the money for the product or not. If I’m going to a restaurant, I would like good service. If I am working with a contractor, I would like to feel like you are a professional working with somebody who’s giving you money. So yeah, my overall experience is I would like to have better professionalism and better customer service when it comes to dealing with black-owned businesses. And I own a black owned business myself, so, yeah”