Doing Right By Your Customers Is Never Wrong
This story comes from deep with in the Humble Mechanic customer service files. Okay this is actually something that happened yesterday. 😉
From time to time I like to share with you guys a story about doing the right thing. Service departments get a bad rep so when something good happens, I feel like I need to scream it. I need you guys to understand a couple things about these type of stories.
- I am in no way bragging. Do not take this as a “look what I did” type of post.
- I want you all to take something away from this. I hope you will use this to do something good for one of your customers.
I had looked at a customer’s air conditioning system about a month ago. When I looked at it the first time, I found the a/c compressor was failing. Her car is a 2007 GTI with the 2.0t FSI. The compressor on those cars are a common failure point. I was able to get the a/c working better, but he system was failing. The estimate that I gave was about $1500 or so. The repair involved replacing several components and cleaning all the lines. As you might imagine, the customer declined the repair. $1500 is not pocket change. Plus the a/c was working much better, so she decided to hold off.
Fast Forward to yesterday. The customer had made an appointment to get her a/c replaced. She came in and we chatted a little. It turns out, her a/c has been working great! Her and I went over the pros and cons of making the repair vs not making the repair. I explained to her how not making the repair was really up to her. If she did wait, it would not cost her any more money. The parts were already failing. The repair I quoted would fix the car no matter how bad the a/c failed.
She again opted to wait on the repair. Now, here is what that cost me. It cost me about 2/3 of the day’s pay. Talk about a bummer for me. It was the big job that I had planned to do that day. The good part is, I was able to make the time up with other work.
Here is the real reason I am telling you all this story. I earned something with this customer that is far beyond the 7 hours pay. That is 100% trust. Think about it. I just told a customer she didn’t need a repair. What mechanic, or anyone in a service business does that? Someone who really gives a crap about their customers and their good name. It shows my customers that no matter what I will do right by them. That my friends is what it is ALL about!
If you are not doing right by your customer you are WRONG! I like to use these 2 little sayings from Gary Vaynerchuk “It is about legacy, not currency” and “It is about running a marathon, not a sprint”. It is hard to argue with that!
I hope you guys can get a little something out of this post.The customer service part of my job is something that I take very seriously. I hope that all of you do too.
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What you did is exactly what my teacher said we have to do. Every repair at school we do we show the customer the old parts so he or she knows where their money went and that we were not screwing them. The customer also likes being apart of the repair process and I like explaining what I did. It makes me feel good when I am trusted.
Kudos to you Charles
It is always nice to help someone, not just fix their car. Having the job to do is good, but now you have a customer who will come to you when her AC does break, as well as anything else goes wrong with her car. Plus she will probably tell other people about it.
Keep up the good work.