Wednesday Weblog for June 22, 2022 |
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“If you don’t take care of your customer, your competitor will.” – Bob Hooey |
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Flashbacks are everywhere. In the past month:
- I still have a mask hanging from my directional signal on the steering wheel of my car, and more often than not, I reach for it when hopping out. The only place I use it now is in a medical facility. I wonder if masks will ever go away?
- I was in a supermarket enjoying the freedom of going down the aisle any damn way I wanted. It was liberating, as the flashback of the 'aisle direction police,' most of them 18 years old popped into my head, but it will take years for all those dirty floor stickers with '6 Feet' on them to rub away. Must be great glue on those.
- I was parked on the Massachusetts Turnpike with no movement in site and had a flashback to a couple of years where I could zoom (as in speed, not video) right downtown with no issues, but then I was on a commuter rail train and had the entire car to myself. During rush hour. I guess it will be a while until everything is back to normal.
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Classic: It's On Sale for $11.95 |
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Several years ago, when I pulled into an inspection station in Ohio and was told the car I was driving flunked a test. Apparently, there is an emissions test performed on the gas cap, you know that thing you unscrew behind the little door prior to pumping gas? Who knew?
I’m not sure why, what or how, but I was told that I needed to replace mine. Having never actually bought a gas cap before, I asked the attendant where I could get one. He indicated there was an auto parts store only four miles away.
I drove there with his assurance that if I returned quickly with my shiny new gas cap, I could be re-inspected and be certified to drive in Ohio without doing significant damage to the environment.
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I pulled into the unnamed auto parts store and asked for a gas cap for the exact make and model car I was driving.
The grease-under-the-fingernails kind of clerk opened a giant book, twice the size of the yellow pages (remember those?) and looked and studied and peered. He may have asked me a few questions.
I can feel my anxiety rising, as I think to myself, 'I'm not looking for a fuel injector for a 1968 Dodge Dart, or a part for a SpaceX rocket, what's going on here?'
After several minutes of awkward silence, he simply said “No.” To which I (most likely sarcastically?) responded “No, What?” He said, “No we don’t have that gas cap, we don’t stock many gas caps.”
Relying heavily on my superior interviewing skills I managed to pry from him that there was a competitor about 2 miles further away on the same route.
What was supposed to be a quick trip to get an inspection sticker for the car just became more complicated and was turning into not-a-great-way-to-spend-an-afternoon, I'm sure you know the feeling.
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So when I pulled into the competitor, an AutoZone store, I’m starting to believe a gas cap might be a rare spare part, and I'm wishing they would hurry up and invent Amazon so I can find one on my front porch.
I was also a little bit discouraged. Since I was still highly motivated to cross this inspection thing off my to-do list that day, I went into the store and asked the well groomed clerk in the red sweater for a gas cap for the Sebring convertible (told you it was a while ago) that was at fault.
While smiling and without losing eye contact with me, he quickly reached under the counter, and pulled a box out and said “Here you go, it’s on sale for $11.95.”
I was a little bit taken aback after my previous attempt. (Only writers use the phrase 'taken aback' and we love it when we can do so.)
Being the curious sort, I asked him how he did that, and wondered if he knew I was coming? All he said to me was “There’s an emission inspection station about six miles from here and we always have people come in looking for gas caps, so we keep them right here under the counter.”
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I thanked him, he thanked me and even helped me ‘install’ the gas cap (you have to connect that little plastic cord that prevents you from losing it).
A few minutes, and six miles later, I left the emissions station with my inspection sticker and the air in Ohio a little safer to breathe, but I also headed home with a great lesson about customer service, anticipation, planning ahead and the importance of quality team members.
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Customer Service: We are all serving someone in our roles. It could be customers, it could be volunteers, it could be each other, it could be someone from another company or another office or it could be a family member or members. It's all called customer service.
The old cliche 'if you are not serving the customer, you are serving someone who is serving the customer' is universally true for most roles. Everyone can tell the difference between the two approaches to customers in this story.
Good customer service is hard to hide, easily spotted, and shared with others, (and I've shared this story for more than 20 years), and I'm sure you have your own story you repeat at the drop of a hat.
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Anticipation: we know what is coming much of the time. Yet people buy shovels after the snowstorm, umbrellas after the rain, and salt after the ice. With just a little anticipation, like connecting the dots after a couple of people have asked for gas caps, we can be expecting something to happen that happens, and be ready.
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Planning Ahead: we waste a lot of time searching for things that we once had in our hands. Some studies have shown that the average office worker spends a week a year looking for things on or in their desk, (probably more now that the desk is in the bedroom or dining room). Moving those gas caps to a convenient spot right under the counter to save steps and time is good planning. Isn't planning ahead a universal way to impress yourself and others?
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Quality Team Members: That second counter person with clean fingernails, a bright red sweater (he probably didn’t like to wear), gave a much better impression than the grease-stained industrial-style shirted, confused clerk in the first store.
One of the easiest things to recognize is a quality team member, whether it is an usher at a baseball game, a hostess in a restaurant, an Amazon delivery driver, or the clerk at an auto parts store. Quality team members make everything easier and overcoming a poor team member makes everything more difficult: a steep hill to climb.
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But there was even a bigger difference between the locations, and that was management.
In order to make it from the emission control station to AutoZone, potential customers ALL stopped at the other store since the clerk at the emissions control facility was sending them there.
Think about it: the first store had everything going for it: it was closer, flunkers were referred to it by the facility, it had a steady stream of drivers who were ignorant about gas cap protocol, and more.
The second location, two miles further away was at a significant disadvantage. The difference between the two stores was made up for by a customer service focus, anticipation, planning ahead and quality people, or what some would call good management. Where do you keep YOUR gas caps?
(FYI, I checked pricing for this story this week, and you can still get a gas cap at AutoZone, although it is now called a 'fuel cap' for $13.99 to $22.99).
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Surprise Photo at the End: 45,000 People
CMA Fest-Nashville-June 11-Deana Carter on Stage
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Joe's Positive Post of the Week |
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The Roll Call of states and countries where readers reside: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Washington DC, Wisconsin plus Canada, Spain, Conch Republic, Australia and the United Kingdom |
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Ed Doherty
774-479-8831
www.ambroselanden.com
ed-doherty@outlook.com
Forgive any typos please.
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