I am constantly surprised at the lack of customer service I encounter. Just last night, my husband and I were searching for an American flag to send as a gift to a friend who always wanted one. You’d be amazed how hard it is to find an American flag…they say it’s ‘out of season’. Who knew. So, we were referred to a party store, you know where they sell hats, balloons, paper products, gifts, anything for any kind of party.

It was about 8:50 last night when we pulled up. The lights of the store seemed off, but then I saw people inside and I realized the balloon displays made the windows look dark. Then we saw the sign on the doors that posted the hours of operation. They close at 9:00pm, so we had 10 minutes to shop. At least that’s what I thought.

We walked in as they were turning off the lights and a group of young people behind the counter looked at us, daring us to come in at this late hour. They didn’t say “Hello” or “Welcome to Party City”. No, they looked at us and said with an annoyed tone of voice “We close in five minutes.”

I stopped in my tracks, not wanting to invade their space anymore then I already had and asked “Do you have any American Flags?”. They told me no, they’re out of season. What is that? Then as I turned to walk out of the store, one of them followed me and locked the door behind me. They were in such a hurry to close the door it made me not be in a hurry to come back at anytime, let alone 10 minutes before closing.

At least they didn’t have the title of Customer Service Manager. With a title like that, you would assume that the person is at least versed in customer service. Not so at our car dealership. My husband took our car in for it’s checkup that included rotating the tires. After a couple of days, our friend noticed that the cap that covers the lug nuts was missing. This isn’t a hub cap, but a cover that’s about 5” in diameter that snaps into place. Apparently, the service attendant forgot to replace the cap after he rotated our tires.

We went back to the dealership and let them know that we needed the cap to be put back on. The service attendant wanted to see our receipt from the service call, to prove what date we had our car serviced. What? I know for a fact that they have records to show exactly what date our car was serviced, who serviced it and at what time. I know this, because if I am late bringing in the car for a scheduled check up, I get a cute little letter reminding me what date I came in and what date I need to come it. But, this service person (I use the term ‘service’ loosely here) turned us away and told us to come back with a receipt. We left. We felt a little confused and a lot put off. Then we got busy with our lives. We travel, we work, we travel for work. Then we had another service checkup and realized we never had our cap replaced and now, 3000 miles had come and gone. My husband took the car in and requested the cap be replaced and the ‘service’ attendant told him it had been too long, and how could he prove that it wasn’t stolen.

Stolen? I have never heard of a rush on lug nut covers…But, he came back from the dealership very upset, and no lug nut cover. So, I called the Customer Service Manager, hoping he knew something about managing customer service. I explained to him that we came in once right after we noticed the cap missing and were turned away. I told him we came back with the receipt but it was after church on a Sunday, and they weren’t open. I told him we then waited for our next scheduled service time to come in and get it replaced then. MUCH to my surprise, he didn’t apologize. He didn’t say how sorry he was for the inconvenience. He didn’t say “You must be frustrated to not have had someone take care of this right away the first time you came in”. No, he asked a question. Asking questions is fine, you always want to gather information to assess the situation. However, he asked a question to build a case AGAINST us! “Which tire had the missing cap?” I told him it was the left side, rear tire.” To which he said, “Why didn’t your husband see that it was missing when he picked up the car? If it was on the drivers side, clearly he would have noticed it.”. I was shocked. I calmly said, “Probably because he trusted that when he brought the car in for service that the attendants would replace all the parts. He didn’t know he had to check their work (now we know).”

Then, he shocked me again and told me that we had waited an awful long time and maybe someone had stole the cap, you just never know. Ah, just makes you feel good about being a customer, doesn’t it? And, we’re not talking about really expensive custom rims…we’re talking about a $45 cap that covers lug nuts. That’s when I started to get loud. I usually keep my cool, but when he took an accusatory tone over a $45 cap, I had to give him a little piece of my mind. He put me on hold to see if they had the cap in stock, came back on the line and told me to come in and someone would snap it back on.

Yikes. Can you imagine losing a $30,000 customer over a $45 part? This particular car dealership wouldn’t have if the Customer Service Manager put a little customer service in his title.

Marilyn Sherman

Helping people get a front-row seat in life!

www.MarilynSherman.com