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27th October 2008
Dear Tim,
Anyone who knows you, or indeed who has spoken to you for even a short length of time about your motor repair service will attest to your passion for customer service. In the regular activities of day-to-day business, passion about the delivery of really good customer service does not always have the opportunity to surface and be recognised. It is when extraordinary incidents occur, when someone steps out of the “routine” to give a higher level of service where it is needed without being asked to do so, that we recognise what is actually happening. When it does happen, it makes you heart race, it’s breathtaking.
I have no doubt that you won’t even know about the incident that I will relate to you now, as I am almost certain your staff see the service they provided to me last Friday as normal and within the framework of what customer service is within your business.
My son’s car started was stuttering badly on the way to work Friday morning and he called me, perplexed, as he abandoned it in the Marine Parade, Southport public car-park, worried about how he was going to arrange for its diagnosis and repair while he was all day at the Indy Race track covering the live on-air trackside reports for radio Sea-FM. He hoped that dad could somehow help. Dad was busy all day until 4:30pm, so I was seriously thinking about arranging a tilt-lift truck to bring the car home for the weekend, for security, and then ponder what to do with it on Monday. I drove the car around the car-park once to get a feel for the extent of the problem – to determine whether I could drive it the 20 kilometres home. The engine seemed to be misfiring, maybe only running on 3 of the 4 cylinders. It occurred to me then that I was only a few minutes away from your workshop and that I may be able to make it there even though the car was running very roughly. I limped the car to the TRS workshop, however the time had passed more quickly than I had realised in the backed-up Indy traffic and it was past closing time when I arrived – the roller-door was shut and the workshop closed. What to do now - stuck in a congested part of Southport in peak hour during the Indy Race weekend. Even if I could arrange for a tow-truck, it would be a long time before we would be able to have the car safely home.
While I was contemplating what to do with the dead car and how my son was going to get home tonight and to the Indy Track over the weekend, the access door of the TRS workshop opened and two of your mechanics emerged, prepped to head home for the weekend. The thought occurred to me that maybe I should ask if I could leave the car in the workshop for the weekend so that they could start work on it on Monday – then I would be taxi-driver from my son for the weekend. I introduced myself to Mark and Brendan as a BNI associate of yours and asked them if they would consider me leaving the car in the workshop. They said that wouldn’t be a problem, but asked whether I needed the car over the weekend. I told them about my son’s situation and what I had experienced when driving the car. Brendan asked me to pop the bonnet so he could take a look. Within two minutes he had located the problem and performed a “work-around” that would see the car behave for the weekend until my son could drop it in for a service and replacement of the plug leads. They asked me to take it for a little test drive around the car-park to see if I was satisfied that it was safe for the weekend – it was – it felt “normal” again.
Tim, I realise this has been a long-winded discourse but I want you to know how important this kindness was to me, and my son who was not even present. Both Mark and Brendan treated the episode like it was a service they were doing for a friend – no effort, no fuss, glad to help, happy to see you are relieved and have your car for the weekend. I was just amazed by the service, after closing time, on Friday night, and on Indy weekend. I don’t believe that I would have experienced that kind of service anywhere else – I certainly have not in my lifetime to date.
Your staff members are a testament to your stated commitment to customer service. It is rare that the owner’s ideals regarding service are taken on board as conscientiously by staff and I commend these individuals to you as people who really strive to meet your service ideals. They could have just as easily locked the car in the shed, gone home and forgotten about it until Monday morning. Instead, they were genuinely interested in helping my son meet his work commitments for the weekend, without even meeting him. That is real customer service and it certainly engenders the desire in my family to use your business to service and repair our three vehicles.
Sincerely,
Don Logan
Don Logan
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