I've just wasted a Saturday afternoon, but in the process I've learnt a valuable lesson, and a lesson which will be of benefit to anyone who runs their own business.
For the last few months I've been
thinking about buying a new car, but it's all got a bit stressful, and so in
the end I decided to keep the one I've got for a few more months and have some
essential work done on it.
The thing I needed fixing was very
small and I was quoted £80 to do the work by my local branch of Kwik Fit.
Without going into the technical
details, it's something that was only going to take about 20 minutes to do. But
before agreeing to the price, I decided to get some other quotes - and my local
branch of Wilco Motosave said they could do the same work for £70.
I have used this branch of Motosave
several times in the past, and I have usually found their staff to be rude and
unhelpful. In addition, their waiting area is unpleasant, noisy and
uncomfortable.
But on the understanding that
they would do the work on time, I thought I could put up with a bit of rudeness
and discomfort for 20 minutes if it would save me £10.
So I booked a slot at 2.30pm today for
the work to be done. I even said they could choose the time of the appointment
themselves, but I made it very clear that I would be in a hurry and I really
needed the work to be done at the time they stated.
And this is where the problems started
I fully expected to arrive at 2.30pm and
have the work finished by at least 3.15pm so that I could go to an important
appointment elsewhere.
I arrived dead on time, and handed
over my car keys, only to be told that the work wouldn't be done for several
hours. I asked why, and they said it was because they were “busy”.
It became quite obvious what was going
on. They had experienced an influx of people just coming off the street without
an appointment, and they didn't want to turn away the potential business. So
people like me who had gone to the trouble of booking an appointment at an exact
time, were being pushed to the back of the queue so they wouldn't lose the
business of the 'walk in' customers.
As you can imagine I was pretty
annoyed about this, but in the end I managed to negotiate with them that they
would have the car finished by 4pm. The manager then suggested that I went off
to the local McDonald's to wait there.
I'm not fan of McDonald's (I'm a
strict vegetarian and I wouldn't be seen dead in that place) so I walked around aimlessly in the rain for an hour just to kill a bit of time. I then
returned to the garage at 4.10pm, fully expecting my car to be ready.
By now I was desperate to get my car back
so I could do other more important things. So I was horrified to discover that my car was still up
on the ramp - and the work hadn't even been started!!
There were no staff to be seen, so I had
a look round the back and discovered all the engineers were together in a huddle, laughing, smoking and
chatting - and they clearly couldn't give a damn about the fact that I
desperately needed my car to get somewhere else.
I went inside the store and asked the manager what
was going on, as they had promised me the car would be finished well by 4pm (which was already an hour later than originally agreed).
The manager’s reply astounded me. He
said that his staff deserved a break, and in any case it was MY fault for leaving the premises (that is what he told me to do!!)
So I waited outside in the rain again. And it
took another whole hour before they could be bothered to finish the work on my car
(a simple job that took them about 20 minutes, once they’d actually got round to doing it). So I
finally left the garage at 5pm - two-and-a-half hours after the time booked for the work to be done
So what have I learnt from this
experience?
I have learnt an important
lesson from this experience which will not only benefit myself in the future, but will also benefit
YOU if you run your own business.
I could have gone to my local branch
of Kwik-Fit and paid £10 more. I have used them in the past and they have
always done the work to a high standard, more-or-less exactly in the agreed timescale. They have a pleasant waiting area with big comfortable chairs, a massive
TV to watch while you're waiting, and a free coffee machine with a range of different delicious
drinks that you can help yourself to.
So, the next time I need anything doing
to my car I will have to weigh-up whether it's worth wasting an entire Saturday
afternoon wandering about in the rain for the sake of saving ten quid. I think
I know what I will do next time!
If you run your own business, it's
worth bearing in mind that most customers are prepared to pay a higher
price if they are treated with respect and given good, efficient customer service.
And companies that treat their
customers with disdain like Wilco Motosave will eventually pay a heavy price for
offering slightly cheaper prices, but with terrible customer service.
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