10/03/2010

Tale of two business owners

Dropped my bike off at (a company authorized) service station near my office two weeks ago. I was asked to collect the bike at 4 PM, which was 2 hours before the bike was delivered. The vehicle wasn’t clean when I received it, and there was a huge cut on the seat.

Pointed this out to the delivery guy, and received evasive answers. Called the manager up- to receive more of the same evasiveness. “no sir, it was there when we received the bike”. “This cut is old, sir, we can tell. We are the experts.” “You might have missed it. It didn’t happen during servicing.”

I might have missed seeing a 6 inch long cut on the seat, possibly for months, according to them. fine, I’ll let it pass. What about the ‘un-cleanliness’ of the bike?

“We have lots of work to do, sir. It could be a mistake.”

No sorrys. I could have gladly accepted a sorry. But these guys were much too busy trying to save their faces. And they were trying to do so in the worst possible way, by calling the customer a fool. I almost lost my cool.

Fast forward to yesterday.

Bike servicing again, but this time at a highly recommended local mechanic. You know, the small shop, big smiles type.

The bike was ready at the time he mentioned. After the test ride, I said the bike doesn’t start easily, he called his employee up.

“Did you clean the spark plugs?”

“Yes.”

“Both of them?”

(Slight hesitation) “No. Not the left one.”

(non-expletive version) “do you know how difficult it is to earn a reputation in this business? If you are careless like this, whatever I have done over last few years will amount to nothing. What if this guy goes unsatisfied, and never comes back? Shall I cut the amount from your salary?”

Then he proceeded to do the stuff himself, finished it in ten minutes, and took 50 bucks off the bill, for the 'inconvenience'.

I couldn’t help comparing the two experiences. One just shrugged off the responsibility, going as far as saying ‘complain to the head office’. Other went out of his way to correct the error. I know where to get my bike serviced from now on.

As they say, common sense is not so common.

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