Gee, Bernse, stop being so shy and retiring and tell me how you really feel!! If you deal with the public in any capacity, you’re bound to run into a few jerks. I just wanted to see what my options would be and to solicit opinions from other like-minded people.
FYI, I meant no ill will towards you (or anyone else) in general. I was just giving another possible reason answer to your question.
bernse, how, exactly, do you stay in business with that level of customer service? Do ‘real customers’ not expect the same things actual customers do?
I don’t think you understand, Derleth. “Walk-in” traffic/retail is not “our business” nor are they “our customers” that we service. Our business/customers are largely made up of contract basis accounts. We have a store-front because sometimes even our bread and butter has to drop by in person at times.
As to how we “stay in business?” Believe it or not, we have exceptional customer service for our accounts. If you have a break down at 2AM and need an item, we’ll open up for you. We don’t have it? We’ll find it. There is no stock in Canada? I’ll charter a plane and fly it here for you. Nothing in stock anywhere? We’ll make something else work. Of course, this will cost you but it is what we do and we do it damn well. Our staff has a min 10 years experience each (except our shipper) and they all know what they’re doing. There is nobody else in our area that has the knowledge our guys have.
Now, look at the economics of it. Why would I pay a guy say, $30 an hour to take 15-30 minutes of his time to identify/source the $9 bearing out of his car? And after that, the guy decides he doesn’t want to spend $9? I’m serious. You would not believe how cheap some people are. I have people come in here that I’ve spent 1/2 an hour ID’ng a bearing out of his tractor. I’ll give him a price. The guy will then use my phone to call other people with the part # I gave him and try to get a better price somewhere else.
Easy solution - Eliminate most of that business. Period. Give our customers that we deal with exceptional service and good pricing and they’ll come back. Thats how we stay in business. And it works.
Now that being said, lets say we get a after hours call from Joe Blow that does need a bearing for his tractor or whatever. We’ll tell him that there is a $50 opening charge that is payable regardless, on top of the price of the item that he needs. You know very quickly how badly the person needs the item them. If they agree, we’ll have someone down at the shop in 15 minutes to help them out. That is service you just can’t get at most places.