With winter, there are so many accidents: this means great business for body shops. Even thought I have the money to fix my Toyota Salora, the body shop is will take longer to fix it. Since I get the cars fixed cheaper than anyone else, this also means I am put in the back of the line.
Like anyone else, the shop wants to make money. Since I’m the least paying customer that the body shop has, they put my car at the end of the line of vehicles to be fixed. You can’t really blame them; I mean if I was in their shoes I would probably do the same thing. Put the cars that pay more to get fixed at the front of the line, to keep the customers happy. But the people that get discounts can wait, because they won’t go anywhere else.
This technique of putting the higher paying customer ahead of other people is used in our society whether we like it or not. When I turned sixteen I worked at a day spa, for a while. They perfected this technique; the spa sold gift certificates five percent of the original price. Most people tried to take advantage of this five percent off, but what they didn’t now is when you buy a gift certificate you are under the companies’ control. What the spa did is, if a person had an appointment with a gift certificate and a person walked in wanting a massage. The customer with the certificate would be rescheduled, and the person that walked and is willing to pay full price would be accepted right away.
This way the business makes the most money possible, but what is bad is that the customer that purchases the certificate thinks that they the number one person in the company face. The truth is, the customer is never number one in the face, they know that the customers will always be there.
3 comments:
I work in a business as well that tends to cater to the higher volume customers. Even though I understand the thinking behind this business practice, I don't like it. I had a customer one time that I bent over backwards for a ten dollar sale and my boss questioned, Why? My response was that once we start looking a customers as dollar figures true customer service is lost. The ironic thing is that my ten dollar customer us the mom of a big contractor in the area and because of my service towards his mom now he shops with us--I live by the philosophy that you never know who you are servicing, so treat every customer as though they are the most important customer.
I like what forward thought has to say, but it is far easier to earn money by concentrating your efforts on high paying customers.
Hmmm. I'm sure you'll take the trade-off of saving money in lieu of expediency.
Incidentally, MM, I think you might mean number one in the company's mind, not face?
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