Ruining Your Vacation Ruins My Day

Without fail, every year a few customers come into the shop, their heads hung and their shoulders slumped, to tell us that they did something that they feel is so stupid they are ashamed to admit what it is. After looking around to make sure no one else can hear, they fess up and explain what they’ve done: they drove into the garage with their bicycle on the roof of their car. Sometimes, this tragic event occurs on the very day they purchased their shiny new bicycle, before it even went on its first ride. Within an hour, a brand new bicycle went from hanging from its front wheel on a display hook in the shop, to hanging from a bent handlebar wedged between the garage and the garage door.

In these situations, it is up to us, the friendly shop employees, to tell them how much it will cost to replace that bent fork, that mangled brake lever, that crunched roof rack system, or that their bicycle and rack system are regrettably destroyed beyond repair. But a more important role is to try to make these customers feel better, while their bicycles and their hearts are in pieces.
I have a method that has proved to be quite reliable. I just tell them that I, too, have done the exact same thing. Three times, in fact. Doing it once is a bit careless, maybe a tad scatter-brained, but not stupid. Doing it three times, I tell them, as I have done, is remarkably stupid. And, as a result of three times having my racks ripped off the roof of my car, my roof is so dented you’d think someone went up there and practiced juggling bowling balls while hopping on one leg. I also tell them that aside from having driven my car into a garage with my bicycle on the roof multiple times, I’ve also driven my car out of the driveway with my bicycle under the rear wheels, and have twice driven away from a gas pump with the nozzle still in the gas tank. At this point,if they still feel bad, it’s because they now feel bad for me.

Trying to placate upset customers is just one of the many things we shop employees do in the name of good service. And delivering good service is something that we try as hard as possible to do with every customer, every single day. Sometimes, however, it doesn’t work out that way, and despite our best efforts, we end up causing a tremendous amount of grief, and profoundly affecting, in a negative way, someone’s life, such as ruining his or her vacation. And nothing makes us feel worse than having a customer say that because of us, his or her vacation was ruined. How does this happen, you ask? Well, let’s say Mr. Smythe brings in a bike that needs a new handlebar and rear shift lever because he drove into his garage with his bicycle on the roof of his car. He needs the bike fixed by Friday because he’s leaving for vacation, and he wants to take his bike with him. In order for this to happen, many, many things have to go right, and sometimes one of those things can go wrong. Maybe we didn’t have the proper shift lever in stock when it came time to work on his bike. Dinosaurus Rex assumed we’d have the part in stock, so he didn’t bother to check inventory to make sure. In an attempt to meet the Friday deadline as promised, Chinch Bug orders the part from the only distributor who has it in stock, which, of course, is in Seattle. He pays a premium (please don’t tell the boss) to have it shipped over night, but when it arrives on Friday morning, it is the front shift lever instead of the rear shift lever. And just like that, Mr. Smythe’s vacation is ruined. And someone gets to call Mr. Smythe and tell him so, and that someone is usually me.

I feel lousy when a customer is upset due to something having gone wrong, or for any other reason. Occasionally, a customer will be insulted because of the way I said a certain something and will refuse to ever step foot in our shop again, regardless of whether or not I am even there. And this can happen to the best of us. Recently, one of my favorite fellow coworkers, Chuck, who is so sweet she makes a sweet pea taste like a lemon, caused a customer so much grief by saying a certain something, the customer composed a lengthy, handwritten letter to the boss describing this grief. Fortunately for Chuck, however, there was no mention of a ruined vacation.