Customer Service & Quotes

Yesterday a wonderful couple pulled in off the road, in the middle of the monster storm (brrrrrr it is too cold to be the end of April!); they had barely made it in because one of their motor home's windshield wipers had completely shredded and they couldn't see a thing! They were so glad they made it into our park and we got them registed to a site.

They only have their big motor home and couldn't go out to pick up a new wiper blade. The little store at the park doesn't stock wiper blades, but we figured we would just call the Sears Auto Center or the Les Schwabb. Maybe they could deliver or I told them I could run up the road 5 minutes and pick them up...thus embarked a great adventure in customer service.

Apparently 32" wiper blades are pretty much impossible to find in Utah Valley! First we called the close places, they either didn't have them in stock, and it would take like a week to order then in, or several of the stores told us they didn't ever carry blades longer than 28". Then i called our two suppliers for our RV Parts store. I figured we could get them shipped in by tomorrow, but both places were back ordered in their warehouses and said it would be a while before they got anymore in.

More phone calls ensued, while calling every auto parts dealer in Utah County and looking through the yellow pages i noticed that they place quotes in little random boxes! I had never noticed this before. The two I liked the most and that seemed to fit the circumstances were by Thomas Jefferson, "In matter of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle stand like a rock" and by John Wooden, "Don't let what you can not do interfere with what you can do." I especially liked the second cause it made me think, that while i might not be able to find the wiper blades at this one store, I will keep calling and I can find some somewhere else.

Reading all the quotes as I sat on hold and had different clerks looking for these blades made me wonder though, who picks the quotes to put in the automotive section of the phone book? Why did they put those quotes in? Did they know how frustrating it can be to call one automotive shop after another asking the same question over and over?

So after many calls and good quotations read and 2 hours later I had finally located 2 32" wiper blades (that the technician assured me would fit in their motor home) in Draper at Camping World. (I think I may have found the last two in all of Northern Utah!) So when my front desk clerk came on for her afternoon shift off to Draper went I. By the time I got back to the park and gave the blades to the couple I had exhausted nearly all of my day.

The couple were very grateful and gracious about the my going out to find them these blades and came in periodically throughout the day to say how grateful they were for all we were doing to help them resolve their problem. It felt good to know that they will tell everyone they talk to how our park went above and beyond to help get them back on the road and make their trip a bit less stressful.

Thinking back I wonder though if I would have been so nice and helpful if I had known how big a job it would be. I would like to think I would have exercised my customer service skills to help them out, but I really don't know. I guess that is the good thing, about not knowing how big a job a small problem might turn out to be in the beginning, and being too stubborn to quit when I couldn't find what they needed at a close shop.