John Deere, Biscuits & First Names

I went to pick up my lawn mower from being serviced yesterday and upon walking in, the service guy said, “Howdy Tim!” I said, “Hi, I’m here to get my mower.” He started typing my name into the computer when another employee come over to get his biscuit order. He stopped working to make the difficult decision. Once he told her what he wanted he continued typing. Then, he stopped again to ask where she’d be getting the biscuits. After arguing for a minute about which restaurant had the best biscuits, he finally had my invoice up. He clicked a few times then sat back in his chair.

After about a minute or so, he hollered over to the other counter, “David, did that thang print out?” David replied, “Naw, it’s out of paper. They’re supposed to be tracking some down.” “OK,” my ‘service’ guy said as he leaned back in his chair again. I thought to myself, I’ll get the danged paper, just tell me where it is, but I didn’t say it. Finally David took action and got the paper. The invoice printed out David met my guy half way with it. They each took 5 steps.

I took out my credit card to pay him when the biscuit order lady shouted out, “I can’t order the biscuits, the phones ain’t workin.” My guy said under his breath, “If it ain’t one thang, it’s two.” I was getting more angry by the minute as I seemed to be the last thing on any of their minds. Plus I KNEW the phones were working because my ‘service guy’ had stopped helping me a couple times to answer the phone!

Finally I paid him and he opened the door for me. I said, “You might want to show me which mower is mine since there are about 40 out here and they all look just alike to me.” “Oh yeah, that’s a good idea,” he said and followed me out. “Plus it rained last night so I need to dry that seat off for ya.” Finally, some service I thought. He walked me to my mower and while drying my seat said, “If there’s one thang I hate, it’s gettin’ my butt wet first thang in the mornin.” He finished drying the seat and looked me in the eye and said, “Tim, we sure do appreciate your business. Have a good day.”

Until that point it had been one of the worst customer service experiences I’d had in recent memory. However, when he looked me in the eye and said my name, all that ‘bad stuff’ just faded away. After I got in the car, I realized I wasn’t angry anymore. The whole negative experience was completely erased when he sincerely looked me in the eye and thanked me using my name. There’s power in using a person’s name, and a lesson here for us all.

Pointed Toilet Paper

It’s interesting the lengths a hotel will go to convince us that they’ve cleaned the room. They fold points on the toilet paper, they put the shower curtain outside the shower and they stop up the drain in the tub. I wonder if we’d be any more convinced if they actually just cleaned the room?

Hackers Wanted

On a recent drive through Atlanta, I saw a billboard that said in HUGE letters: Want to be a Hacker?” The sign went on to say that I could become a trained, expert hacker in just two weeks! I was amazed. After a month of training, my golf game hasn’t improved one bit. However, I was able to sneak into the golf course computer and lower my green fees!