Two garages

I needed to get my car fixed today and I knew that there would be some waiting time so I decided I would visit two nearby garages compare the waiting time and then choose the quicker one.

Now both garages are branches of the same company so they were practically identical. Where they differed though was how I made my decision.

It was in the brief interaction with the two employees at the respective reception desks that provided me with a clear winner.

The first guy was intimidating and made jokes at my expense whether as the second guy was polite and well mannered.

So despite the fact that I would’ve liked to have given my car to the ‘intimidating’ garage because I could spend my waiting time wandering the nearby shopping center. I went with the ‘polite’ garage purely based on the much better customer experience.

I reckon I’m not the only one to make a decision like this.

But to be fair it seemed like both garages, instead of hiring a full time receptionist were just rotating the receptionist duties between the mechanics.

Now that may be a great cost saver, but the risk is that your customer service will suffer, as I experienced.

A bit of customer service training could be good risk management.

It may be seen as unnecessary but when there is so little between competitors, human interactions can make a massive difference and it shouldn’t be ignored.