BOOK REVIEW - 9 Lies That Are Holding Your Business Back

dognose · #8 (**permalink**) 03-05-2010

Wow, just wow. Is this some seriously bad customer service or what?

I live in a small bedroom community, & there are only a few car shops in our town. We could go into Boulder, but it's just not convenient to have your car repair shop 15 miles away. After trying some of the other shops in our town, we finally found a shop that provides good service. Over the years, we've spent several thousand dollars with this business man.

I've had a tricky electrical problem with my truck that has been on going. While I appreciate the shop's dedication to trying to track down the problem, I've paid out over $400 this year & still have intermittent problems with this thing. So once again, my truck was in the shop. It sounds like they finally nailed it down, but my bill yesterday was just over $300. It just so happens that we got a coupon in the mail from this shop & one of the coupons was for $30 off on service over $300. Thirty bucks is thirty bucks, right? So I presented the coupon at check out time & he refused it! ~gasp!!

He said that he's given us discounts on all our work over the years & that if he honored the coupon, he would make no money on this work. If he's given us discounts over the years, he's never mentioned it. Why would you give a customer a discount & not let them know that you've done that? How stupid is that? I didn't push it & I will probably continue to use him for our car work, cuz he is reliable & convenient, but I could not believe that he would send out coupons & then refuse to honor them, especially from someone who has given him as much work over the years that we have. I am still just boggled by this.

Last night I read a few more chapters in "9 Lies that are Holding Back Your Business" & I thought of this man & how he would benefit from reading this book. I was particularly interested in the section where Chandler talks about how many businesses will offer special deals to new customers but never offer deals to existing, returning customers. He reminds us that it's your existing customers that are going to say good things about you - assuming you impress them with your service. The good that comes from the word-of-mouth marketing that your existing customers provide you, will pay off better than any new marketing campaign to potential customers.

I'm still just stunned.

BTW, I highly recommend this book! Even though I'm only up to Lie #7, I've thoroughly enjoyed this book & have been amazed at how many of the lies I've bought into as "fundamental truths in business."