How to lose money by serving customers
The answer: be an idiot about running your business, or non-profit organization.
Lessons from this weekend.
First up- not-for-profits operate under the same customer service rules as for-profit entities: don't give us bogus information!
We wanted to rent a wooden sailboat to fulfill a long-standing birthday gift for a family member. Two separate volunteers at Seattle's Center for Wooden Boats told us what they required to rent the boats, when to show up, who needed to get checked out, fees, etc.
So we showed up Saturday, where the nice volunteer running the front desk told us that they were not renting any boats. Why? Because there was another boat show going on the same weekend at the next pier over.
Standing in front of the desk with my mouth hanging open (for a moment, before I shut it with a very angry 'click'), I turned around and saw, at eye level in large letters, a sign informing everyone that boats would not be rented from July 15 to July 18 (or some such dates), precisely because of the other boating event.
Question: why did two volunteers, trained enough to pick up the phone, expert enough in the ways of getting people into wooden sailboats, not know that their own organization had grounded (docked?) all boats for that weekend?
Next: who is in charge?
Disappointed (and quite angry), we trooped over for some lunch - and walked right past Moss Bay Rowing & Kayaks. We inquired, they confirmed, and 90 minutes later four of us checked out a small Catalina sailboat (details on the hilarious hijinks for another entry).
I, the payor, did not want a motor on the boat, since I was told it was $35/hour for the sailboat, and an additional $40/hour for the motor. In other words, a sailboat with a motor would rent for $75/hour.
I heard incorrectly. Or I was told incorrectly, or the young man who mumbled the information at me like he was ashamed to quote prices while making eye contact did not understand addition versus inclusion. Whatever the reason for me assuming the price doubled for a motor when actually it increased by $10/hour (true prices: $35/hr w/o motor, $45/hr with), we struggled for around half an hour to sail past their little pier.
In addition, they lost our initial waiver, so we all had to sign again.
Overall, we never got a clear idea what was going on from any of the employees there. We talked to at least three, who never gave us the full story. We (the four in the boat and two on land) essentially had to interview and cajole information out of them.
Question: if you make the customers' lives hard, why exactly should they buy from you?
Finally: you're not too popular to lose customers.
We sent two of our guests off with breakfast at Gilbert's in Bellevue. I ordered for my wife and me. We wanted two orders of sausages, one egg, one croissant.
Nothing doing. They would have sausages "in an hour", and they had no croissants.
Are you as amazed as I? A popular breakfast place, running out of two popular and common items?
I changed my order, took my 17 placard back, and proceeded to wait for over half an hour. The order? Two eggs scrambled, and a blueberry muffin.
It took the crack staff at Gilbert's over 30 minutes to scramble 2 eggs and warm up a blueberry muffin.
Before the vein in my forehead popped, I walked up to the counter and told them I needed a refund. The employee told me that they probably had the order ready and were probably trying to get it to us, making the silent statement that walking around with the placard would delay our food.
As it turned out, they had just delivered our food. The waiter recognized my wife from when she had tried to get it delivered (relying on being pregnant to potentially generate sympathy).
I backed down and went to eat my half of the breakfast.
A few minutes later the waiter brought over a note entitling us to free breakfast or lunch, signed by Lucy - and expiring in 3 days. No apology (spoken or written), and something of a tight timeframe for redemption.
Nice try, Lucy - but it doesn't cut it. You just lost repeat customers.
I truly dislike having to get angry to get what I paid for.