Courteous Competence and Genuine Helpfulness Can Become Successful Small Business Models in an Age of Deliberate Deception and Intentional Sub-Mediocrity

© 2011 Peter Free

 

08 July 2011

 

 

Getting what you pay for today is difficult, until you run into the rare small businesses that still operate according to old-fashioned standards of excellence

 

These last three days, I’ve come across three businesses that illustrate what’s still terrific about the nation and what’s not so good.

 

Not surprisingly, the two small businesses in the mix came out on top.  Of these two, one illustrated excellence throughout, and the other demonstrated how to recover from an otherwise fatal customer service error.

 

The third business, a national do-it-yourself chain, performed as miserably as its competitors customarily do.

 

The conclusion may be that small and professional is often better, at least for those of us who hate wasting our time on moronic service and intentional junk-level quality.

 

 

Here’s the story — can you relate?

 

Small Business One

 

Rhino Linings is spray-on pickup truck-bed liner franchise.  Its Colorado Springs operator got my business because he was courteously efficient on the telephone, volunteered that he gave military discounts, calculated the exact final charge, and told me exactly how long the spraying process would take.

 

When I arrived at my appointment, he remembered who I was and what he had quoted me.  He then walked me out to my pickup and explained exactly what he would do.

 

When the job was done, he left a message on my home phone telling me so, and recognized me (by name) when I returned to pick up the vehicle.

 

The job itself was flawless.

 

Small Business Two

 

This one illustrates how small business’s ability to self-monitor can give it an advantage in the market.

 

One of my friends asked a couple of us to build her a wooden fence.  The soil proved to be close to impenetrable, and the first few holes took forever to dig.  So she decided to rent a post-hole augur from a rental business that she had dealt with for years.

 

A comedy of usually fatal business errors followed.

 

First, two different clerks passed the telephoned order back and forth between themselves, causing my friend to re-tell each what she wanted.  One, apparently not knowing how to operate the telephone, disconnected her.  The other, when asked for the inclusion of two new cutting teeth for the augur, (mistakenly) said the business had none.

 

Delivery was then delayed because the company had sent one of its two delivery trucks to get parts for the other, and the clerks were unable to contact the driver to let him know that an order was waiting for delivery.

 

When the delivery truck finally arrived, it had the wrong size augur (despite my friend having told both clerks that she wanted an 8-inch).  More delay.

 

Fortunately, the delivery truck driver turned out to be a manager.  He said that the business did indeed have new teeth for the augur.  And he came back with the proper size augur and willingly let my other friend, a master fence builder, educate him on the proper teeth to put in it.

 

The augur made the work go more quickly (although one of the new teeth was worn completely out after only 10 holes), and we were done in 45 minutes.

 

When the manager returned to pick up the augur, he saved an otherwise business-harming day by voluntarily charging us only the delivery fee for our use of the machine.  And that’s why my friend will continue doing business with the small rental company he manages.

 

People generally forgive business errors when owners/managers have the insight to recognize that (a) mistakes were made and (b) that their customers deserve fair-minded compensation for the hassle these mistakes caused them.

 

 

Large Business Bad Boy

 

My fence-wanting friend had one of the nation’s box do-it-yourself chain stores deliver the cedar for her fence.  It turned out that the quality of the delivered material was atrocious — ridiculously variable moisture content, splits, knots, dry rot, and warps in all directions.

 

There were no genuinely decent posts, or two-by-fours, to construct a gate (which is subjected to the most stress).  She and I had to go back to the store and sift through most of its supply.

 

Having worked in a lumber yard nearly forty years ago, I expected to be able to find the three decent pieces we needed within 20 minutes.  But after a mini-eternity sorting through a large stack, I found nothing that was not filled with knots, splits, or warps.

 

A helpful employee then directed us to an alternate pile of two-by-fours in 10-foot lengths.  He said the quality was slightly better than the admittedly miserable stack of 8-footers.

 

After spending another bit of forever, we found three (still crappy) samples that might work just well enough to pass.

 

Coincidentally, during the sorting process, another customer told me that he had had the identical problem with his wood delivery and had had to return it.  He had then spent 3 hours at the store trying to find just 45 adequate two-by-fours for his project.

 

My rather extensive experience with these do-it-yourself chains is that they are mostly worthless when it comes to getting reliable quality.  Even boxed goods often turn out to be returns with missing parts or designs that don’t do what they say they will.

 

 

The moral? — Small, professional, and genuinely customer-oriented business models may be a key to success in this age of large business sub-mediocrity

 

When much of the competition is comprised of avaricious fools and time-wasters, there is an opening for those who aren’t.