A Look At Other Business

It’s always fascinating to see how different businesses handle problems. Within the last couple of months, I’ve had problems with two businesses. One involved a significant amount of money, and the other one, not so much.

In late December, I had taken my Montero over to Peruzzi Mitsubishi, which was the closest factory authorized repair facility. I needed some scheduled maintenance, but there was a strange noise that was clearly related to the transmission that needed attention. To keep the story at a reasonable length, I felt that Peruzzi did not do right by me, and I complained. The Service Manager offered me a token amount of “free” service back at Peruzzi. The situation was such that I was never going to do business with them again, so that offer was worthless. When I went up the chain to the owner/GM, I received a reply from their lawyer instead, more or less repeating the offer that the Service Manager had made.

The existential question: what kind of business, when receiving a detailed, written complaint from a customer, replies through lawyers? Nothing they could have done would have better reinforced my decision to never do business with them again. There are lots of places to deal with in the automotive world, and I’d recommend anyone in the lower Bucks County area to find another facility.

When I travel, I usually fly out of the Philadelphia airport. I usually use the Aampco off-airport parking lot, and they’ve recently been bought out by PreFlight Parking. Recently, I had a problem with their service and I wrote out a detailed complaint to their General Manager. He responded with an apology, an offer of a complimentary service, and an invitation to try them again. They were, after all, in the midst of a change-over.

About two weeks ago, I tried the service again. For the longest time, as a frequent parker, I had the charges go directly to a credit card. Earlier this year, I followed their instructions and changed credit cards. That change didn’t make it into their system, leading to another problem as I was leaving their lot –at about 1am. I’d stayed six or seven days, and the charge was under $85.00.

I wrote an email to the GM, telling him about my experience, how I’d gone back to them without asking for any special consideration, and how it didn’t work out. He apologized again, asked me to try their service, and offered a refund of the last charge.

So here were two businesses where I encountered problems. One business, where I spent over $3000.00 on one transaction, made me feel like they didn’t care at all about my business, and came across like they were doing me a favor. Another business, where the transaction was under $100.00, (and I’d never spent more than maybe $300.00/year there), actively campaigned to keep my business, and made me feel like my business was valued.