If you're going to do it anyway...

Something that happened to me today at my eye doctor’s office got me thinking about a mistake many businesses make. It’s a mistake I’ve made myself, many years ago when I worked in the service industry.

At the time of my story, I was an Assistant Branch Manager for a car rental company. It was a demanding job that required me to arrange all the customer pickups and drop-offs, ensure cars were clean before customers arrived, phone were answered and employees were in the right spot at the right time.

One day, my Branch Manager overheard me take a phone call from a customer who was finished with her rental car and wanted us to come to her house to pick up the car. This was something we never liked to do, because it took two employees out of the branch, sometimes for a very long time, putting the branch under a lot of stress while they were away.

I told her that we normally don’t pick up cars and asked if she could drive the car to our branch and we’d be happy to give her a ride home.

She didn’t want to do that.

I then explained the problem of having two employees out of the branch and again asked if she could return the car herself.

Again, she refused.

I told her that we could pick the car up from her house, but since it was going to take extra bodies and extra planning, I wasn’t sure when we would be there.

She didn’t seem to care about the inconvenience of waiting one bit and we agreed that sometime before the car rusted away, we would be there to pick it up.

When I hung up the phone, my manager asked me, “Do you find that works, asking customers over and over to bring the car back so we don’t have to pick it up?”

I had to admit that almost always the customer stuck to their guns and in the end we picked up the car.

“Right,” he said, “so after the first time you ask, why don’t you just agree to pick up the car and be done with it? Otherwise, all you’re really doing is annoying people.”

I realized immediately that he was right and I was browbeating my customer into doing what benefited me, not them. It rarely worked and even if it did, I had an unhappy customer.

It’s a lesson that stuck with me.

Today, at my eye doctor’s office, I needed to pick up some contact lens solution. I’m on a plan where I pay for a year’s supply, which I’m supposed to receive at the beginning of the year. The problem is that I always run out and have to come back to the office to get more.

For years they didn’t bat an eye when I came in for additional supply, but this year they give me a lecture about how they’re changing things and that if I run out I’ll need to pay for the additional bottles.

Except they don’t make me pay, they just continue to give me the lecture.

I’m sure the cost of running an optometry office has gone up and contact lens solution might be a money loser. I’m sure they don’t like giving me lens solution for no money.

But those are their problems, not mine. This was the deal that they offered me and I don’t need to feel like I’ve asked them for a kidney each time I need more lens solution.

I’m terribly sorry that this deal has become a hardship for you, but we both know, you’re going to give me the lens solution and not charge me.

So, why do we have to go through this every time?