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Some of my memorable 'after hours' work:

Driving up to Sisters Hotel on a Friday night to repair a broken boat trailer tongue - and then having to deal with a drunk friend of the 'group leader' of the weekend guys' fishing trip who thought I was charging too much. This was easy though as I told the 'leader' to shut his boy up NOW or I leave.

Another boat trailer tongue repair on a Sunday and they guy telling me when I was done he had no money to pay me. I left with a Stevens 16 ga. shotgun from that deal.

Welding a battery box for a guy building a motorhome on a new years day (but this I agreed to when he called me the previous day eve and ASKED if I would do it) Then he had sandwiches, a half rack of Deschutes Brewery Beer for when I was done and handed me basically double in cash what I estimated.

Responding to a Redmond business on a Friday night to disassemble and take back to my shop a stainless steel oven door to repair a broken hinge, then meet him at six AM the following Saturday morning to reassemble it so he would be up and running for the weekend - and then ask me for a bill (when I saw his till full of cash when he opened it)

Answering my phone one Saturday morning at five am and the guy was talking to me like it was ten AM on a weekday. He needed something repaired and he was very sincere, just didn't seem cognizant that it was five AM. I asked him politely if he could at least wait until I got up and dressed and had coffee, and he said "Oh I am sorry for calling so early and when can I come over" I told him seven would be great.

My point? You need to be flexible as a small business owner but not allow anyone to take advantage of you.

Well said!!
 
WOW! For your sake I really hope you never own a business, one minute before closing time and I need to be concerned for their "personal lives"??? you are a moron! If you cant provide service and your clients need to know to only come in when its convenient for you, you don't deserve to be in business!!! So I should tell me customers that call me on the weekend looking for tools not to bother me??? How stupid can you really be??? I knew their would be trolls defending this kind of treatment but I had no idea I would be lambasted for "disturbing" the poor, tired, overworked, under appreciated owner! Good grief! Do unto others????? Seriously dude?? That is funny!!

Yup. Seriously.

Here's the thing... I have been doing customer service related work for the past 20 years, and managing for about half of that. I ran Starbucks stores for about 6.5 years. My last store had an average OSat score of 94% (vs a company average of 79% through that period, and up 11% from the highest my predecessor had ever posted) for seven consecutive months. That put us in the top 6 out of around 100 stores in OR and southwest WA.

My approach to getting those marks is simple: try to make sure that everyone I deal with, customer or coworker, feels like they gained something from the interaction. I treat people like I want to be treated. I listen to them. I am courteous.

Part of that involves recognizing that there is a point at which putting up with BS is going to sewer the staff's ability to remain positive. By protecting the work-life balance of my teams from people who treated them poorly, I demonstrated to my staff that I cared about them. Crazy thing... When people feel like they matter, they are happier, and they perform better.

In short, 99.99% of our customers wound up getting better service, because I didn't make my teams cater to the other .01%.

All of my stores experienced YOY growth and increased OSat while I was there, as well as maintaining high employee retention values. This was even the case around 2008, when the recession was really crushing.

There are people on this board who know me, and you would be hard pressed to find any who would call me anything less than "a nice guy".


When I go into any establishment, I make it easy for them to give me the service I want. I am as courteous to them as I expect them to be to me. Not coincidentally, I tend to be well liked.


But... Yeah, I'm stupid.

What do you think the Golden Rule is? Why do you think that saying has been around so long? Simple: if YOU are courteous, people will reflect that, more often than not. Walking in at 1 minute to close, and expecting to be treated like gold, shows a complete disregard for the guy in the shop. If your business was so important to you, you could have made time well within store hours.

Be mad. Insult me all you want. I have made a career out of being very good at this.
 
My approach to getting those markswork-life balance of my teams from people who treated them poorly, I demonstrated to my staff that I cared about them. Crazy thing... When people feel like they matter, they are happier, and they perform better.

In short, 99.99% of our customers wound up getting better service, because I didn't make my teams cater to the other .01%.

All of my stores experienced YOY growth and increased OSat while I was there, as well as maintaining high employee retention values. This was even the case around 2008, when the recession was really crushing.

There are people on this board who know me, and you would be hard pressed to find any who would call me anything less than "a nice guy".


When I go into any establishment, I make it easy for them to give me the service I want. I am as courteous to them as I expect them to be to me. Not coincidentally, I tend to be well liked.


But... Yeah, I'm stupid.

Simple: if YOU are courteous, people will reflect that, more often than not. Walking in at 1 minute to close, and expecting to be treated like gold, shows a complete disregard for the guy in the shop.

Be mad. Insult me all you want. I have made a career out of being very good at this.

You are hilarious! You keep spouting golden rule which last time I checked is : treat others how you would like to be treated: Not, don't show one minute before a store closes expecting to be treated like gold and bother the owner!! I don't know what your comprehension problem is but I will say it again in really big words, it's called being POLITE! Frankly your statistics are BS, EVERY customer is important regardless of how they treat you. Don't like them? Fine, don't do business again if you can help it. You are acting really dence by saying I expected to be treated "like gold" not true. I just expected to be treated exactly how I would have treated someone if they were in my business. It's pretty simple. Again, not sure why it is so hard for you to understand! And as for Insulting?? I just call em like I see em!
 
While I enjoy two boys having a pissing contest as much as anyone, I thought I'd try to get the thread back on track towards the original content.

My experiences with Xtactical were the opposite of your's Jack. I work in Redmond and I'm glad to have them here. My wife and I stepped in their store and they immidiately asked if we needed help. They also appologized for their lack of inventory. He told me that they are hesitant to get a lot of stuff in the store before their FFL certification is complete (weee!!! I get to blame the government today). He didn't want to risk it falling through and having a lot of gear in a store that doesn't have the firearms the gear supports. He also told me that they have plans to add an indoor range which is something we really need in Redmond.

I am going to support the store. If they screw me, then I'll withhold my dollars. For now, I want them to succeed because they are the only place I have frequented in Central Oregon that is willing to carry gear and ammo for the AK shooter.

Another bonus is they are right next door to Brewdog's, a growler fill-up station. :beer:
 
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You are hilarious! You keep spouting golden rule which last time I checked is : treat others how you would like to be treated: Not, don't show one minute before a store closes expecting to be treated like gold and bother the owner!! I don't know what your comprehension problem is but I will say it again in really big words, it's called being POLITE! Frankly your statistics are BS, EVERY customer is important regardless of how they treat you. Don't like them? Fine, don't do business again if you can help it. You are acting really dence by saying I expected to be treated "like gold" not true. I just expected to be treated exactly how I would have treated someone if they were in my business. It's pretty simple. Again, not sure why it is so hard for you to understand! And as for Insulting?? I just call em like I see em!

Eye to eye is obviously not going to happen here. That's OK. I'll bow out of this discussion. I wish you the best, sir.
 

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