Well, maybe 'love' is going a bit far..... I so appreciate you! Better? This story has to do with tires, believe it or not.
Mamma got a new set of boots for her truck today. I think the auto manufactures and the tire makers got together and decided that they would just play with all of us who drive trucks. Almost every year a new size of truck tire hits the market. Consequently, what happens is this; the tires that I need to fit my truck are always hard to get and each year they get more expensive. Thankfully getting new tires is only something I need to do once every two years.
As you might have guessed, this was the year. When spending a heap of money on rubbers, one owes it to themselves to shop around. Prices can vary as much as $50 per tire, multiply that by 4 you it means you could get stung. So, shop around is what I did. I made phone call after phone call. As it turned out, the tires I needed were very hard to find and to top it off, there were very few alternatives. Finally I found a 'friend' in JP.
JP owns JP Tire Service in Stittsville
Instead I place a call to hubby. When I couldn't get in touch with him I call my very dear and stylin' friend Paul. 'Hey' I say, 'Need some advice got a
moment?' Being the helpful one he always is, he listened to my story. 'You see, I called everywhere looking for tires for my truck, it's going to snow soon eh - so I find them at Tirecraft in Stittsville - cheaper than anywhere else, what do you think?' Right about now he is thinking... duhhhh and replies 'yeah, so what's the question?' 'Well, I was thinking, do I really need to change all four or can I go with two?' Paul asks (you can just see him rolling his eyes), 'how much tread is left, do you need to change them?' 'Well it's like this' I say 'there's about 1/4 inch left', Paul 'to the wear bars?' Me 'what bars?' 'Never mind' says Paul. 'Oh hold on' I say 'I drive a 4X4 to be safe, in snow and on bad roads - why am I going to skimp on safety and only put on two new tires when I need four?' Paul, 'I don't know, why?' Me, 'Okay, I got the point, see ya soon and thanks.'
So, I call JP back, put the tires on order. He says 'could be two days, could be three weeks' I have visions of banks of slippery snow and my beauty truck in the ditch. Two days later, JP calls to tell me my tires are in.
This morning was the day, in for my new boots. What a pleasant experience. JP turns out to be just as friendly and easy going in person as he is on the phone. His 'guys' say good morning and take my keys to put the truck in the shop. They are all polite, friendly and chatty. Wow, I was impressed, still am. I was in and out, bill paid in 40 minutes. Tell me where else you can go and change, balance and install 4 big truck tires in that amount of time.
So kudos today out to JP Tire Sales / Tirecraft in Stittsville. If you need tires, go see these folks. I am not sure if all the Tirecraft stores are the same, but if they are a fraction of what I experienced today, you can't go wrong.
As for lessons learned - it doesn't take much to make a customer happy and get them talking about you. It cost this company nothing more for this type of advertising. Why then, can retail stores not do the same?
If you know of somewhere that excels in customer service, share it with us. On the same note, if some place is revolting, we want to hear about that too.
Oh, and just in case you are thinking that this year, we won't have any snow to worry about - here's a reminder of last year - you might want to consider your options before this happens!
Have yourself a wonderful Cherry Day!
