I just wanted to let folks know about a surprising customer service experience from this morning. When the guyzos at Steve Low's Midwest Toyota cleaned up the rear brakes on my car Monday, they discovered that a bearing cover had gone AWOL. The $4 part wasn't in stock, but they put it on order, and phoned me yesterday to let me know that I could swing by at my convenience to have them snap it in.
So I swung by at about nine this morning. I literally hadn't finished my coffee in the waiting room--my first cup of the day, y'understand--when A. popped his head through the glass door to tell me that that my four-wheeled baby was parked around the corner with the key in the ignition. "Wow! You guys are goooood!" I laughed. I stepped up to the cashier counter, wallet at the ready, but was waved on. "Oh, did you already put that on Monday's tab?" I asked. "Nah--we got'cha taken care of," quoth A.
In the end, it's not saving the cost of a $4 part and a few minutes of labor that means anything. At least not to me. It's the "We got'cha taken care of." See, the business isn't a matter of buying car parts and swapping them in for the bits that have gone kablooey. These folks seem to understand that they're really in the "making that worrisome noise go away" business. Or, more generally, the "peace of mind" business. And I thought that more than deserved the recognition. Because I personally believe that it's virtually impossible for the "peace of mind" market to become crowded. And even if it did, I think it'd be a much better world for that.
