As I enter the final phase of my term as Section President, I want to revisit one of my favorite subjects, Customer Satisfaction.
We have all heard the phrase, “The customer is always right.” To me, the word “always” is a universal qualifier. Really, the customer is always right. There has never been a time when the customer is wrong. Of course, there are times when the customer is wrong. I often substitute the word “unrealistic” for the word “wrong.”
One of my favorite books is “Customers for Life” by Carl Sewell. The book’s subtitle is, “How do you turn a one-time buyer into a lifetime customer?” It’s a great book that you can buy on Amazon.
So, how do we turn customers into lifetime customers? How do we treat customers when they are wrong, but don’t know they are wrong or won’t recognize they are wrong? Like it or not, sometimes the amount of money involved is a factor.
In the book, Sewell talks about Stew Leonard, who runs one of the largest independent grocery chains in the country. He tells the story of a woman who bought two pounds of steak filets for $10.98 a pound. The following week, the steaks went on sale for $8.98 a pound. The woman returned to the store and demanded she gets her $4.00 back. What would you do? Stew gave her back the money.
Suppose a customer asked for two large range buckets and your charge is $20. They say that’s too high and pay for one bucket. Ten minutes later, the same customer appears and says he lost the token on the way to the range. What do you do? How much is this customer worth for a lifetime? What if this is a customer that plays three times a month for six months and pays $100 each time he plays? And you hope he will continue to play your course for ten years. Let’s look: $100 x 3 weeks=$300 x 24 weeks x 10 years= $72,000. How would you view the lost token now? How much does goodwill cost in the long run?
One of Carl’s premises is this: “If you want to keep their business, give customers exactly what they ask for—or even more—without hesitation. If you do anything else less, you might as well offer them nothing because you’ll have lost their goodwill.” This is a tough concept in our current entitlement society. Where do you draw the line? Would I refund twelve players who paid a hundred dollars each and played the entire round, then demanded a refund for slow play? I’m not so sure. Carl ran a Cadillac dealership; a lifetime customer was upwards of five hundred thousand dollars for him.
Golf is different. I am suggesting that in principle, we most often follow Carl’s premise, but the decision may differ if the customer’s requests are unreasonable. Customers are becoming more challenging every day, and the more tools we have to use to make decisions makes it easier to meet those challenges.
Lastly, Chapter meetings are on the horizon, and this is an election cycle. Please do your best to attend your Chapter meeting and vote. Also, the Merchandise Show and Fall Annual Meeting are coming soon. If you can, please attend.
As always, please stay safe and reach out to someone you have not contacted in a while.
Howie Pruitt, PGA