Let Me Be The Judge Of..... My Motorcycle Customers :-(

The old adage "The customer is always right" should be bannished from the history books just like Xerxes promised to do to to Leonidas in The Battle Of Thermopylae - punishable by death if anyone mutters it in my presence lol  Yes I can be a right old nasty bollocks when i'm in the mood (or not in the mood) to be - who doesnt have an evil streak? Even a tiny mutation of Evil? Go on admit it! 

I've been having a difficult time at my work place but seeing an equilibrium on the horizon creeping slowly towards me and this week just passed I think I have finally grasped a few answers as to why I'm making things difficult for myself:  Stress is a major killer and there are ways to combat stress, unfortunately you have to stand toe to toe with the beast and look him in the eye and say I AM and YOU WILL NOT DEFEAT ME MUUHAHHAHAAAA  first before you can move forward.  So how have I beaten or managed to stay on top of the Stress Factor?  

Working alongside incompetent co-workers:  A guy has a 12 year old son and he has a race meeting at the weekend (its a Thursday evening at this point) and his positioning in this race meet determines whether he's in the top 7 entries in the country for the final National Championship at the end of the month - Father has high hopes pinned on his boy - Soooo Proud of you my little Padawan Racing Demon Boy - and can see the sponsership cash rolllllin in - But Daddy is a Chief Numpty and has only just started to rebuild his boys little racin engine that day (two days till the race? Go Figure) and yeeeessss the Head Gasket has split SSSSSSHHHIIIITTTT dont have a spare, ring the local dealer OH MY GOD they havnt GOT ONE IN STOCK!!!!

So:  my young co-worker who is sympathetic to the situation (rides the same make of bike and also Competes every weekend is like "Dont worry - we'll VOR (Vehicle Off Road or Emergency order) your head gasket for tomorrows delivery and everythings gonna be ok"!  Yeah right - straight after THIS phone call he gets another important call and then ANOTHER call and guess who gets forgotton about??? Daddy McChief Numpty who rebuilds engines 10 minutes before the bike is being raced: NOOOOOB. 

Inevitably the kid aint racin, the Daddy is Furious, The Kid isnt gettin a chance to be in the Nationals, the Co-worker doesnt care coz HE'S gonna get to race (just another Pithy mistake @ work, who cares)? and I'm the one who has to stand up and take the abuse because I oversee the goddamn whole thing (even though its all news to me until Daddy wants to speak to someone in charge) and yeah Shit doesnt just roll downhill like it did in the old days: Somehow it works its way back to the top again. 

You see.... when I made mistakes like this when I was a kid I actually CARED about my bosses reaction, I CARED about my inaction, my inability to see things through, my incompetence and would swear by all that is unholy that it wouldnt happen again and more often than not, it didnt happen again.  We are all human, mistakes happen all the time but why does the youth of today insist on this ME ME ME thing and What The Hell Does It Matter Attitude I Refuse To Learn By My Mistakes? 

You just lost a customer Co-working Kid Dude - they wont be back to YOU, in fact you can be damn sure he aint gonna keep quiet about you ruining his chance to race the The Nationals and be Crowned Dirt Bike God Of The Year, so In Essence I hope this Kid grows up to be world Champion and remembers you and and has the decency to forgive and forget but i'll tell you this with your devil may care attitude: you dont deserve forgiveness my son (Did I sound the The Pope)?

Ahhhh Rant Number One over with.

I love to talk about Ebay so lets do so and a little bit about Forums and Parts Warranty as well and then i'll let you go....!

Back to me being a Nasty Bollocks: though my words are cold my heart is warm.

ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS is the biggest timesaver in my job.  Example:  Guy comes to a Parts Dept Counter (not particularly bright) and says "Erm have you got a set of wheel bearings for a Triumph Daytona 900"?

Your co-workers say "Erm not sure about that erm lets look that up for you and see what we can do....."  5 mins pass whilst you get on the dealer net for genuine Triumph part numbers and no you dont have these parts in stock so you say "No stock on those items im afraid but we sure can order them no problem, be with us in two days"  Customer starts to get angry now "Ive ordered these parts two week ago with you - even got a phone call last week saying they were in stock - I've drivin 10,000 miles in the p*ssin Snow and Ice to get here and all of a Bollockin sudden THEY ARNT IN STOCK WTF IS GOIN ON"??!!!!! "Well what can I say Sir (defeatism) all I can tell you is we havnt sold this particular part for about 6 weeks to a customer and yeeaaahhh terribly sorry but your part has never been ordered"   "Ahhhh you will hear from me again - I will complain to your boss etc etc etc etc blah blah blah"  And he storms out and AGAIN sure as Sh*it is Sh*it you will never get his custom or any of his buddies custom ever ever again because YOU DIDNT ASK THE RIGHT QUESTION my little co-working NOOOOOB - lets start from the beginning: but before I do you must know that another member of staff with more knowledge of bearings has actually ordered this guy non-genuine parts and unfortunately its his day off.

Guy comes to the parts counter and asks "Do you have a set of wheel bearings for this Triumph"?  You should say " Is it something you have previously ordered or asked about Sir"? (Yeah Sir and Maam is old skool but forgive me - went to a P***** Skool Damn).  Then customer replies "Yes, I ordered them two weeks ago,  Ive been told they are here for me, just came to collect them"

You ask his name - he tells you - you find his parts - you sell them and crack a joke over the counter in the hope new customer will be impressed and wanna come back to you and YYYEEESSSS successful sale and maybe he you will be his parts supplier for a while.....  All because you asked the right question to begin with - it has to be said that a Numpty customer also has to sort of ask the right questions too or it will throw a noob member of staff and thats when things go wrong. Did anyone follow that one?  The guy shouldnt have said "have you got this for this"?  He should have have said "Ive ordered this for this" but I'm pointing out that in this line of work even Joe Blogg can ask you the wrong question and that is not good - things spiral out of control.

Right Ebay:  Bikers get a lot of bargains from ebay and over the last say two years the phone calls i receive have gotten a little stranger if you have an ear to read between the lines.  Typical Example:

Guy calls You "Hi there, sorry to bother you but was wondering if you knew if the front wheel on this particular model will also fit this particular model"?  Back in the day when my mind set was sort of The Customer Is Always Right then I wouldnt think twice about helping the guy but now its like HERE COMES JOHNNY out of the Shining - yup Mr Nasty..... They waste my time so what can you do.  Typical reaction nowadays:

"Yeah I can have a look for no problem"  ***Logging onto dealer net website**** 2 mins pass..... "So is your bike supplied by us"?  "Erm No" "Oh Ok, do we servce it for you or are you currently on our database"?  I say.  "Erm No".  "May I ask how you have heard about us as a Dealer"?

"Just looked you up on the Dealer locator is all"  "No Problem Sir - You should be aware at this point that this wheel will be £400 approx in my experience" (Im still pretending to look this up for the guy) .  "THATS OK, IVE SEEN ONE ON EBAY AND JUST WANNA KNOW IF THEY FIT BOTH MODELS" 

I knew it almost straight away - guy hasnt used you for anything in the past - never even bought a bulb or had a small service.  Look I understand people wanting to save money and I also understand that guy doesnt know that i'm the busiest man on the damn planet at this point so I say This hahahaha could have got sacked for this: "Oh I see, I get people like you all the time who dont want to or cant be bothered doing a bit of work themselves and want someone else to do all the dirty work and to be honest I find it to be an incredible waste of my time......."

WTF - I knew I had a serpents tongue now and then but damn man

Deadly silence

I broke it by backing down and giving him the Voice Tone Of Diplomacy and giving him all the info he could ever need and wish for and more.... ya know the drill.... give me the ebay number i'll look it up for you then confirm from my side  (I'm a smart arse with part numbers) and he went away a happy little chappy but probably with a niggly little feeling that no-one had spoken to him in that way in quite some time.   Joy.

Forums are..... not so great sometimes.

A guy we know is a member of a website which has a forum where owners of a particular make of bike swap bullsh*t and tell each other about new products - good and bad dealers for servicing and parts - the usual bollocks you would expect.  One of our customers is a member on this site and sadly for him, his ID is his real name.... Noob.  So all of us staff are aware that he has posted bad news about us whilst appearing in our shop as the friendliest most honorable customers we have ever had and yet no one (including the Management and Owners) will say a goddamn word to his two faces despite their constant threats to do so. 

One day he's been rattling on to my then Manager (He's gone - I'm in his spot) about stupid modifications with petty little nuts and bolts worth pennies and my then boss refues to call him and spend time with him obviously because of the bad reputation stuff he's been spreading on this website.  So he comes to me and asks why he's not getting any answers..... LETS GO "Maybe its because of all the malicious rumours that are circulating on ******* (Website)  that you are involved in and every single member of our staff is aware of - even The Director Of The Company".

Ever seen a Ginger T*sser go bright red? I have.

Ahhhh man my blood was boiling - there was all the evidence of guilt I required (Font has changed againnnn cant be bothered to change it)

So yeah I enjoy being nasty sometimes - it puts the right people in their respective places and somewhere along the lines I manage to find the the fine line where I can Get away with it whilst being diplomatic.

Very Strange - well thanks for Rant Reading - I feel much better and yeah Bootleg was correct on the forums... too much paradise in here at the mo I think......  Not a bad thing, its progression and thats how things are! BFN