Yes, the owner left town, but only after he promised to have it PERSONALLY taken care of. The first slap in the face was the employee who told me "if you had only called". I had called. I had stopped by. I had told the owner and his partner that I wanted them to proceed. Communication is obviously not working in this shop.
Everyone makes mistakes: no one is perfect. I was OK with there being mistakes up until the owner wanted to blame me.
As for writing a letter... it's in progress right now and right in this thread. Perhaps he'll listen to ALL of us, because he certainly didn't want to listen to me.
My recommendation is to send your letter via Certified Mail. Better yet, send it through your lawyer (easy, if that's cheap for you).
The reason I'd go this route is that one of the things that I read in your saga was that the shop apparently KNOWINGLY filled a tank that had rust in it. How is that not a huge safety issue?
If I did, I would have put this in the Whine and Cheese. Publicly humiliating people is not my style. If/when they read this, they will know immediately we are discussing them. No one else needs to know. They may be angry that I have posted it at all, but they can't accuse me of throwing them under the bus. Hopefully, they will work though that anger and learn that they have a real problem. However, the first rule of Scuba still applies: I won't be holding my breath.
Understood, but a shop who's knowingly filling rusted tanks has implications that go far beyond one single customer - - that has been known to cause clogs and OOAs, which means that they're demonstrating a willingness to put the "general diving public" at risk through their shoddy fill procedures ... in my personal book that alone would be sufficient basis to name them in public without any further chances to 'make good'. Think about it this way: if we were to notionally change the nature of their problem slightly, from rust to high CO, would we still be willing to let them slide?
Well, I saw them at DEMA and while one complained bitterly to me, the owner wouldn't even look me in the eye or respond to me saying "Hi!" Apparently, some people called them and asked them why they pissed Pete off.
If you do send that letter ... and via Certified mail ... the backchannel message is that when their practices result in an injured/dead customer, that letter (along with its Certified Mail receipt) can be made public (yup, it is the "Internet Age") and thus available to the plantiff's legal team, which will result in even higher damages.
Let's be candid: crap happens! We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that gear will break, people will fail to follow through and mayhem will stick his nose in our business. What we don't know is how the business will respond when bad things happen. Forums are great to discuss what to do when you encounter those faux pas.... I would suggest that getting mad at me for talking about your inability to rectify multiple failures is counter productive and shows a flaw in your customer service. I'm not your enemy and bear no ill will towards you or anyone else here in Florida. The real enemy is getting petty about it. Accept the well earned criticisms and learn from them and perhaps change how you operate.
Well said. And what's being overlooked by this specific owner at DEMA is ... that his shop's problems have escalated into public awareness (even without specifically being named) is no one's fault but his own failures in customer service.
If you want to really excel in customer service, stand out by being completely accountable. When you make a mistake, not only apologize for it, make it right and make sure that you and your staff never ever shift the blame. Then its up to you to make sure it never happens again. Running off the customer is one way to make sure it will never happen again to them, but that's incredibly poor customer service any way you look at it. The onus is on you to take constructive criticism, public or private, and reap the benefits of changing for the better. You'll then earn our respect and not our ire! If you continue to act like Peggy, you can be sure that people will continue to complain. That would be sad.
Very well said. A business strategy of "Blame the Customer", stonewalling or lies all simply backfires in the Internet Age, since customers are far more able to compare notes. Plus, it also facilitates better record-keeping: it isn't just a folder full of hardcopy receipts anymore, or verbal promises, but credit card receipts, emails, online posts. Here, we have an example of just such a story where a customer tried for weeks and weeks to get even basic service out of a dive shop, but that shop failed them repeatedly...and the record of this is digital, which will persist for a long time...particularly after it gets mirrored in search engines and archival systems.
-hh
