Customer Service: Going beyond the call of duty.
Ok, its been a while since I posted. Since I posted a rant about how poor customer service caused me to take my lunch business elsewhere, its only fair that I post about great service. I am the Regional Referee Administrator for the local AYSO Region. We had a course scheduled to prepare new referees for the upcoming season. Due to a paperwork mix-up, the facility thought that the class was Sunday, so Saturday Morning, I found myself standing outside a closed, locked building with nearly 40 new referee candidates. A local auto-dealership, Santa Margarita Ford, saved the day by allowing us to use their conference room for the class. That’s right, a Auto-Dealership cares enough about the community and its children, that the employees will take time from their busy day to help a volunteer referee clinic to continue on as scheduled. Below is the letter that I sent to Jim Graham, the owner of Santa Margarita Ford. I’d like to say thanks to Jim Graham, John Rufino, and all the crew in the Santa Margarita Ford Service department.
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August 19, 2007 Dear Mr. Graham, I wanted to take a minute to praise one of your employees. I am the Regional Referee Administrator for AYSO Region 630, in RSM. We had a referee training event scheduled for Saturday, August 18th at another facility. Due to a paperwork mix-up, the facility was not open for us, and at 8:30 Saturday morning, we found ourselves locked outside the building with 36 students and 6 instructors. As I was explaining to the students that we would have to reschedule the training, several students mentioned that they had changed travel plans to make this training event, and would not be able to attend the other scheduled dates. One of the students said he “knew somebody at Santa Margarita Ford” and that we would make a phone call. He called John Rufino and in fifteen minutes we were setup in the Service Department Conference Room. When he discovered that there were not enough chairs, he had several Service Employees round up chairs from around the Dealership for us. I know that the Service Department at Santa Margarita Ford is a very busy place on Saturday mornings, but John took time out of his schedule to make our training happen. Due in large part to the actions of John Rufino and the rest of the Service Department, we now have 36 newly certified referees supporting the children of our community to play soccer. John’s dedication to our community should be commended. On behalf of my referee staff, the students, and the children of our community, I thank him. Thank You, William Eric Noyes Regional Referee Administrator AYSO 11-L-630 |
Many of us in technology can learn a lesson from Santa Margarita Ford about taking time from our schedules to help our users and customers, even if it is not our job. Our customers will remember, and be much more likely to approach us when they have something that does fall within our domain.
Bill Noyes