Customer Service

How many times have you looked for something in several stores only to be told everywhere the they don't carry it or they don't do special orders. How about the department store that sells riding lawn mowers, but if you need parts for one, it's a special order, you pay extra for shipping, and you still have to return to the store to pick it up?

That particular department store is in trouble financially. Wonder why?

I think some business owners really understand customer service, but too many others do not. Back in 1972 in my Air Force career, I got assigned to a radar site near the town of Max, North Dakota, some fifteen miles south of the city of Minot and about thirty miles south of Minot Air Force Base. Early in my tour, I had to go up to the big base for some sort of business and another fellow, one Harvey Broderson, went along to take care of one thing or another. By the time we both were done doing whatever it was we had to do, it was nearly three o'clock, so on the way home, we decided to stop for a beer rather than rush back to our work centers. It was during that stop that I learned what true customer service really is.

Harvey and I were both in uniform as we entered the darkened and empty Alley Cat (it was the bar in a bowling alley, but separated from the lanes by large plate glass windows) and perched on bar stools. I asked for an Old Style lager, a beer I knew to be relatively local and one that I'd liked during an earlier tour at a different base in North Dakota. The bartender told me they didn't carry it, so I ordered something else. We probably were on our second beer when a lady entered the bar, chatted with the bartender as if they knew each other, and asked for a six pack of Old Style. The bartender reached into the off-sale display and brought out what the customer had asked for.

I said something to the effect that I thought they didn't have Old Style and the bartender explained that they carried it by the six pack for off-sale, but there was no demand for it on-sale. I remember telling her they ought to get it on-sale because that was what I drank. At that point, the other customer reached into her bag, twisted a can of Old Style out of it's plastic collar and handed it to me with a smile. I was embarrassed a little and tried to refuse it, but she insisted, so I had an Old Style beer before I went home.

Fast forward to later that summer. I'd joined a town softball team and after a game, we'd all gone to the Alley Cat for a beer. We'd pulled two big tables together so we could all sit together and ordered the first round. Halfway through that first beer, the fellow that owned the whole place came over to me and said, "Aren't you McNamara? I've got your beer on the bar now."

I looked at him in astonishment. Unasked questions raced through my head, "How'd he know my name? How'd he know I liked Old Style beer?", but in reality I probably said something like, "You're kidding. Really? Great! I'll have one."

It turned out that the bartender had mentioned that an Air Force Sergeant named McNamara (our uniforms had name tags) had said they ought to sell Old Style on the bar, and the owner, one Larry Bertsch, had a pretty good idea what customer service was all about. I became a regular customer to the point that all I had to do was ask for a beer and every bartender knew it was Old Style. Lest this appear to be just a coincidence, there was another regular customer, a pretty good bowler who stopped in just about every night, for whom Larry carried a small stock of a beer named Special Export.

That, dear reader, is what customer service is all about. Larry could have shrugged it off and said that the Sergeant would just have to drink what they already carried, but he went the extra mile and earned a customer for several years and a believer for decades. I was stationed there for two years and seven months until December 25th, 1974 and I still remember his name some thirty seven years later.

Fast forward to the next summer. I'd joined a local bowling team and at the end of the season, one of my teammates invited us all with our ladies to his cottage on a small lake nearby. My date and I got there and several of my teammates were outside next to the grill that was being fired up to cook some ribs. The lady of the house came out to join us and when we saw each other, we both started to laugh - she was the same lady who'd given me an Old Style out of her six-pack the year before.

Fast forward to December 1974. My bowling and softball team mates decided to get together at the Alley Cat one last time to say goodbye and have one (or several) last beers to celebrate friendship. Larry had gone to the local Dunkin' Donut franchise and ordered a large doughnut, nearly a yard in diameter, with the words Good Luck Mac written on the top in frosting. Sometime that evening he came up, put his arm around my shoulder and said, "Mac, I've got a whole bunch of Old Style stock you need to drink up before you go." Damned if I didn't try.