Remember my Rant....? This is what is right with the LDS structure...

This was the rant: http://www.scubaboard.com/t23009/s.html

Below represents everything that is right with the LDS customer / shop relationship.

Although its been some 4 weeks since this trip, I still haven't rung up the LDS owner to talk with him about the trip, the events and his crew (and this post actually....) and that's my fault. I just basically let it go and wrote it off as lesson learned.

Which is not like me - the LDS owner and I have what I would consider a very good relationship (albeit geographically undesirable, but still very good.) He's very focused on customer satisfaction and strives for continuous improvement. He carries quality gear, offers a quality dive experience. As you've heard me say before, he expects a lot from his students and his instructors. I have no doubt this incident shook him up.

In his subsequent trip follow up, some (basically all) of the details of the things noted in referenced rant (and some other stuff) came to his attention, and he contacted me. There was a sincere apology, an offer to make things right and a renewing of the open-door policy he and I have. This reaching out to me completely floored me tonight - as I return from several days of trade show travel, tired and just wanting to go to bed.

Conscientious follow up and customer satisfaction represents everything that is right in a customer / LDS relationship. Its no secret I buy the majority of my gear on line. But this guy gets 99% of all my local dive bookings, and all of my continuous training and all of my fills. Not that there is a ton of money in any of that stuff, but there will be, as my customer lifetime value will be significant as I will continue to support this guy and his shops. He truly gets it, and I appreciate that.

Just wanted everyone to know there is a happy ending to this rant.

Ken

I'm pleased to hear how everything worked out. There really are some fantastic business people out there who really get it. Small business retail is all about service, that's what you are paying for.

Ken, thanks for being honorable and posting the positive resolution. All too often we are willing to blast away with both barrels and neglect to finish the story when it is resolved. Good on ya!

Brian :yea:

Sounds like the owner likes having you as a customer and will do anything to keep you comming back. Thats good for you, and for him when you spend money. This owner seems like a good guy and I think I would feel good shopping there.

glad things worked out and everyone's happy agian =-)

We have a shop like that here in Arizona. I do all my business there. They take very good care of me. Everyone I have encountered in the shop is really good, it is very comforting to do business with them. I have spent alot of money in this place and they have given me significant discounts on almost every purchase. The amount of time they have spent with me both in the shop, the classroom, the pool, and diving different locales as my instructor has become my primary dive buddy. I purchases an underwater digital camera from them which was taking along time to come in (my personal belief is this was due to all those freighters of the coast of California during the longshoreman's strike) but at the time I had no diving planned so was not a big deal. I was getting ready for a trip to Florida and still no camera, so the owners daughter gave me a loaner to use, not just one of their rentals, a brand new, never out of the box one, almost comparable to the one I was buying, and told me not to worry about it all, if anything happened to it. I still treated it as if it was my own and returned it as I received it. I thought this was really good service.



Brian

Good to hear that everything worked out alright. Things like that are one of the reasons that I too try and give as much business as I can afford to my LDS. Great customer service really does come through.

Granted, I buy a few things here and there, but the majority of my business goes to my LDS even when he is more expensive.

But...the service I get, and some of the deals that I can get from him can't be beat someday's.