Functionally ReTodded

This morning started off simply enough.  The usual morning routine plus dropping Things Two and Three at school. 

We also had something we needed notarized, so I told the wife just to head to the Cock n’ Balls Bank (formerly a BB&T branch) that is about half a mile from Two and Three’s school. 

Having not showered yet and having not shaved in nearly two weeks, I looked like a hobo.  But no big deal I figured.  Many people of means go to the bank dressed like bums.

We walked in and had several kindly folks stand up and ask if they could help us.  I replied “Yes ma’am.  We need to get this document notarized.”

She looked at me like I had just farted.  Then she asked, “Are you a customer of ours?”

“No we are not,” I answered, and that was when the bell in my head sounded.

She explained that she couldn’t notarize anything for us, but we were welcome to go to the postal hut across the street or the Kroger customer service desk.

We told her “Thanks anyway,” and headed for the car and to our own bank’s branch which is about 1.3 miles south of the Cock n’ Balls Bank.  Not really a big deal.

But as we walked out of  our own bank’s branch, I looked at GBD and said “You know, that’s really pretty stupid.  The not notarizing for people that aren’t customers.”

We both said that although we understood WHY they thought that was a good idea, we both agreed that it was dumb, short-sighted and ultimately just bad business.

Here’s a little business lesson from dear old FRT that I started speaking to folks about over ten years ago, and especially to my mother in law who, at the time, had not yet retired from a VERY large mobile carrier.  And although it was about the cell phone industry, it applies to nearly every business in the world.

Back when only ten percent of the nation’s population had cell phones, the big emerging profit opportunity was new business.  Every company offered amazing deals to new customers, and especially good deals if they left their old carrier and joined up with the deal-offering company.

One day when my contract was up, I asked my carrier at that time if they had any offers I could use that were similar to the new customer discounts.

“No,” they told me.  (And this is where  I almost freaked).  “You’re already a customer.  Those discounts are only for new customers.”

I replied “But isn’t me signing a new contract the same as being a new customer?”

“Not according to how the finance folks do forecasts and quotas, no.”

So here we have an industry (much like the cable, natural gas, and insurance industries), where all of the focus was on getting new customers instead of keeping current ones.

I would ask anyone that would listen (even if they didn’t care), “but what happens when everyone has a cell phone or cable television or natural gas?  At some point, the people that will drive the business are the current customers.  I know it’s not as sexy as ‘new business,’ but it’s pretty cheap to keep people rather than having to beg and bribe them to come from somewhere else.  And when that time comes, the ‘current’ customers you’ve ignored for so long aren’t going to be so forgiving of you neglecting them.”

In  these days of razor thin margins and very stiff competition in all areas of business and commerce, it’s the little things that make the difference.  Whether it be satisfying a current customer or helping a non-customer that might become a customer one day, no company can or should be comfortable saying no to almost anything.

Would I have become a customer of Cock n’ Balls Bank if that lady had notarized my stuff or even charged me to notarize it?  I doubt it.  But I can’t say for sure.

But will I become a customer of theirs now based on them not going one inch out of there way to help someone that COULD have been a customer?  Absolutely not.  I will not be their customer because I don’t like doing business with companies that are so dumb and / or short-sighted as that.