Customer Always Right? Part 2

Jim Luff
Posted on April 3, 2009
MOONROOF MADNESS: Earlier in the week, I provided a scenario of a drunk and unruly corporate client who climbed out of the moonroof onto the top of the limousine as it barreled down the road.
 
The scenario was presented for your input on how you would have handled it. Despite the fact that no one offered their suggestion or opinion, I know many of you read it and at least were provoked to think about how you would handle this situation. Maybe you were too afraid to post your tactics for fear your peers might disagree.
 
Well, since I have never fit in with the conventional mode of operators, and kind of do my own thing, I will now share the conclusion. I did indeed fear taking action and I did fear losing the account. I feared losing my business “friendship” with the offending party as well.
 
However, I concluded that IF something had happened to this guy while in our vehicle, not only did we stand to lose the account, but worse than that, I feared losing our business which would in essence be every single account we owned. We could become insurable. We could have our license to operate revoked. There was so much worse that could happen than losing one single major client if we allowed such antics to occur and took no action against it.
 
The chauffeur provided dispatch with the next destination that the vehicle was going to and pulled over to the side of the road, demanding the passenger get back in the car. The moonroof window was placed in the locked position. The chauffeur was met by a field supervisor from our company at the next location. This would avoid the chauffeur and the client having any confrontation and leave the “discipline” to be done by management. The client/passenger was pulled aside from his group to “have a word” at which time we informed him we were very aware of how much money his company spent with us each year and how valuable they were to us. 
Despite that, we told him we pride ourselves on safety and know that he is having a good time and had plenty to drink and thank goodness he was in a limousine. However, you can only let your hair down so far and you have exceeded that. We asked him to please comply with the chauffeur for the remainder of the night and we will overlook this incident rather than report it to his boss on Monday. We were nice, polite, and discreet about how we handled this, but safety must be a top priority. 
 
Would any other operator have handled this differently?

Related Topics: Jim Luff

Jim Luff Contributing Editor
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Comments ( 1 )

  • Dave Larivee

     | about 10 years ago

    Very Good Job...

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