Great Customer Service

How often does the following phrase pass your lips? "That was great customer service." 

I understand that this is a first world problem, but what in the world ever happened to customer service? Wow! No wonder I have no hair left!

These things below seem to be more common to me than what I would call great customer service.

-The clerk has to finish their cigarette first.
-The clerk will not even look up from their cell phone.
-Four clerks shoot the breeze about the football game while I stand there waiting for a moment to break into the conversation so I can spend money so their employer can afford to keep them working.
-The contractor promises to come at a certain time on a certain day, but does not show up, does not call and does not answer the phone.
-The service provider does 2/3 of what they promised at about 1/2 the quality they guaranteed and charges twice the amount they agreed on.
-And the list goes on and on.

How is a Christian supposed to respond to sub par or even very poor customer service? 

We are to respond like Christ, of course, each and every time.

Ouch!

Whenever I deal with someone by phone or in person that I do not know, it is absolutely a given that I must portray Christ in all of my actions and reactions. I do not say that I ought to "try" to be Christ like, I say I ought to be Christ like. 

Responding to others with a Christian attitude and spirit should be natural to a man that is born again and walking in the Spirit. One old preacher used to say, "It should be easier to pick a fight with a dead man than to pick a fight with a Christian." 

Ouch again!

I could quote a bunch of scripture to prove the above statement, but I will assume that you are already on the same page with me, Christians ought to act like Christians because they have been made new! 

We should be different than we were before salvation. If we are now what we used to be before salvation then we are not what we ought to be after salvation!

Which being interpreted is, "If you is what you was then you probably ain't."

Do you struggle with that when dealing with the public, especially customer service? I do.

I can not tell you how many times in the last few years I have taken a part from the bus into a store and handed the part to the store employee. Only to have him hand the part back and say something like, "They have never made that part in that configuration, only in 'such and such' configuration."

I could understand that statement if I was describing the part and the employee had never seen it, but he just held the part in his hand and then told me with a straight face that it does not exist. Wow!

One day I went to four big name Auto Parts stores on the same road within one mile of each other. The first three stores told me the part I wanted had never been made and could not be found. It was not in their computer therefore it did not exist. The fourth store had it and the guy went to get it without even looking up the part number in the computer.

Imagine that! It took everything within me to pass the other three stores without stopping back in to show them the part that did not exist!

We had a doozie of an experience recently.

Odie dropped her phone in the ocean while on vacation in mid-July. She did not have a consistently working phone until the third week of August. She went 24 days with no phone service. Our phone provider or the insurance company mistakenly blacklisted her new phone instead of the old phone that is at the bottom of the bay in Juneau, Alaska. They even blacklisted Kelly Jo's phone for 7 days by mistake.

It was a fiasco. No one could explain it. No one could reverse it. Almost no one even wanted to have it all explained to them. They wanted us off the phone, off their books and out of their lives as quickly as possible.

One manager level customer service rep for the phone company told me after 20 minutes that he had spent way to much time on my call. He was in the process of moving to the next stooge customer when I ask him, "What would you say if you were paying for your phone, could not use your phone and the phone company tried to dump you off the line with no hope of it being resolved?" He gave me 5 more minutes and then moved on.😂

The three of us spent over 20 hours on the phone trying to resolve the issue over the space of 10 days. We were told numerous times that it was solved. Each time they said they would call back in a few hours to make sure, only to never receive a call and still no working phone.

I keep meticulous call notes in events like that and I gave up listing how many times I explained the whole situation to a new customer service rep. They would ask questions and jump us through hoops for 20 minutes and then try to connect us to the person that could help. After 10-20 minutes on hold, the person that would answer would be another customer service rep at the bottom of the phone tree with no clue who I was or what the problem was. Ugh!

The nice ones did that. The others put me on hold and sent me back to a dial tone.

I was finally told that a brother in our church is a manager a the phone company. He escalated the dilemma to a nice and efficient lady that could get things done. She called me within 20 minutes. It took her two weeks to get it resolved, but she got it. And we appreciated it!

How did I handle it all? Outwardly I did fine, but inwardly I struggled. Can you be firm without being un-Christian. I think so, but it is easy to slip over the line. I constantly made sure the person I was speaking to had no reason to feel like I was blaming them or taking my frustration out on them. I am not sure they always believed me.

It seems like that same scenario has played out over and over again in a handful of different situations the last few months. I have begun to dread dealing with anyone about anything.

The last two days restored my faith in strangers. I have been looking for a certain coolant test strip and certain coolant additives. I have stopped at a bunch of places and made literally dozens of phone calls with no success.

Then the flood gates of nice people opened up. In less than 24 hours I have been bombarded with kindness by no less than 9 people in 8 places of business in 3 different cities separated by 75 miles. Hallelujah!

I have thanked each of them profusely for assisting me and then thanked them again for being kind while they helped me. I told one guy Wednesday, "You sure are making it easy to be a Christian today." I meant every word of it!

He gave me a sideways glance, noticed my smile and said, "Your welcome, I think" and smiled back.

God knows I needed a boost before I crawled into a hole and buried my head.

It is nice to be on the receiving end of another person desiring to be like Christ. It reminds me how good that feels and makes me want to be better to others.

What kind of impression have you left with strangers lately?

Thanks for reading today.

Davy

Vintage View Vednesday August 2007 Central City, KY

We are going back about 11 years for Vintage View Vednesday. Pastor Alan Harris I were talking and we believe that Homecoming Revival in 2007 might have been our first revival in Central City. 

We met Bro. Harris when he came to visit another revival. The Pastor invited him up to sing and Kelly Jo and I were blown away when he sang Rusty Goodman's song Who Am I? Wow, the Lord moved!

We came to visit the Millikin's in revival at Central City later and fell in love with the folks. Our revival here in 2007 sealed the deal. We have been coming back ever since!

The picture today are from that 2007 revival.

One of Kelly Jo's friends.

That is it for this week's Vintage View Vednesday. I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Thank you for stopping by to visit.

Davy

The Low Down On The Low Coolant Alert

Mile Markers detail happenings in our family, travels and our ministry. Fortunately or Unfortunately that includes bus drama! If your eyes gloss over when I post technical "stuff" about the BoggsMobile, stand up now and go get another cup of coffee, you may need it today. If you come here for bus "stuff", hang on, you are going to love this.
😍

I told you we had a little bus drama on the way to Central City. The sky was not falling, there were no conniption fits or hysterics, no small children or animals harmed in any way, but when antifreeze is dripping from under the bus 30' forward of the engine, it is a little exciting.

We were traveling west from London, Kentucky Saturday when I watched my "low coolant alert" come on. The sensor is at the bottom of the coolant surge tank so the alert is a very early signal.

The engine temp was showing fine and I was able to pull to the shoulder quickly. By the time I was stopped, the low coolant alert was off and the temp was about 200, which is OK. I put Kelly in the driver's seat, left the engine running and I ran outside to check the engine.

All looked good at the engine and I noticed the radiator fan seemed to be idling, confirming the engine temp was good. I went back to the passenger side and as I approached the front, I noticed coolant dripping along the passenger side of the bus. The shoulder of the highway was leaning heavy toward the grass and the coolant running out told me the leak was probably in the lines running to the Aqua Hot.

Kelly Jo shut down the bus. As she shut down, the low coolant alert was back on, but the engine temp was still good. I went to the rear driver's side and closed the valves going to and from the Aqua Hot. While doing that I blistered my thumb and two fingers. Bad toad!

Next I opened the first bay forward to check on the sound equipment. Some of the bay carpet was wet with coolant but none of the equipment seemed to be in danger. Whew!

I realized immediately that a decision I made 18 months ago probably contributed to this problem. The Aqua Hot system was bad and we removed it "temporarily" hoping it could be rebuilt or replaced. There are coolant lines from the engine toward the front of the bus to the Aqua Hot. I looped those together and allowed the coolant to flow through them.

I could have shut the valves on these lines 18 months ago, but I left them open. My thinking was that if I replaced the Aqua Hot in the future, the coolant in the lines would be fresh and the hoses would not be gummed up. I now think I should have shut those valves off.

While on the side of the road I had no idea how much coolant was lost, but I suspected several gallons. I poured two gallons of warm water into the expansion tank. Then I had Kelly Jo crank the bus, watch the gauges and let me know when the low coolant alert went off.

The bus temp stayed slightly above 195 while I added water. I added 7 1/2 gallons before the low coolant alert went off. I added another 1 1/2 gallons for a total of 9. 

Once inside the bus I would have liked to have relaxed and breathed a little bit, but we had already been sitting one foot from traffic for long enough. It was time to move on. I put the bus in gear and drove while Kelly Jo was trying to nurse by blistered hand. It was right then that I came to a startling realization. 

I had not ran around the broken down bus saying, "Thank God I am not pastoring a church." What? How could I have missed that? Hmmmmm. Is there some significance in that little omission from my normal breakdown routine? Am I getting soft in my old age?

I think the key is that even though we were broken down beside the road, the stress level stayed remarkable low. I did not have to remind myself how good I had it since it really did not seem to bad.
🤔 🤣 

I drove 100 miles before stopping and let it idle while I ate in the bus. While stopped, the low coolant alert flashed twice. I really expected it would do that while driving, since I suspected I might have some air pockets. I added another gallon and hoped it was full and no air pockets.

Now I need to make a decision. The 50/50 ratio of water and quality antifreeze is blown to smithereens with 10 gallons of London, Kentucky city water in there. The best way to correct that is to have the whole system flushed and filled. Also, the chemical make-up of the coolant needs to be at a certain level in a Detroit diesel or it can cause damage to the metal.

The coolant has to have a certain level of SCA to prevent the coolant from damaging the engine. I have the SCA level checked each time the oil is changed. It is important that the level be good, not too high or too low. It is almost certainly low now. 

How quickly can damage happen?

What I am hearing from guys that know much more than me is that I must take care of this now, as in right now. I am formulating a plan as I type this. I will update later.

Yesterday, Monday, I pulled most of the things out of the second bay where the Aqua Hot used to be. The hose that I suspected was the culprit was indeed busted open. It is little wonder I lost so much coolant in a short time.

Yesterday was taken up with investigating the source of the leak and taking the Green Machine to Evansville, Indiana for a planned visit to Bro. John Eaton's shop in Mt. Vernon. Today I will work on cleaning the bays and putting a plan in place to get going again.

Oh, the blisters on my fingers and thumb looked pretty bad Sunday. I was careful not to burst them. By Monday afternoon, they were looking great! Praise the Lord!

Thanks for reading today.

Davy