There are few things that disturb me more than blind prejudice. Having been a victim of that kind of discrimination myself, I know just exactly how deeply it can scar and the pain it can cause. As a consequence, I try very hard to guard against it in my relationships with other people. I just wish others were as thoughtful sometimes. Regardless, as uncomfortable as it may be when you are the one who has been "profiled," it is far more hurtful when the victim is someone you know or care about, especially if you aren't sure if they are capable of adequately defending themselves. This time the incident revolved around an employee, a customer and a customer letter we have identified as the "Where Have You Been" letter - a letter we send to customers who haven't been in for a year or more.
We know it's far less expensive to "keep" an old customer than it is to prospect for a new one, so we make every effort to let former clients know that their presence, or more appropriately, their lack of a presence has been noted. Despite our efforts, we realize there are cycles in automotive service just as there are cycles in just about everything else. Customers disappear for a while, and - depending upon the impression we have made on them or they have made on us - they are either missed or they are not. They buy new cars and believe that only a new car dealer can service the vehicle. They get mad for one reason or another, or they just decide to experiment with a different service provider. Sometimes it's just the periodic disappearance associated with a new car purchase; with others it's significantly more serious than that. Whatever the reason, some percentage of your customer base will drop in and out, and you and I are left to deal with the consequences when it happens.
We've tried to mitigate that loss with customer follow-up phone calls, thank you notes and "Where Have You Been" letters, but that doesn't always work. Not everyone will tell you when you've stumbled. Some people would rather just slip away under cover of darkness until the passage of time works its magic on whatever injustice - real or imagined - might have transpired.
Our primary line of defense against this particularly insidious kind of attrition is to rake through our customer list looking for those individuals who may have fallen through the cracks and disappeared without rhyme or reason. When we find the files of those that we would like to keep, we send the customers a letter, letting them know that they are missed. As you might imagine, the responses can be rather interesting. Everything from "Go away and don't ever bother me again!" to "Gee, it's really nice to know that you noticed we haven't been in."
This time, the response took the form of a fax that I have to believe was intended to be amusing. The customer acknowledged receipt of the letter and expressed his appreciation at our concern. However, with two relatively new cars he indicated we wouldn't be seeing him until the vehicles fell out of warranty. Despite the fact that he wouldn't be "contributing to our retirement fund any longer," he went on to make a pretty unusual request: a $5 million donation to help build a school and community center here in town.
I guess he was subtly trying to suggest that we had made more than enough money on him in the past to afford a donation of that magnitude. Regardless of what he might have meant, I accepted what he actually said as a challenge. After all, you can only listen to your customers tell you how much money you are making so many times. You can only smile and chuckle so often when they suggest they "own" a service bay, bought your boat, made a house payment or paid your kid's entire college tuition.
So, I faxed back an apology expressing our deepest regret for not being able to donate a sum that large, explaining that with them no longer "contributing" to the overall financial health and well-being of the company any longer, we had to scale back.
Under normal circumstances that would be the end of the story, I'd get a chuckle out of the fax, he'd get a
chuckle out of my response and sometime in the future he just might bring his car in again when the factory warranties have expired. Unfortunately, things don't always work out the way they should.
One of my technicians, a young Hispanic named Javier, recently moved a few houses down the block from the customer who faxed in the request for the $5 million. Javier started with us more than 11 years ago cleaning up and washing cars and then gradually worked his way up to becoming a solid, professional, automotive repair technician. Because he was now part of the customer's neighborhood, he had often seen this person and his wife walking in the evenings, but never had the opportunity to actually say hello. That night, the same day I received and responded to the fax, Javi managed to pull up in front of his house just as the couple was walking by. Acknowledging each other was unavoidable.
Javi said, " Hi," and not knowing about the fax or my response asked how come he hadn't seen them for a while. Without hesitation, the wife replied that we were "too expensive." Either out of embarrassment or out of a genuine concern that he would have no place to take his cars when the warranties did expire, the husband immediately replied that we weren't too expensive; the cars were just too new and still under the dealer's care. The wife then asked Javier what he was doing "up there." Javier harmlessly replied that he lived "up there." And, then, without missing a beat, she asked him if he was renting a room in one of the houses on the block...
As Javi recounted the story, I could actually feel his astonishment and disbelief at the very nature of the question. In fact, he told me that he really wasn't sure he fully understood until frustrated that she hadn't received an answer quickly enough, the woman repeated the question in Spanish. The conversation ended with Javi proudly pointing to his house indicating that he "rented" all the rooms, not just one. In fact, he explained, he had since escrow closed and had become the property owner of record a month or two earlier.
Although funny in an uncomfortable kind of a way, the humor in this situation ran thin rather quickly as the underlying prejudice behind these few seemingly innocuous remarks floated to the surface. What was this woman really intimating with her questions? That a "mechanic" couldn't afford to live in the same neighborhood as they did? That a Mexican-national shouldn't? I'm not sure, and I'm not sure Javi is either. My guess is that she just assumed someone working on cars for a living couldn't possibly afford a house in that neighborhood, and that if someone in our profession was living "up there," it had to be in a rented room.
By the time I came to that conclusion, I was just about in a blind rage. I'm not really sure I can describe how I felt. But, then again, I'm not sure I have to. We've all been through something like this before, haven't we? You and I have been to parties where some unthinking, unfeeling and somewhat pompous individual feels the need to make a remark about what you do or who you are. "Oh, my God, what happened to your hands? Gee, how could you know that? Oh, you fix cars for a living? But, you seem so bright..."
In some cases, it's almost comical, especially in light of how our industry has changed over the past 20 years. In others, it's not. None of our friends will play Trivial Pursuit with us anymore. They say I'm a ringer. And, yet there wasn't a time we played that someone didn't remark about how odd it was that I would know all the answers. The inference was clear: People who work on cars are not very bright. You work on cars. Therefore, you can't be very bright.
It seems almost logical in some kind of a perverted way and yet it's not. Everyone I know in this profession who is even remotely successful is nothing if not "bright," and bright isn't the only thing they are. They are intelligent, determined, disciplined and driven to succeed, and that's more than I can say for some of the people we are asked to serve every day!
This industry, our industry, is perhaps the last industry where an individual can enter sweeping floors and washing cars at minimum wage and then find themselves owning a home, a business or both just a few years later. This country, our country, is perhaps the only place on earth where a person's ultimate success is limited solely by their imagination, ability and their willingness to work. In this culture, our culture, hard work, perseverance and the right decisions can take you as far and as fast as you are willing to go. It may not always be smooth and it may not always be easy, but I do believe with a perfect faith that it is always possible.
I also believe that if you give someone a fish you feed them for a day. But, if you teach them to fish, you feed them for a lifetime. And, perhaps, that is why I found no humor in Javi's story. You see he is probably a lot like you or someone you helped or trained over the years. He is much like the many others who passed through our shop over the years and with our help learned to fish.
It wasn't easy. It never is. It didn't happen overnight. It never does. It involved discipline and sacrifice and more than a little hard work. It meant time away from family: clinics and seminars in the evenings and studying on the weekends. But, it happened. He made it happen. And after all that sacrifice and effort, suggesting the rewards of that sacrifice and effort were out of his reach, out of anyone's reach, is demeaning, degrading and downright insulting.
It is this subtle and sometimes not so subtle discrimination, this unthinking lack of appreciation, recognition and respect that goes right to the heart of the shortage of competent and qualified technicians we currently face. It is a blue collar bias that destroys initiative and crushes the human spirit . . . a skewed perspective that suggests that working with your hands and your head is somehow less acceptable than working solely with your mind.
And, it is this same lack of recognition, appreciation and respect that may finally cripple us: driving seasoned veterans out, preventing young people from coming in, and ultimately finding empty service bays the "rooms for rent" customers like these should really be worrying about.
