Yes, we know it is frustrating if your mobility scooter is being repaired, but please be patient and let us do our job properly.
For Falcon Mobility, our policy is "First-come, first served". We do not allow people to jump queue, unless there is a good reason e.g. need to go for dialysis.
After more than 8 years in business, we now have more than 2,000 clients to take care of, we are now a bona fide "mobility scooter hospital". It is unavoidable that sometimes there are more patients being "admitted" to hospital than normal, and our technicians (i.e. doctors) are overloaded. It may take longer than usual for your scooter to get diagnosed if there is a long queue.
Today we have a client who has waited for 3 only days, and keeps calling to chase and scold, despite the fact that we have already lent him temporary scooter to use, FREE OF CHARGE. And he demanded that we diagnose his scooter IMMEDIATELY when he comes down.
Well I hope he doesn't do that. Even if he does, we will not allow him to cut queue. Why should we give him priority over other people, who have waited longer than him, and who didn't even get the benefit of a loan scooter? I see no justification.
Many other companies may do the easy thing, which is to give in to the unreasonable customer, at the expense of other customers. But we are not any other company, we are Falcon Mobility, and we will do the right thing, even if it is the harder choice to make.
If we allow people to cut queue on the basis of who complains the hardest and is the most unreasonable, then it is being unfair to those clients who have been waiting patiently and are reasonable enough to give us time to do our job.
And we are not going to rush our jobs just because of pressure from customers. A good doctor will take time to do a proper diagnosis, and not anyhow prescribe medicine without first checking the patient properly.
My quality policy to the technicians is very simple, but true:
"If the scooter isn't good enough for your own mother to drive, it isn't good enough to be returned to the customer."
So please, if you have wait for a couple of days, and we are still checking, kindly cut us some slack. Stop hogging our phone lines or disturbing our technicians, because all it does is to distract us from our work, and all the repairs get slowed down. It doesn't do anybody any good.
And as I state again, as the Managing Director of Falcon Mobility, I WILL NOT allow people to jump queue just because they threaten us with CASE, lawyers, MPs, newspaper, social media or otherwise. Giving in to such bullies only encourage more of such nasty behaviour.
And do not scold vulgarities at my staff too. I will do what I need to do to protect them, even if it means allowing them to ignore your incessant calls.
Yes, "Customer is King", but my people are not slaves either. They are there to provide a service and to do their best to help you. If you need help, please be cooperative and work with them. But if you abuse them, then please go and be somebody else's "King".
This kind of clients, I would rather lose, so that we can free up resources to take care of our really good clients, who outnumber the bad ones by many times over.
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