Extraordinary Business

Here is a question I would like to pose to you. When does price outweigh service?

What peaked my curiosity in this are some recent experiences where I shopped almost only on price. One experience I would like to share is my recent purchase of new tires for my truck.

Last Sunday I went out to get a new set of tires for the vehicle my wife drives. A good set of tires can be expensive and I wanted to find the best value. I have purchased tires from a number of places in my lifetime, and to be honest to this day I have not been able to distinguish much of a difference in service. This is true for my most recent experience.

I opted to buy my tires at a retail outlet in Madison because Sunday was my only day to shop, and none of the local stores were open. I quickly found the tires I wanted and set up the installation.

My experience with the personnel was mixed. The woman who was helping me was courteous. As I was paying for the tires, one of the service men told me I'd better get used to waiting. It appears that everyone tried to take advantage of fewer people shopping due to the Packer game. For those of you unfamiliar with Packer football, you can usually throw a rock across a store during a Packer game and not even come close to anyone. That was not the case this Sunday. When I asked him to clarify how long the wait was going to be, I was told there were 8 cars ahead of me. Seeing three people working, I came to my own conclusion that it would be approximately 2 hours (3 people at approximately 40 minutes per car to install and balance a set of tires.) I determined that would be a reasonable wait and equivalent with what I would expect anywhere else on a Sunday afternoon.

Since I was stranded without a vehicle I chose to use the time to shop for other things I needed from the store. I had plenty of time to wander and check out the new gadgets and deals that were present.

Time passed. I stopped back after about an hour and a half to see my tires still stacked neatly by the door. When I asked about the wait, I was told they would get to it as soon as they could. More time passed, and after about 4 hours, I finally saw my truck roll into the service bay. I watched the technician go to work on the wheels, but after about 15 minutes, I was curious why the rims were still on the vehicle. I would soon find out. The technician came in and said he could not remove the rims. When I asked why, he explained he tried to remove the lug nuts but some were on too tight and he could not work them loose. He brought me out to show me the problem bolts. His concern was he did not want to break the studs because he would have no way to replace them.

Now you can imagine after waiting for 4 hours on a Sunday how you might feel. After all that waiting I left very angry with the back filled with new tires while I still drove on the ones I hoped to replace. Despite being very upset I was hoping my dealership would work to make it right since they have been the only ones to rotate the tires.

After contacting the dealer the next morning, we were able to bring the truck in immediately. They agreed to look at the problem and see what happened. Later that day they contacted me and said that there was no problem with the lug nuts and charged me for the installation and the disposal.

Here is the moral of the story. In order to save approximately $80 on a set of tires I invested over 5 hours of my time and at least an hour of my wife's. The end result is actually a loss.

The problem: When it comes to products and services, we look at price when we can find no other way to distinguish a difference. Though I teach others how to define that difference and take their focus off price, I find that we ALL still fall into the trap.

We are only allotted so many hours in a day. When they are gone, there is no way to get them back. Many of us have failed to place a value on our time, and sometimes we loose sight of the overall cost.

So a word of warning. Be careful when you are shopping for the best deal. Make sure it really is one.