D'Arcy takes her car to a local inspection and emission station in her town. These inspections are required in her state and, generally, the process is relatively painless. The technician checks out her car while she fills out a simple form.
Last Tuesday, she decided to stop on the way to work to get this chore finished in time to get her license renewal sticker by the end of the month. "I'm in luck," she said to herself as she approached the open garage doors, "nobody in line ahead of me." The sign said to wait at the shop entrance. This she did, for several minutes. She could see three employees. Two were engaged in an apparently personal conversation; they were laughing and joking. The third person was standing off to the side of the shop smoking a cigarette. All three people glanced at D'Arcy, but ignored her.
After several minutes, the fellow having a smoke came to her car and said, "You here for an inspection? You're gonna have to wait a few minutes." As he started to walk away, D'Arcy said, "I really need to get to work." He said, "Yeah, okay. Hold your horses. I'll get you the paperwork." He then walked to the back of the shop and appeared to join the conversation with the other two employees, while he shuffled through a stack of papers that had accumulated on the greasy desk The phone rang and he took the call, which sounded like a personal conversation that lasted several minutes. He finally turned back to D'Arcy and said, "Pull your car into the second bay."
Probes
1. How would you feel if you were D'Arcy?
2. If this inspection station was a government agency, is customer service really important? The customer really doesn't have a choice, so why expend efforts to give better service?
3. What types of turnoffs are displayed in this case?
4. If you were the manager of this facility, what might you do to reduce potential customer turnoffs?