Hard Earned Customer Service Lessons
Adventure, misadventure, lots of fish stories, and experiences of stellar customer service…these were some of the souvenirs Brian and Dominic brought with them from their recent fishing trip in the Canadian wilderness.
How is any of that relevant to the workings of a nuisance animal removal company or its blog you ask?
As Brian reflectively puts it, “It’s all about customer service.”
For this week’s blog we’d like to share the story of a Canadian fishing misadventure, applaud the customer service we received, and re-issue our pledge to provide clients with a level of customer service second to none.
The Trip
Our story begins with Brian and Dominic from Frontline Animal Removal on the classic Canadian fishing trip: a float plane trip, a cabin in the bush, a beautiful lake, plentiful pike, walleye & smallmouth and a whole week with nothing to do but fish! In other words, paradise.
Our piece of paradise was Schewabic Lake and the hosts who took us out there were George, Jeanne, and Joel Theriault of Air Ivanhoe Ontario Canada Wilderness Adventures. (More about them later)
As you can see, the setting and fishing were as promised -fantastic! Nice bass, Brian.
Lots of fish along with moose, lynx, beaver, bald eagles, loons, and otters filled the week with wildlife: none of it a nuisance for a change.
The only thing we missed were black bears.
The Rollover
Thinking our week’s adventures were behind us, the float plane picked us up on Friday and we started the trip back to Ohio.
Little did we suspect, however, a second (mis)adventure was about to begin.
About an hour into the return trip we were involved in a pretty scary rollover accident. The truck our party was riding in went off the road, careened off a rock wall, rolled over 450 degrees, and ground to a halt on Highway 101 outside of Chapleau, Ontario.
The good news– everyone was OK. All five of us were seat belted and the truck had side curtain airbags. We were able to climb out with no major injuries and count our blessings.
The bad news– we were 13 hours from home in another country, the truck was totaled, and our gear was strewn all over the side of the road.
Customer Service Lessons Begin
The Ontario Provincial Police were extremely professional in getting us safely off the highway, getting our vehicle and belongings towed, and delivering us to a motel in Chapleau. Thanks Constables LeFrancois and Matthews!
Anne at Aux Trois Moulins Motel
We found ourselves at The Aux Trois Moulins Motel in Chapleau. If you ever find yourself near Chapleau (population 2,116) and needing a room for the night, spend it here. It is super clean and comfortable. There is a restaurant and mini mart. Additionally, Anne works there.
As you can imagine, after a week in the bush and a bad car accident, we were all looking forward to a long hot shower and a change into clean clothes.
Too bad for Dominic, though, as his bag of clothing took a beating in the accident. He had placed bottles of hydrogen peroxide and New Skin liquid bandage (some of our first aid supplies for the week) into his bag for travel. When the bag got crushed the bottles both shattered. His clothes were not only dirty but everything was soaked through with peroxide and New Skin(very strong smell).
He inquired at the desk with Anne if there were laundry facilities nearby. Turns out, the nearest laundromat was about 15 minutes away. At first she offered him the use of her her car to drive over there (!) and then she said, “Just give them to me. I’ll take them home and wash everything tonight at my place. I’ll have them for you in the morning.”
And, sure enough, when Dominic got up the next morning and went down to the front desk there was Anne with a big smile and fresh laundry. She had washed the bag and all the clothes in them. They were folded and packed with care. Talk about customer service!
With many thanks to Anne for her kindness, we, as business owners, acknowledge that acts of empathy and kindness go a long way with customers. She didn’t have to go the extra mile but she did. As customers, no doubt we’ll be back when in the area and we’ll tell others about it through good reviews on the web.
Transportation Problems
So we were safe, well fed, clean and comfortable at the hotel. But, we still needed to get home and this was turning out to be a challenge.
To start, Chapleau is the largest town in the area, but is still not too big. Consequently, the nearest rental car company is about 2 hours away in Timmins. (2 hours in the opposite direction).
Also, consider we needed to make plans to cross the border. We learned Canadian car rental companies don’t allow cars to go one way with drop off in the US. Taxis do go across the border, but you need to make sure the drivers with passports are on duty.
We were looking at all options.
The owner of the tow truck company who helped us and stored our gear was making some calls, working on a ride for us, most likely to Timmins. A waitress at the hotel restaurant had made a call to a guy named Larry who operates vans and school buses and might be able to help us get to Sault Ste Marie. The train schedule to Sudbury had been considered.
Jeanne at Air Ivanhoe
Then, Brian decided to call our outfitters at Air Ivanhoe and see if they could help us at all.
After a phone call he came back with great news! Air Ivanhoe was sending someone to take us to the border at Sault Ste. Marie!
On a busy Saturday morning, when they were flying parties of fisherman into and out of the bush, they were breaking somebody loose with a vehicle big enough to haul five people and a week’s worth of gear. Incredible!
Around noon on Saturday, owner Jeanne Theriault herself, showed up with a truck, a smile, and snacks for a road trip. Not only was she going to drive us to Sault Ste. Marie, she was going to drive us to a car rental at the Chippewa County Airport south of Sault Ste. Marie, MI. This was huge, as it took away the hurdle that the border crossing was turning out to be.
This equates to a drive of about 275 miles / 5.5 hours, one way from Foleyet for her! (Plus waiting at the border) Not to mention, Jeanne was stuck with us for a half of the trip (no picnic). And, because of the late start, she would have to spend the night in Sault Ste. Marie so she wasn’t driving late at night. To top it off, she would be a late arrival to a busy Sunday morning operation at Air Ivanhoe where, believe us, she is integral.
Basically, we struck customer service gold again! Air Ivanhoe had already provided what they promised us; a great week of fishing. Then, they really went above and beyond. Talk about going the extra mile–550 of them–to help us out.
Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.
Do you think we’ll use them as our outfitter the next time we go to Canada?
Maxine at Avis in Kinchloe
Having secured a ride to the USA, the next step was to find transportation to get back to Ohio.
Not a big deal right? Well, in larger metro areas this is not usually a big deal. But, getting a rental car at 6:00 PM on a Saturday in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is not a given. It can only be secured with, you guessed it, excellent customer service.
Our final service example comes from Maxine at Avis at the Chippewa County International Airport in Kinchloe, MI.
There are not many rental cars available close to the Canadian border. But, we spoke with Maxine on Saturday morning and she assured us she would help us out.
She had a couple of small cars we could get our gear into and would hold them for us.
The Avis counter is not staffed at all hours because the Chippewa County Airport, though its nice, is pretty small. It turns out we could call her AT HOME when we were getting close and she would drive over to the airport to meet us.
You heard it right. She listened to our needs and agreed to make it work.
We met her at the deserted airport, did the paperwork, and were on our way in short order. She even managed to get an SUV for us as one of the two cars which really helped out on the gear transport. Returning the cars at CAK was accomplished, you guessed it, with another call to her and she made sure our paperwork for insurance reimbursement was all in order.
Thanks Maxine for the great service!
Our Commitment
Reflecting on these experiences, Brian believed a great blog post would be a description of the customer service we received which really impressed us. It was delivered when we needed it most and is most appreciated.
And, he wants to make sure that our customers know these examples from Anne, Jeanne, and Maxine are ideals for us and are incorporated into our business mindset.
From the beginning, we’ve stated that we want to be a business known and recommended for our great customer service. These examples shown to us only affirm that commitment.
We are admittedly not perfect and have had some unhappy customers. But, we like to think that we, too, attempt to go the extra mile to listen to our customers’ needs and deliver for them. Through communication, we believe we can find win/win solutions and remedies for issues that arise.
We’ve had many happy customers too and want to continue to grow that number. We know how we like to be treated and attempt to deliver the same to our customers.
If you have a nuisance wild animal problem, let’s talk. Tell us your needs and we’ll see if we can’t take of your animal problem and deliver GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE to you.
We know what it looks like. It’s our mission to deliver it.
