You ever have one of those days that goes into the record books as being “unique”… not good or bad, just “unique”. Such was the case earlier this week when I had a professional come out to my house to do some needed work. He did a fantastic job, the follow-up was what made this memorable.Since I was heading off to meetings in Santa Fe, I provided the professional a check from my personal account to cover the services.
While en route to Santa Fe, the professional called and said he inadvertently lost the check and asked that I place a “stop payment” on it. He continued to offer that he lost the check when he opened his driver side window while going down the interstate. The vacuum created by the open window sucked out most of the papers on his dash board, including my signed check.
He apologized, I was gracious and we both had a check list of items to accomplish as a result of the check that “suddenly grew wings and flew.”
While I understand that these things happen, I still couldn’t help but get a bit angst-ridden thinking a document with my signature, bank account number and address was somehow aimlessly floating around Albuquerque.
Later that night, I am having dinner with a client and this email comes through on my pocket PC from the professional:
First of all, I would like to thank you for your business. It was a pleasure working for you. Secondly, in regards to our conversation today I found the check. It was stuck to my tire. Unfortunately when I pulled it off it ripped into three pieces. I have two of them and one is still attached to my tire.
This was classic. His humility and honesty are great traits that make up for his lack of filing and prying things off of tires.
Will I use him again? Absolutely! Not because he is a good paper person, but because he provided outstanding customer service… and I know that he won’t lose a check of mine ever again!
The PR Perspective 