Bowling Story

I used to go bowling with a friend at this bowling alley in the bad part of town. There weren’t many bowling alleys in our area, so we were limited to this small, dirty alley with generally unsavory characters and a service staff that had little to no regard for the happiness of their customers. We would go every week, and every week we’d receive generally terrible customer service.

It didn’t matter much though, because most of our time was spent bowling, and while the bowling alley was a dirty place, they maintained the lanes better than any of the other bowling alleys in the city. This was the only real place we could go if we wanted to bowl, and so we continued onward. One day, however, my friend had too much.

After showing up on time to get his lane, he was told that they accidentally gave it to someone else, and rather than make any admission of guilt, they simply shrugged it off and ignored him. He was so frustrated he swore the place off, never to go again. On my side, however, I didn’t mind.

I still loved bowling, and this was still the best place to go on the best day for me. So I continued onward, and during that time new management came in completely overhauled how they deal with customers. Most of the irritating employees were fired and they used a better scheduling system.

However, employees were not necessarily friendly. The place wasn’t that much better. It was just better – good enough for what we needed it to be.

If I had to give them customer satisfaction scores out of 10, it would have originally been a 2, and moved up to maybe a 4.5. Not great, but not bad. After a while, my friend joined a league at another bowling alley and needed a place to practice, so he reluctantly decided to come back.

Every week since he would go bowling at this bowling alley, see the same employees I did, and see the same management I did – all of which had improved considerably since he had originally decided to leave the bowling alley. One day more recently we were talking about bowling alleys with a group of acquaintances. Once of them asked us what we thought of the bowling alley we used the most.

Before I could answer, my friend said: “Easily the worst customer service in the city. You don’t want to go there unless you have to, just an awful place.” In business, change isn’t always immediate, and some positive changes may not be noticed at all. Customer service experiences are largely based on preconceptions that have built up over time through a combination of both memorable experiences and unmemorable experiences.

When you make efforts to improve your customer experience, you need to remember that even the best changes may take a long, long time to show any measurable effect, and in some cases you may not see any change at all from current customers that have already made up their minds about your company.