A while ago I visited Lapland with my girlfriend. The weather was absolutely great and we had a terrific holiday. One thing came to my mind while I was posting our holiday pictures to the Flickr photostream. How people ran their business there.
Because I’m not that experienced downhill skier, I don’t have my own equipment [yet]. So I rented them from a local ski shop.
By that time I wasn’t sure how many days I would like to ski downhill. The rent was always cheaper per day if you took the equipment for multiple days. I told the salesperson that I was maybe going to do something else in the days that I wasn’t planning to ski three days a row, so I wasn’t sure if there was any reason me to rent them for that many days straight.
He told me to take the skis and other equipment [because it wasn’t sure that I could get them next time], store them in my hotel’s ski storage and bring them back after I had used them. He would only charge me for the days I had used them.
So I could keep them in the storage, even if I was taking one day off, and when returning, I should pay only for the days I had used them.
Sounds too good? Gets even better.
I took the equipment back after four days and told that I had gone skiing only for three days – that’s because of a nice reindeer/snow mobile safari in the middle. He told me OK, looked his papers how much it would’ve cost for three days, and even rounded the numbers downwards to the previous ten.
And this was on the peak season. You could say I was amazed.
So, the lesson in this? See carefully is it really necessary to charge from everything by the books like you had planned. Can you raise the customer satisfaction by this and get him come back to you the next time. Sometimes it may even bring you more money in the future if you charge differently this time.
I understand how business works and am not saying that everything should be free. I’m just advising to balance things and thinking more further.
I know, that in the future if I go back to that same ski center, I surely get those skis from that particular rental shop. And above all, the service was great. They even smiled.
