For those of you not lucky enough to live in the Northwest, you probably don't know about Les Schwab Tires. Les Schwab is a regional tire chain that is famous for offering "free beef" during certain times of the year if you purchase new tires.
My family has always done business with Les Schwab because they have outstanding customer service, and they stand behind their work - even when it costs them money. During the first day that the state of Washington allows for snow tires to be put on cars, the line out of Les Schwab is huge. Oh, and if you purchased your tires from them, they're putting those
snow tires on for free. By the end of the day, they all look exhausted,
but they are still smiling. The employees are always cheerful, patient, and busy popping free popcorn for customers.
When I purchased my car in May, it came with decent tires that would last for at least another few years. My dad found a set of used snow tires for me, and we've been storing them until winter.
Tuesday, Troy took my car in to have the snow tires put on. The snow tires required different lug nuts than were on my normal tires. Each tire had 5 lug nuts, and new ones would be $3 a pop.
$60 may not be a lot to a big company like Les Schwab, but when I just received a $3,192 health care bill for Jack's sleep study, you can bet it would have felt like a lot to me.
Well, Troy went up to pay, and not only did they not charge us for the tire change over (we didn't even buy the snow tires from them), but they comped us the lug nuts.
How do you get big and successful? Well, you treat your loyal customers like they treated us. They didn't know I have a blog and would praise the ever loving crap out of them for it. They just did it because they saw an opportunity to reward someone for returning to their store time and time again.
I want to give them a giant shout out and thank them so much for their kindness. They may never miss that $60, but it truly meant so much to us.
PS, before you can ask it, yes I'm going to be emailing the company a thank you!
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We had a great experience with them last week also. If you have their batteries, they will charge the dead ones for free. We needed to move an old truck with 4 of their batteries in it. All charged and truck now moved. Yay for Les Schwab.
ReplyDelete4 batteries? Sounds like a very huge truck! Glad to hear it is moving again.
DeleteWow that is awesome! It is nice when you can find a good company like that. They are getting fewer and far between.
ReplyDeleteThat is so great! (I got a smidge verklempt, hormonal much?!)
ReplyDeleteThat's very kind and awesome of them. Yeah, it is nice to see companies nowdays treating their customers like more than a number. They definitely deserve a shout-out.
ReplyDeleteThey are rad, for sure. They've always been good to us. I'm actually planning on going and getting a new set of tires. Last time I did, they stayed late (past the end of the shift) to get them on for me. Seems like any other company would be like, "Sorry, we close in twenty minutes, come back tomorrow." They rock and I am excited to give them more business. Yay for Les Schwab!
ReplyDeleteSounds like they're awesome all around. I love hearing these experiences!
DeleteLes Schwab is a great company and I wouldn't consider using anyone else. Letting corporate know about good service almost always gets back to the people who gave the great service...AND their boss AND their boss' boss.
ReplyDeletePeople are very quick to complain to corporate and slow to compliment.
You are so very right about that. As someone who has been in the service industry, I know how complaints fly easily, but compliments are few and far between.
DeleteI love that you've given them praise here, and will let the store know directly - but may I suggest an additional place for your praise? The Consumerist handles all manners of good and bad businesses; everything from tiny local niche businesses to multinational companies. Les Schwab may appreciate this kind of praise and advertisement. (Plus, before I do business with a company, I search consumerist for good or bad feedback!)
ReplyDeleteThe link: http://consumerist.com/
Email: tips@consumerist.com
I wrote them a few years back in praise of Timbuk2. The unexpected awesome thing? The comments were *filled* with people telling their own good stories about Timbuk2. It totally warmed my heart. You may see the same thing.
Thank you for sharing a feel good story! :)
I've never heard of this site. Thanks for letting me know about it; I'll check it out!
DeleteRemember to pay it forward as well! :-)
ReplyDeleteWe took some of the money we would have spent on lugnuts, and bought an extra long sleeping bag for the homeless. My church is collecting tents, warm clothes, and sleeping bags for the homeless.
DeleteGotta look out for my fellow tall peeps!
I love Les Schwab as well. But.... they don't always change out your snow tires for free. It may really depend on whether you already have them on rims or if your rims need to be switched from one tire to the other. They will absolutely charge you if the rims needs to be switched (about $65). We finally bought new rims to avoid paying that twice a year.
ReplyDeleteI love that they fix flats for free. Been there done that a few times. :)
We have Les Schwab in Utah as well and every week I go to them with my cars for safety checkups, tires, batteries, etc. They do it for free. I remember living in the Idaho panhandle and the Les Schwab in Kellogg had a deal each winter, buy tire cables for your car and if you didn't use them during the winter, they would buy them back in spring. Each winter, we bought our cables, and a couple of times I thought I would have to use them, and was glad I had them, but each spring, we sold them back. I love them.
ReplyDelete