Lessons from My Father about Customer Satisfaction

How was I doing? How was I doing? I was a 14-year-old kid who should have been hanging with his friends but instead, I’m working at my dad’s store, and I’ve got an armload of dirty dishes. How does he think I’m doing? I certainly didn’t have time to stop and talk to him, so I looked at him with a smirk and kept moving.

A while later, after Mr. Pete and the rest of the lunch crowd left, Dad came over to me very calmly and said, “Mark, I noticed during lunch Mr. Pete said something to you, but you never said anything back to him. Why not?”

I, the mature and worldly person that I was at age 14, said, “Dad, what are you talking about? You know how busy we were during lunch today. It was crazy. Besides, it was just Mr. Pete.”

Without hesitation, dad grabbed me by the collar, practically lifted me out of my size 44 pants (I was not exactly “svelte” when I was a youngster), pushed me around the front of the counter, and shoved me out the front of the store onto the sidewalk. Still holding my collar, he pointed across the street and said, “What do you see over there?”

He was pointing to our family’s brand new, robin’s egg blue Pontiac Catalina convertible. It had big white sidewall tires, white interior and top, big fins in the back, and it took up about three parking meters. It was just beautiful (again, it was the early 60’s).

I said, “Well, Dad, I see our new car. Why?”

He said, “Mr. Pete paid for that car.”

“Right,” I said, sarcastically. “No way did Mr. Pete pay for that car. He never spends more than two dollars any time he comes in the store.”

“That’s right,” my dad answered. “And how many days a week does he come in here?”

“I guess every weekday when we have the luncheon specials. So, maybe five days a week.”

“How much is that in a week?” Dad asked.

“Ten bucks,” I said. “Big deal.”

“How much is that a month?” Dad continued. I replied, “C’mon, Pop. What is this, a math quiz? Maybe $40 or $50 a month.”

“And in a year?” Dad said.

“OK, I’ll play along. It’s about $500 a year.”

“And,” Dad finally asked, “how long do you think Mr. Pete has been coming in here every day for lunch?”

“I have no idea, dad. How long?”

Then Dad taught me a lesson I have never forgotten.

“Seventeen years. Mr. Pete has been coming in here five times a week for lunch for seventeen years. Mr. Pete bought that car. Mr. Pete bought the car before that one. And, if I can keep him alive long enough, Mr. Pete’s going to pay for the next one, too,” he said. “When a customer talks to you, you respond. You are polite, and you at least act like you are listening. I don’t want to lose any more cars today.”

That was the day my blue-collar, high school educated dad taught me a pretty sound business lesson about something called the Lifetime Value of a Satisfied Customer. He never called it that, and it would be years later when I would hear the term, but when I heard it, the first thing that came to mind was, “I know exactly what they are talking about. It’s about that new Pontiac Catalina convertible.”

And a man named Mr. Pete. Thanks, Dad. P.S. Do your employees know what one satisfied customer is worth to your company?

As executive vice president of Chain Link Fence Manufacturers Institute for 38+ years, Mark Levin is also an author and avid promoter of the fence industry. He believes in the successful leadership qualities he promotes, including listening, delegating, consensus building, communications and effective decision-making.