A lesson in customer service

A friend of mine bought me a set of golf lessons for my birthday. Unfortunately I missed one due to having a tooth infection so I popped into the club to find out whether the lesson was lost or if there was some kind of catch up option. They told me I had 6 months to use the lessons so no rush and they hoped I felt better soon. Awesome.

Since I thought I had 6 months to take them I've missed a couple of other lessons due to other stuff coming up and today was number 6 (but I'd only been to 3). At the end the coach wished us well and said he hoped to see us for another course sometime. So naturally I questioned the situation and was told that it was a fixed 6 week course and it wasn't his fault that I hadn't attended.

I asked to speak to a manager there and was told that it wasn't the club's fault because the coach was self employed.

So I now have the club saying, "not our fault, take it up with the coach" and the coach saying, "not my fault taking it up with the club" ... despite standing next to each other.

Rather irritated at this point I started making a bit of a scene and finally the manager suggested a compromise that I be allowed to show up for a couple of lessons of another course the coach was offering. The coach agreed and I left.

But instead of feeling happy that the situation had been resolved I was seriously annoyed and have been telling everyone I know that plays there who are now also annoyed.

If they'd just offered a compromise and said "sorry" to start with we'd all be in exactly the same situation except I wouldn't be telling everyone I know that plays there about who rubbish they were and would instead be telling them how pleased I was.

If you're going to compromise and offer customers something to smooth things over, do it up front. Don't wait for them to get mad and try to placate them.