Make It A Point Not To Question Appointments

(A customer who is notoriously difficult — another dealership even called the cops on him for refusing to leave their lobby — shows up with no appointment. Due to his nature, he deals exclusively with our service manager, but he’s out of town for the week. The customer has never been even a little bit mean or nasty to anyone; he just doesn’t seem to be able to reason logically. I overhear his conversation with our assistant service manager, which only serves to reinforce the idea. They go over his concern about his car and she starts to schedule an appointment for him as we’re extremely busy and can’t just work him in, which is normal procedure for us.)

Assistant Service Manager: “Oh, I see you had an appointment last week?”

Customer: “Yes, I did.”

Assistant Service Manager: “But it looks like you didn’t come in?”

Customer: “I didn’t; I wasn’t able to make it. I called to cancel it and I wanted to reschedule for today, but they said [Manager] was going to be on vacation this week.”

Assistant Service Manager: “Yes, he comes back Monday.”

Customer: “I always talk to him, but they said he wouldn’t be here this week, so I didn’t make an appointment for today.”

Assistant Service Manager: “But… You came anyway.”

Customer: “Yes.”

Assistant Service Manager: “Even though you didn’t have an appointment today?”

Customer: “Yes, I didn’t want to make an appointment for when [Manager] couldn’t help me and I know he’s gone this week. I come from really far, so it doesn’t make sense to make an appointment when I can’t talk to him. That’s why I didn’t make an appointment for today.”

Assistant Service Manager: “But… you still came.”

Customer: “Yes.”

(He really does come from far away; he lives and works almost a hundred miles from our dealership, so it’s not like he’s just casually dropping by. After going around in circles a few more times, she finally scheduled him another appointment. He no-showed.)