More and more, the people I deal with here are not just the gas station's customers, they are my customers - “my people”. Some of the shoddy ways that the old manager handled customer service are just not ok with me:
1) If we advertise free air, then we offer a tire pressure gauge - duh, we are a gas station. His lame excuse that the last one "walked away" just doesn't cut it for me. None of them has "walked away" on me in the couple of months I have been supplying my own. And, if one does occasionally do so, it's just the price of doing business - they are cheap, after all.
2) We sell a ton of cigarettes. I think it's just Customer Service 101 that we stock matches. When the old manager came to know that I was stocking them, he said "It's your money." Let's see - 50 books of matches for 80 cents, I give out an average of one book per shift.... Now the new manager says that it is company policy to not stock matches, in order to sell more lighters - and was uncharacteristically hard-nosed about it. I think he does not want to run afoul of his boss, who is around often enough to hear me offering matches. So I don't offer matches when either of them is around. I have noticed, though, that lots of people, offered the 54-cent Enmark lighter, snap it up. So I think I'll offer the lighter first. If they don't have the 54 cents or say, "Nah, I've got lighters at home" or for whatever reason don't want to buy it, I'll give them a pack of matches. (I have actually been doing this for a while now and like this progression. Sometimes I tell people that I'm supposed to push the lighters. They get it - and really appreciate the extra bit of customer service in giving them the matches.)
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