54 Keynotes May 2024 aloa.org BACK TO BASICS When Customers Are “Passionate in Their Ignorance” Tony Wiersielis, CPL, CFDI, discusses a call when someone was dead set on being wrong. T HIS MONTH’S ARTICLE IS A bit of a departure from my norm, which is usually 20 to 30 pictures per issue. This time, it’s a story about a conversation with a customer I had many years ago. This is aimed at the younger members of the trade so they don’t fall into the rabbit hole I had to dig myself out of. Basically, this is “advice columnist for a day.” One night, years ago, I was closing up shop after a long, busy day. We worked from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. As I locked the door, the phone rang, and I decided to pick it up. If it had been an emergency call, at least I could take care of it before I got home and make a few extra bucks. The conversation went something like this: “Hello, Mile Square Lock.” “Hi. One of my roommates lost her wallet in the city, and it has all her IDs and credit cards in it, so we bought a new lock at the hardware store on Washing- ton Street, and we’re trying to replace the old one, but we can’t get the deadbolt to work,” she said, all in one breath. “OK. What’s your address, and I’ll come right over.” “Oh. We don’t want you to come here because we’d have to pay you. We thought you could help us over the phone. The guy at the hardware store said it was easy to put the new lock in.” In the background, I could hear the sound of drilling and hammering going on at the same time. “What’s all that noise?” “My roommates. They’re trying to get the deadbolt to work. The thing on the edge of the door is too short. One of their dads left some of his tools here when we moved in.” “OK. First thing, tell them to stop what they’re doing with the drill and hammer; you don’t need to use either one to replace a deadbolt, unless you bought the wrong type of lock.” “The guy at the store said it would work. It’s a regular lock,” she said defensively. “Did he see what the old lock looked like? Did you take off the old one and show it to him?” “No.” “Then he was guessing at what you had. Are you sure you don’t want me to take a look at it? I’m in Hoboken.” “No. Can’t you just tell us what to do?” “Well, it’s kind of hard without seeing it and what the door is made out of.” I paused, wondering if it was worth the aggravation to continue. “I’ll try. What brand is the new lock? It should say that on the box.” “Wait a second.” The sound of muffled conversation. “It says ‘Segal’ on the box. And it’s on the handle thingy.” So far, so good. “OK. Take a look at the old lock and tell me if it says anything on any of the parts.” “Why?” “Just to make sure we’re on the same sheet of music. I’m just trying to help you out.” “OK.” More muffled conversation, minus the drilling and hammering. She came back on the line. “It says ‘Arrow’ on it.” “Arrow, did you say? And the new lock said ‘Segal’ on it?” “That’s right.” I thought to myself, “Wow! If this is what I think it is, the situation has just taken a turn for the worse.” Let me pause for a moment to explain the “wow” moment for the newbies. Arrow and Segal are lock manufacturers known for making two different types of locks. The Arrow lock is a cylindrical deadbolt, and the Segal is a rim-mounted deadbolt. These two types are not inter- changeable; you can’t take one type and replace it with the other without con- siderable modifications to the door and
