Two Minutes of your Time

Can I rant for a minute?

Anyone who owns a small business will tell you it’s not easy.

There are a lot of serious, real-life reasons for that: small businesses are buffeted by the economy, the margins are often narrow, and it can be tough to attract and retain talent.

But there are also plenty of smaller, pettier, less-consequential-but-still-very-annoying reasons why owning a small business is not easy. I want to take a moment to talk about one of my pet peeves, with the hope that it will educate customers (not just ours!), and benefit small businesses all over town.

Say you go to McDonald’s during a slower time of day, and there isn’t a cashier standing there to greet you. Do you hop over the counter and help yourself to the fries you wanted? Of course not. You wait 30 seconds until someone walks up and takes your order.

Of course, at McDonald’s, your odds of having to wait are fairly slim, since there are typically a dozen employees behind the counter.

A small business doesn’t have the same luxury.

For instance, we do have a receptionist…but only one. If she’s out for the day, or taking a lunch break, it’s unlikely that another employee will be available to cover for her. Like many small businesses, Kaser is an all-hands-on-deck operation – everyone is always busy with their specific tasks.

It happens all the time: a customer will stop by the office, not see anyone, and immediately take off toward the powder coating shop to either drop off parts (without saying anything to anyone), or pick up parts (again, without saying anything to anyone). We’ve had customers leave parts somewhere on the Kaser lot, then call a week later to ask if they were finished; meanwhile, we were never aware that they had been dropped off in the first place.

I’m certainly not asking anyone to wait around for half an hour, and of course we do everything we can to make sure that the front desk is covered as much as is humanly possible for our size. We also have plenty of customers who regularly show patience, and to them I say THANK YOU.

To everyone else: we ask for two minutes of your time, so that we can serve you better.