The Customer, his Car and the Ice Cream

The complaint read: "This is the second time I have written to you, and I don't blame you for not answering me, because I sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of ice cream for dessert after dinner. Every time I buy a vanilla ice cream, when I start back from the store my car won't start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I'm serious about this, no matter how silly it sounds: "What is there about a car that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?"

The President of the company was understandably skeptical about the letter, but sent an engineer who arranged to meet the man just after dinnertime at the ice cream store.  The first night, they got chocolate. The car started. The second night, they got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.

Now the engineer refused to believe that this man's car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. So, he began to take notes: time of day, type of gas used, time to drive back and forth etc. He then noticed that the customer took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavour, as it was kept at the front of the store. All the other flavours were kept at the back of the store, so it took longer to get them.

The clue triggered a chain of thought - why wouldn't the car start when it took less time? The solution then became obvious to the engineer, "when he returned to the car quickly, the vapour lock did not cool in time for the car to re-start".

Do your customers (internal and external) have complaints? 

Do you ignore some of the complaints or think out of box to resolve them?

contributed by: <mjunaidtahir @ gmail.com>