Customer service

Just to change things up a bit, I thought I’d share some positive experiences. :-D
Remember Bob bought an ’84 Austin Mini a while back. He’s driven it a few times, but was noticing it tended to die rather than idle. So recently he took it to Cooper’s Garage in Mildenhall. (Funnily enough, Cooper is the owner’s name, but over time he has become a specialist in the Mini Cooper.) He had an appointment, and they started work right away. Bob watched for awhile, and they found several little things which really needed repairing, but then it came to something that would take awhile so Bob left the car there overnight. The next day the work was done and they had a nice detailed invoice of parts and labor. Then they (not Bob) suggested he could have it VAT free if he took the invoice up to the base and played the VAT office games. So we did that, saving 50GBP; they were happy to wait several days to get paid.

Bob drove it for a couple of days and decided that the carburetor really did need to be replaced, so he took it back up there. At the same time, to take full advantage of tax free, he ordered all the extra parts he’d need in the foreseeable future. They took time and made phone calls to get our list right, and when the carburetor came in they put it on for free. Again they had to wait a couple of days to get paid. When Bob took the money back to them he noticed the car acting funny again, so asked for the mechanic. He dropped what he was doing, looked at Bob’s car, made an adjustment and took a drive with him to check it out. Bob remembered another part he needed, and the man got that for him. When Bob started to get out of his car to go pay for the last part, the man said there was no charge for that, or this day’s work. They’d “taken too long” to get it fixed. All this, knowing we are fixing to leave the country and couldn’t do any thing if they didn’t get it right. So there is an honest mechanic still in the world! Anybody looking for a good mechanic in Mildenhall or Lakenheath, Cooper’s Garage is the place to go.

Another experience we had started off not so great. Tuesday the BXtra hosted a family Bingo, and the children wanted to go, so we did. It is free to play, so we don’t consider it gambling, plus we learned a lot about the odds of winning. Anyway, we ate there, too. Burger King was behind (as usual), but this time they actually lost our order. Bob took the receipt up there and they tried again. Then when we got the food, Bob got a single instead of the double. He took it back up to the counter, and the man slapped another meat patty on top. Ooo, Bob was furious! He went back AGAIN, told the whole story to the manager (general manager of the whole facility, I think). This time they made it right, and to make up for it he gave Bob a free meal card. A few minutes later another employee came out to our table and gave Bob another free meal card. And then after we’d eaten the shift supervisor came over to me (Bob was out with Elijah) and apologized, saying she knew we were regulars, and were always nice, and she was really sorry.

As for the Bingo, we had a sheet of “cards” for each family member, and played 10 rounds (a total of 90 games, y’all!) and didn’t win once. Can you imagine if we were playing for even $1 per game? I hope the children remember this and don’t ever try to gamble. But the family next to us won twice, and one of their prizes was a game “Don’t Break the Ice” which they already had. Instead of trying to exchange it, they offered it to our family for free. We were very grateful and prayed blessings on them for their kindness. We also learned to be glad for others and enjoy the game for the sake of playing. Lots of good things happening there.