A friend was sharing his experience with the service department of a local dealership. He had taken his truck in for a routine oil change and maintenance check. When he came home and checked the bill, he noticed that they had used 5W30 oil instead of the synthetic that had been the norm until now.

He promptly called the dealership. The woman at the other end of the phone heard him out and made a comment about how 5W30 would not hurt his engine. He asked her to pull up his vehicle’s service history on the computer. She had to admit that they had goofed up.

When he asked what they were going to do about it, she put him on hold, talked to someone (presumably the Service Manager) for a minute and came back. Then she told him that if he could bring his truck in, they would replace the oil only, not the filter, mind you, and would not charge him labour, but he would have to pay for the oil.

Now you know why my friend is not taking his truck back to them the next time he needs some work done on it.

Frankly, I was flabbergasted when I heard his account of what had happened and began to ask myself why the Service Manager would not have simply offered to replace the 5W30 with synthetic along with the filter, no charge. It would’ve been only fair, since it was their fault for not paying attention to previous maintenance records which were literally available at their fingertips.

Plus it would have generated a tremendous amount of goodwill in my friend who, rather than tell me about how poorly they treated him, could’ve bragged on how quickly they apologized and made up for their mistake plus offered him 50% on his next oil change. This would’ve locked him in for life as a customer. With the cost of maintenance and repairs these days, they would’ve gained a few thousands of dollars in business over the lifetime of the truck. Their short-term thinking robbed them of long-term profit.

It reminded me of the time that Esau traded his birthright to his younger brother Jacob for a bowl of lentil soup (Genesis 25:29-34). Was his hunger so great that he had to forfeit something that was so valuable for a cheap bowl of soup?

How could he have avoided this grievous error in judgment? How could the dealership have done things differently? How could you, our beloved DWOD reader, stay away from falling into such a trap?

The solution is amazingly simple, although it is not always easy to do in the heat of the moment. Are you ready for it?

Think about the consequences of your choice. To be even more specific, write down the next few things that are likely to follow as a result of the decision you make.

Let’s say the Service Manager did this. His flow chart would go something like this:

I make the customer pay for our mistake–>The customer gets ticked off–>He takes his business elsewhere–>We potentially lose thousands of dollars over the next 5-7 year–>It could generate negative publicity.

Would he still go through with his decision to charge my friend for the synthetic oil? I doubt it very much.

In Esau’s scenario, it would be something like:

I trade my birthright–>I lose it forever–>That is too high a price to pay for a lousy bowl of lentil soup–>I can put up with a growling stomach for a while yet and wait while I get one of the servants to cook me something.

Disaster averted. Destiny accelerated.

Now it’s your turn. Before you make a choice in a hurry–because you want to make a short-term profit or you want to satisfy your appetite or because your hormones are going haywire or ……………………………….(please fill in the blanks), would you take a couple of minutes and think about the consequences?

You’ll be glad you did.