Vanilla Icecream story of GM

[Balakrishna TR]

“Vanilla ice cream that puzzled General Motors”

A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors:

“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.  We have a tradition in our family to have ice cream for dessert after dinner each night. The kind of ice cream varies so every night after we’ve eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it.

 

Recently I purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem.  Every time I buy 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.

Please help me understand what is it that makes my car fail to start when I purchase Vanilla Ice cream

The Pontiac President was skeptical about the letter, but sent an Engineer to check it out.

The engineer was surprised to be greeted by a successful, well educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the 2 hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn’t start. He returned for 3 more nights. The 1st night, they got chocolate. The car started. The 2nd night, he got strawberry. The car started. The 3rd night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.

The engineer, refused to believe that the car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He continued his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem & jotted down all sorts of data: time of day, type of gas used, time to drive back and forth etc.

In a short time, he had a clue: the man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store. Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to check out the flavor.

Eureka – Time was the problem – not the vanilla ice cream!!!! The engineer quickly came up with the answer: “vapor lock”.

It was happening every night; but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock to dissipate!!!

                                                                                                                  

This story gives us 2 important lessons:

1.    First, never underestimate your customers, no matter how trivial & weird problem they come up with”.

Customer Satisfaction is the essence of every business.

 2.        Secondly, even crazy looking problems are sometimes real. Most complex problems do have a solution, sometimes we have to think about them in a different way. It is our attitude and perception that determine the resolution of our problems.