I recently had a chance to travel during the Golden Week vacation, and I wanted to share a quick story about what it means to be part of a system that is always available to back you up no matter how unique the situation.
I had wanted to visit my relatives in Romania and Italy for quite some time now, and it always proved very difficult due to the distance.
We here at Smith’s School of English have a nice long vacation for Golden Week, which allows us to take advantage of the cheaper airfares that are available before the throngs of people typically travel overseas.
I took advantage of this just a few weeks ago, along with taking a few extra days off.
Prior to my departure I put in a request to head office looking for a part-time teacher to take over some of my days. Head office as usual did a great job in finding a professional well-trained teacher to look after my schools while I was away.
Incidentally, I think some of them may have even liked her more than me, but I’ll never tell her.
Additionally, I even came back to find some new names on my student roster!
Here’s the point of this posting.
I was scheduled to return back to Japan on Friday May 11th, 2007 at 9:40am and I was expected to be teaching at one of my schools that very evening along with the entire next day. The schedules were made and expectations were set, but as life would sometimes have it, things don’t always come together so smoothly…
A canceled flight out of Rome at 6:15am on Thursday May 10th and a re-routing to Paris which didn’t make it in time for me to catch the connecting flight to Osaka, and I quickly realized that there I was a world away from Japan and I had classes to teach and students waiting! I would not be returning to Japan as planned but a day later.
I panicked for a couple of seconds then without hesitation and unaware of the actual time in Japan I immediately went to a pay phone and phoned Mark Smith on his cell phone to explain the situation.
I wish I could provide exciting details about the conversation, but the whole thing lasted only 2 minutes and 14 seconds!
That’s all it took for me to explain the situation, share a couple of laughs, and hear Mark Smith say “Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it. Have a safe trip back”
I came back to Japan the following day (24 hours later) to find that both of my schools were completely staffed and no classes were canceled!
That is what a reliable well-designed system means!
With minimal advance warning, everyone from Mark Smith to the head office staff to the teachers sprang into action to make sure that my schools were not affected by my misfortune, and most importantly that the students would be offered the classes which they had committed to!
That is what caring for your franchisees and your students means.
Alessandro “Alex” Stanciu
アレッサンドロ“アレックス”スタンシュー
Smith’s School of English Horie/Yotsubashi
月謝制のスミス英会話堀江校 / 四ツ橋校
http://www.smithweb.co.jp/school/horie.shtml 大阪市英会話
Smith’s School of English Fuse
月謝制のスミス英会話布施校
http://www.smithweb.co.jp/school/fuse.shtml 東大阪市英会話