Bob, we knew you loved our tour. You smiled from the moment you began riding all the way through our return. We loved having you.
Your wife, though, didn't smile one time from the moment she sat down and asked for water. She didn't smile while learning to ride. She certainly didn't smile when we told her she would not be safe. That is when she told us she didn't want to go anyway and was sick.
We were expecting your "mixed" review. This situation ate at us because we take our relationships with our customers to heart and as a family-run business, we are very bothered that you have these feelings. We have established protocols to ensure the safest and most fun experience as we provide the same high standard of care for all of our customers. We respect our customers' time and safety and couldn't sleep at night if we didn't feel that was the case.
We put your wife on a scooter first so we could give her the most time to build competence and gain confidence. She had longer to practice than all of the others. We have trained thousands to ride. She was not going to be safe.
Normally when this happens, our customer is relieved to let us take our scooter back. His or her loved one is pleased that we are concerned for safety. Normally, we also offer, if the conditions are right, for that person to ride on the back of the guide's scooter. When your wife said she was sick, that closed off that option.
You prepaid in full. Had you not shown up, or had you been intoxicated, or not brought a drivers license or a card for our security deposit, you would have forfeited your payment also. This is similar.
Though you had a different assessment of your wife's capability, we have experience with thousands of riders. Others reading might notice yours is the first review during our eight years to use the words shady, unfair, unscrupulous and greedy.
While we may have many scooters unused, that has no bearing on how many people we can train and take on our small tours at one time. We dedicated those spots for you two.
Please know that you have won though. We will not recover from the decrease in our average rating from your mixed review. Our products will be displayed less often and lower in the rankings so fewer people will know about us. We will have fewer customers this year and we will make less money. Your review will cost us much more than the refund would.
We can't un-anger you. Offering you a refund now just seems wrong. We don't pay people for good reviews; we wouldn't feel right paying you to delete a bad review. To us, that would feel shady, perhaps unscrupulous.