One time I went tubing with a friend. We borrowed his brother's vehicle. His brother is a SWAT team member. My friend left the FOB in his pocket and it fell out, given up to the river gods. His brother had the vehicle rigged against hot wired jump starts. Clever fellow.
It was at that moment, and not an instant before, that we started paying attention to "Lock Smith For Hire" and "Jump Start Service" signs. The first guy to pick his phone up was hired.
The guy who came to jump us took an hour to show up, was an ass and didn't really quote us a price or listen to our description of the problem - but heck if he didn't have that car running 5 minutes later.
Point is, when you are down to the felt unexpectedly, you'll take the first option you can get and will judge the service in binary - it did or didn't solve your problem. If I was going to have to go the half mile to BK, but now I don't, that's good customer service.
Ever used a bail bond company to get someone out of jail? Someone had peed on the only unoccupied seat. There were still 4 customers in line ahead of me. I doubt the guys across the street offered much better. They didn't really need to.
You can't advertise in the paper "need help filling out your visa?" and expect a good return. You can't give out free drinks with your return and expect to drive repeats. Your whole business is being a printer at the right place at the right time.
Yes, if one guy wants 3 visas over his life time (they expire, he travels often, etc) then perhaps you can make 'em loyal and garner repeat business. That seems a small-ish portion due to the type of business.
Yes, if there are 10 vans out there and yours offers a free drink with the service, you will get more business until all your competitors copy your offer - then you'll all be giving away that margin, and probably paying a guy to make sure your new offers are more attractive than the other van's offers besides.
You won't drive repeat business by being super nice or wearing matching getups due to the type of business, in my humble opinion. If you are in many other types of businesses this make a lot of sense and should be focused on, but saying "customer service wins every time" seems like an over reach.
To me, a better investment would be great signage/advertising dominance/figuring out who owns that land and buying it/paying who ever owns that land to disallow other vans from parking there/etc.
