It’s Friday, race fans. Friday, Friday, Friday. What does that mean? For most of us, it means the weekend is right around the corner. Two whole days of freedom away from office politics, the day-to-day routine of making a dollar and (let’s face it) clients that leave you gnashing your teeth in frustration as often as not.
Before you give in and snarl at the next person who asks you for a price check, or starts nitpicking at a project you laid out weeks ago, remember-90% of customers say the reason they stopped doing business with a particular company was because their customer service stank. Blunt, but true. For some unfathomable reason, giving in to the urge to scream the 500th time a customer asks you the exact same question doesn’t inspire them to come back!
Statistically speaking, 85% of your business will (eventually) be due to repeat customers. You really don’t want to bring that kind of customer influx, positive reputation and word-of-mouth marketing to a brutal and abrupt end just because the weekend isn’t coming fast enough. So grit your teeth and smile, even when it hurts. It’ll all be worth it in the end.
“More than half of us say we won’t go back to a place where the service is bad, no matter how good the food is. Meanwhile, thirty percent of us say that we would return to a place where the service was good, even if the food was not.”
San Francisco Magazine Opentable Pool — August, 2002