Just in the last week, I had two very forgettable customer experiences.

The one I will expand on was at a bottle shop. I was with my sister picking up a few final items, and last on the list was some hard to find bottles of drink for my Nephew’s 21st birthday party that very evening.

We walked into the store fully loaded with a grocery bags only to find the two shopping assistants more interested in talking to each other about their weekend plans, rather than coming to assist us. If they had have been paying attention, I believe it would have been obvious to them that we could not find what we wanted. And if we hadn’t been under such tight timeframes, we certainly would have gone elsewhere. The sale amounted to about $25. But it could quite easily have been ZERO. Now, if you are thinking, well it was only $25, let us consider the impact of this. How many times does this happen every day?. And what if we were a regular customer that chose not to return to that store? How much has that poor customer experience cost the store, your business now. Eg. Say I spent $25 at this store every two weeks. Over a year, that would amount to $25 x 26 = $650 . If the average time a person lives in an area is 7 years, then multiplying this amount by 7 (7 x $650) gives a total value to this business from my custom of $4550. AND THAT IS ONLY ONE CUSTOMER. How many people will I talk to about this poor service. Once again, research shows that I will talk to between 6 and 10 people. And this business (your business) may be wondering why their sales are diminishing.