Brief: A demonstration of what happens when a happy customer is served poorly
Do you like cockroaches? Boston was gearing up for maximum humidity as I stepped into the surprisingly cooler depths of a local bagel shop. It was still early. The trains were running quickly and there was barely a line for fresh bagels. Tweeting about beverage choices had given me a hankering for orange juice.
I picked up a bottle of Naked OJ as I chatted with the older gentleman in front of me. He paid for his bagel with a $100 bill and it started a conversation about how he viewed cash as the better budgeting tool while I found a card better for keeping track of spending.
We each paid. As I turned to find a napkin, I found one of these:
The image gives a near life-size representation of what the creature looked like. I took a napkin and reached to capture the roach. It escaped. The man with the $100 bill said, “there he is, next to the napkin holder.” The roach didn’t escape. I tossed the gruesome package into the garbage and remarked to my hunting partner, “welcome to Boston.” He laughed.
That was it. There won’t be a blog post calling out the bagel shop for hosting giant cockroaches. There won’t be tweets arguing for free bagels and as much orange juice as I like (good stuff, by the way).
I’ve never had a bad experience at this bagel shop. The staff has always been prompt, polite, and helpful. It isn’t a dirty place. They just happened to have a cockroach on the counter the day I went in. They’ll never know what happened.
Just like you never know how many car accidents you narrowly avoided during a trip, most businesses have no way of telling how many mishaps go unpunished because they typically do a great job and everybody knows it.
In a world of Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, and review blogs, it’s important to remember that none of those reviews matter if you’ve got a base of customers who truly believe you’re doing a great job. So do great work. The rest always follows.
