It's the Customer, Stupid!: 34 Wake-up Calls to Help You Stay Client-Focused

Chapter 5. Trust, Once Violated, Negates a Relationship

If 20 clients are unhappy with your service, 19 won't bother to tell you. Fourteen of the 20 will simply take their business elsewhere.

The late great life insurance guru John Savage was a close friend of mine. His favorite expression was "Trust, once violated, negates a relationship." Was he ever right!

The violation of our client's and customer's trust is the number one thing that causes them to seek products or services elsewhere. Some 19 of 20 unhappy clients won't even bother to tell you—and 14 simply end up doing business elsewhere, probably with your competition.

Take care of your client or someone else will. It is as simple as that.

Taxpayers Are Customers, Too

My weekly column, "Behind the Mike," appears in over 600 publications all over the world. One of our Ohio readers brought to our attention the fact that the local school board canceled high school football and all other extracurricular activities in Grove City, Ohio, just six miles southwest of the capital city of Columbus. Though I guess it's merely a sign of the times, it begs the question: Why? Aren't we taxpayers the clients and customers of government—be it local, state, or national? Why are we summarily dismissed without regard to our thoughts, feelings, or beliefs? Unfortunately, we have to wait until the next election to vote the bums out. They have lost our trust, which is the single most abiding thing they want from us besides our loyalty and our vote.