NFIB

How Do I Love My Customers? Let Me Count the Ways
03/ 28/ 2002

by Harvey King

A few years ago, I participated in a customer service panel discussion at a small business seminar. It was during my Tom Peters period, so I did a lot of hand gesticulating while spinning stories of insanely excellent customer care. Personal service, I said, is not just a buzzword for small business, it's our way of life. Then came time for questions and comments from the audience.

"I don't trust customers," a man in the front row immediately declared. "They bring back merchandise they've clearly used and expect a full refund."

I could see heads bobbing up and down all across the room. This is going to get ugly, I thought.

"My clients can be idiots," another person piped up. "They hire me to develop a plan, yet when I recommend a strategy, they tell me why they should keep doing things the way they've always done them."

Within minutes, a rather dysfunctional group therapy session broke out as audience members began sharing customer and client war stories. Our panel leader could do little to keep the session from careening into a mob of business owners who were mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

I balanced disappointment in my failure to inspire the audience with a measure of quiet relief that I was not the only small business owner who occasionally harbors unspoken urges to inflict pain on particularly challenging customers. I was not the only business owner with the hidden fantasy of shouting out, "Hey, you over there who comes in here all the time asking lots of questions but never buys anything--get lost."

So much for customer service as a way of life.

I began to think a common bond uniting a large fraternity of small business owners is a shared belief that our jobs would be much better if we didn't have all those customers hassling us.

And then, 2001 happened.

We all got to feel what it's like when all those customers really do stop hassling us.

For a few days in September, the phones stopped ringing. The orders stopped coming. The shoppers stayed at home.

Those of us lucky enough to survive last year won't likely soon forget that lonely feeling one has when customers stay home. We won't forget the joy of seeing that demanding customer nicknamed Fuss Bucket walk back into the store for the first time after September 11. We wanted to throw our arms around him, begging forgiveness for ever imagining how funny it would be to see him caught in an especially embarrassing situation.

And so we find ourselves in February, 2002, lucky to still be able to call ourselves small business owners; lucky to still be open. And more lucky than we ever knew possible to have those challenging, but wonderful customers and clients of ours.

It's February. Valentine's Day. Time to shower those special loved ones with tokens of affection.

This year, I'm sending out special love letters to all my customers. I'm giving out boxes of those little candy hearts that say "Be Mine." I'm writing poems praising customers who may complain, but who keep coming back.

No more complaints from me. This February, I'm the Valentines Day cupid of customer love.

Harvey King is the pen name of a real small business owner. Write him at hking@mybusinessmag.com.

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This article originally appeared in the February/March issue of MyBUSINESS Magazine.

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