Dissatisfied Customers...

The Common Fruit Fly has been used in laboratory research since the turn of the century. The male is slightly smaller than the female and attracts a mate by singing to it. The fruit fly life span is only about 30 days, which is likely one reason it is the most studied organism in biological research. It has only four pairs of chromosomes and its genome sequence was first published in 2000.

They're very interesting creatures. Until they're swarming around your dinner table.

That happened to Beth and I recently. We were out to dinner with a colleague and long-time friend at a restaurant we had suggested. At the end of the meal, after swatting at fruit flies all evening, Beth mentioned the problem to the waiter who shrugged it off as "unavoidable."

"I'm sorry, Don," I said as the bill came. "We've never eaten here before, but heard good things about the place."

"Don't worry about it," he replied.

"We're obviously never eating here again," Beth said.

Then the waiter came up and asked if we had time to wait a moment.

When he returned with a dessert -- and FRUIT plate, we couldn't help but laugh.

We also decided we would be willing to give the place a second chance.

The waiter saved the day for that restaurant. Dissatisfied customers, on average will tell four times as many people as satisfied customers about their experience.

We chose the restaurant because they were a sponsor of our arena football team. All that sponsorship would have gone right down the tubes if the waiter had not thought of a way to appease us. You can't satisfy everyone, but it can be worth the effort.

What is your policy on dealing with dissatisfied customers? Do you even have a policy? Are your employees empowered to smooth things over? How much of your advertising budget is being wasted on not dealing with problems appropriately?