I once wrote an article on how tolerating one bad apple in the company could be detrimental for your company.

I’ve been reminded of this piece recently because I have encountered subpar customer service that made me reconsider whether I want to buy from certain brands.

One case that stood out, in particular, was my visit to a premium car dealership. While I don’t own a luxury Supercar, I expected a relatively smooth process of dropping off my car for a simple check-up.

While there weren’t issues with the drop-off logistics and the service representatives were spectacular in explaining what service my vehicle needed, the receptionist was the one touch point that made my family and I disappointed with the interaction.

Do you know when you can feel when someone has had a bad day? Or maybe they haven’t had their morning coffee? To put it lightly, this receptionist made sure that I knew she wasn’t having a good day and needed to spread the misery.

While we had very brief interactions, they expertly made us feel as if we were intruding by asking for help. Even for something as simple as dropping off a key to the service (we were asked to drop off the key back to reception after we had taken our items out of our car and into the courtesy car).

Why did I feel so guilt-ridden when asking for help from a role designed to facilitate the customer service process? While the rest of my experience was favourable with two other service team members, I still felt like I would rate the visit as a 6/10 because one out of three touchpoints was subpar.

Psychology would tell us that recency bias is the cause of why I recall the final negative touch point instead of The other positive ones.

This should be a lesson to guide us in designing our customer experience process and also shines a light on how important every touch point is. We all know the importance of customer service, but we often come from the customer's standpoint and not from a business owner's standpoint. What would you have to say about your company if you put yourself in your customers' shoes?

There was a show a few years ago where CEOs went undercover in various departments of their company. They were surprised to discover that the systems they thought they had perfected and the customer service they thought were top-notch were sadly not so.

Customer service shouldn’t be just lip service. As a business owner, you have to be very meticulous in who you put in front of a client and have systems in place to train them for the proper behaviour. After all, your business is the only party that stands to lose from poorly rated customer interaction.

My mentor once told me that your best prospect for tomorrow’s business is today’s customer, which taught me the importance of building and maintaining business relationships. What are you doing daily to ensure your customers receive consistent, top-notch service? This would make the difference in whether or not your company survives in a recession.

When the economy was booming, there was plenty of business to go around, but when in a recession, what would make a customer choose you over a competitor every time?