I recently ended a sour relationship with a contractor (the one who renovated our new office space). One of the things that struck me about this was that the constant retreat whenever something went wrong or was done poorly to the 30 years of experience the owner had running this company and doing this type of work for “hundreds of happy customers.” As hard as it was for me to see the truth in that after my experience, I do like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I will post the truth of my case and if an opposing truth is out there, then the public record will help people make future decisions about the quality of these experiences.

But I really get stuck on this notion that experience somehow prevents a person or company from making a mistake, or worse yet automatically forgives that mistake without requiring them to take additional action. I often see experience and success lead to complacency and overconfidence rather than increased customer service.

So one thing I’d like to see out of consumer word of mouth power is a greater sense of responsibility from companies that believe they have earned the trust and respect of customers from doing it right for years or decades. All that experience means absolutely nothing if you don’t provide me with the same experience your other customers supposedly had.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, General, Social Media