I am lucky; my local groceries store is located only 60 feet away from where I live. I can walk over there in my slippers on bright and shiny mornings to get the newspaper and breakfast. On Saturdays I enjoy eating breakfast early but must wait until after nine o’clock when the store opens.

• Competitors actually open at nine. So opening at eight is a great step for my local store.
• The store I went to had nice smiling employees.
• The store I went to had things I normally buy, that my local store do not provide. Increasing my experience with breakfast.
• The store I went to was cheaper.
• This morning I spent 30 dollars with the competitor.
• I saw something tempting for dinner, making me return with my wife later on for shopping for the weekend. I spent 150 dollars on it.

The money consequence.
Alright! My local store lost 180 dollars from me this day. But what if I am during the next year chosen to do my shopping elsewhere, let’s say 25 times. That is 25 x 180 dollars. So by not letting me come in, the direct loss for them is 4500 dollars. I work at a company with 600 employees. And since I talk about customer care, all day long I use this experience as an example. By statistics ten other will be influenced by the story, and choose different. I do not know what other spend on groceries. But for the fun of it, and to be nice with my local store, let’s pretend 4 people over the next year went elsewhere five times. They would spend 100 dollars each time. That is 2000 dollars.

Sum summaries.
The local store most likely had a direct loss of 6500 dollars during the next year. Not only do they lose earnings, but the money went right to the competition, making the loss against competition 13000 dollars.

What should he have done?
He should understand that I have been misled. If he would let me in, I would consider this a great customer service. I probably would not tell anyone about it. He would earn 30 dollars right on, 150 dollars later the same day and most likely 4500 dollars the next year, advancing from the competition by 9000 dollars in value.

The big difference.
A total loss of 13000 dollars, or earnings of 9000 dollars? By not giving me a good customer experience this cold morning, the value of it came to 22000 dollars. If I said to him; open the door for me and you will gain a value of 22000 dollars, do you think he would let me in?
This is the cost of bad customer care.

This is the cost of one single small mistake. Can you afford that? Lucky for my local store, I grew up in one. I know how important it is for me to be able to buy milk nearby. I want them to be in business. But on the other hand a ten minute walk would only do me good.

Have you experienced situations like this? Did you ever calculate the consequence? What amount did you get? Please tell me about it.