That competitor across the street is plotting to steal your customers right now. Could your marketing be making it easy for them? Typically, it’s not big things that lose customers; they’re too obvious. Costly mistakes are usually the little ones, easily overlooked in your daily buzz of doing business.

How clean are your trays?

Customers see things you don’t. Dirty tray-tables left airline passengers wondering about engine maintenance. “If they can’t get the little things right, what about the big things?” surveyed passengers told Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. in their 1982 book, In Search of Excellence.

While some of the so-called “excellent” companies have gone by the wayside, their principles of excellence still apply. Learning from the customer, for example, helped expose these marketing mistakes:Continue Reading