While reading Seth Godin’s small is the new big
, I came across the entry The Two Obvious Secrets of Every Service Business. The "secrets" are 1) Take Responsibility and 2) Pay Attention to Detail.
This reminded me of one of the obvious, but essential rules of referral marketing – if you want to get referrals, you have to deserve them. Ignore this rule and it doesn’t matter how elaborate a referral system you have, you will not consistently generate new customers from referrals.
So if you catch yourself saying "it’s not my fault", or "not my problem", or "I’ll take this shortcut just this one time", remember that all the fancy marketing in the world won’t undo your customer’s lousy experience (or undo the conversations she has with her friends).
