The old saying, "The customer is always right", is really not true. One unhappy customer, through word of mouth, can translate into a lot of lost customers. Just because customers aren't telling you how good you are, often times you think, "Everything must be okay." They may not come to you and say, "That was a horrible experience, but they might tell their family and friends that." Silence is not golden.

Each person really has different theories on this, but they have the potential to tell just one or many other people positive or negative things about your business. Look at a happy customer as free advertising. You might already know how much it costs for advertising.

It's been said that an unhappy customer will tell a minimum of 1-10 people their negative experience. Think about that. 1-10 people automatically not doing business with you. That might change the way you respond to someone. Just maybe a receptionist having a bad day and being rude on the phone - that person telling 1-10 people about that and they will never do business with you.

The first step to a better relationship is to realize customers aren't different from anyone else. They are people with feelings, reactions, wants and desires. They've been studied for the last 50 years and during that time, more than any other time in history. It's your job to understand human drive, passions, emotions, fears and target those emotions.

You want to always be looking for a response from them good and bad. Every bad response you get from a customer is an opportunity to improve.

The second step is to reverse your "Money Plan" that is always thinking of them as money machines. You want to think, "How can you get them more - better - faster - easier - less expensive - higher quality - longer service - better benefits - more options - and more desirable things that they want?"

In order for this to work you must think of your profit will come as long as you are running the business properly. You can't think like this for long without ending up with more value in your business or product or service. A greater number of customers that are doing more business with you, doing it more frequently, and they're doing it more often for a longer term and they're giving you referrals. Treat your customers like you want to be treated.