The consequences of even a few dissatisfied customers can be enormous: "Dissatisfied customers turn to competitors; loyal customers spend more, refer new clients, and are less costly to do business with" (Arendt & Harris, 1998, p. 27). The authors point out that because it costs about five times more to gain a new customer than to keep an existing one, and since dissatisfied customers tell at least twice as many friends about bad experiences than they tell about good ones, it is clearly to the small business owner or manager's advantage to seek high levels of customer satisfaction and retention.

According to Gebhardt and Townsend (1990), although the notion that little things can add up to have an enormous positive effect has gained wide acceptance, many companies continue to remain sluggish in their response to the reality that little things can also have an immensely negative impact on a company's...
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