How Is Lousy Service An Opportunity?

Every time you get lousy service, you should jump for joy!

You should then put on your entrepreneurial hat and go about capitalizing on this amazing opportunity! You have just discovered an under-served market! A gap in the market that you may be able to fill! So be excited! Be very excited!

The great thing about a free market economy is that opportunities abound. Having an experience as a customer that is below your expectations probably means your peers have had a similarly unfortunate experience. Which means you have, at the very least, an indicator that there’s an opportunity to capitalize upon AND the exact market segment you should target!

Think about Kemmons Wilson, founder of Holiday Inn. As he traveled across the country in the 1950s, he was extremely put off by the lack of consistency and quality of his family’s experiences with roadside motels of that era, particularly the fact that he was charged for his kids’ stay, even though they shared the same room. He thought about it, and wisely recognized that there were undoubtedly other families who had the same issue. After doing a little research on his own he brought his vision of a better solution for families on vacation to life by creating Holiday Inn, where “Kids stay free!”

Though “Kids stay free” is now pretty much the standard, at the time that revolutionary concept created a whole market niche for Holiday Inn. Customers immediately saw “Kids stay free” as not just a way to save money, but as a value proposition suggesting that the entire Holiday Inn experience would be built around their wants and needs.

History is full of sweeping, exciting, and beneficial changes that resulted all because a visionary like YOU asked “Why does it have to be this way?” then went about proving, through your delivery of a better solution, that in fact it does NOT have to be this way!

So smile really big the next time you are the victim of lackluster service. You may have just discovered a gold mine!