And you’d better not forget it. Consider this tale of some people treated fairly shabbily at a new Houston nightclub; after paying $8 for valet parking, they were turned away for apparently being insufficiently cool looking.
(A side note: I realize that this is not uncommon at nightspots in many big cities, but this is Houston, the ultimate come-as-you-are town. It just goes against the DNA of the city…)
It turns out that one of the people turned away was a contributor to Houstonist, a blog about what’s going on in Houston. So of course there was an entry explaining why going to this new club was a mistake.
Here’s the thing: that person you treat shabbily doesn’t even have to be a professional critic to do you harm. Maybe he writes a lot of reviews on Yelp. Maybe she has a well-read blog. Maybe he is connected to everybody in town on Twitter and is going to let people know how unhappy he is with you.
This has always been true; bad word of mouth can kill you. But now, word of mouth is faster and more persistent than ever. Ten years ago, people would have groused about that attitude-ridden club, and it would have been forgotten. Now it lives on Google forever.
So think about how you’re treating that anonymous customer. She might not be so anonymous after all.