I never thought I’d see the day when NOBODY “knows somebody” locally that they would dare send their friends and family to. Yet, here I am. Over the course of the last several years, I’ve had a need for dozens of different service providers in our area and haven’t been able to find one solid referral from my (extensive) personal network.
I shouldn’t have to go to Angie’s List or Kudzu to get a referral to a business down the street. We should be able to ask our neighbors, friends, parents of our children’s friends, and the person in line next to us at Kroger. When you specifically go looking for quality local businesses to spend your money, it should NOT be this damned hard!
Not once have I had someone say “Oh, you have to go to my … salon, mechanic, contractor, dentist… they’re so great!” The warmest suggestion I’ve found in all this time has been “well, I’ve never had x done, but they do ok with y… I guess you could try there”. Trust me folks, if the highest recommendation you’ve got going for you is “I guess they’re ok”, I’m gonna keep looking!
When did the world at large decide that receiving substandard quality of work and service is just something you have to put up with unless you do it yourself? What the hell kind of sense does that make? “Here, I know you just filed the skin off my knuckles while you were doing my nails, but please take my $45 PLUS TIP to make up for the trouble of having to clean my blood off your equipment. See you in 2 weeks!” ????????
If I have to have screwed up fingernails, scary eyebrows, and a broken porch railing for the rest of my life, I will not spend any more money on shitty service from people who are phoning it in at work.
Local Small Business Owners… listen up… we’re out here. We have money to spend on the services you provide. We WANT to be able to refer you to our friends and become loyal repeat customers. We WANT to be able to say “why yes, I do have a fantastic mechanic, nail salon, tax person, dog walker, lawn service…” We just can’t find you (or you’re one of the ones doing a CRAPPY JOB). Give us reasons to refer you to our network and we’ll love you forever.
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My neighborhood is not exactly the same as yours, but I can recommend the following:
I-too for Eyebrows – East Atlanta Village
Flick @ Edgewood – Great haircuts – pricey, but worth the extra for expertise
but I’m pretty lost on the nail salon, too!
Well, KR sent me to her lovely, crazy gynecologist… perhaps more personal a recommendation than you were looking for. But since I’m going to be a new area resident soon, I’m going to knock on some doors for recommendations. You’re first.
It happened when two very important things changed.
First – Businesses began to look at the profit margin separate from customer satisfaction. Once those two concepts were no longer linked in the owner or manager’s minds, the pursuit of one (in almost all cases – profit) was often sought at the expense of the other.
Second – Society as a whole developed an aversion to work. The idea of a ’strong work ethic’ became distasteful. ‘Do the job right’ and ‘take pride in your work’ were replaced by ‘get as much as you can/as quick as you can’ and a general sense of entitlement.
If the business management is suffering from the first problem, then having quality workers wont help. The whole setup for how customers are handled (according to management’s guidelines) will reflect lack of interest in the customers satisfaction.
If the business model and ideals are good, but the workers are uncaring/uninterested in providing service, then the problem arises again. No matter how well thought out the business’s goals, without employees committed to providing those goals – both to the business and it’s customers – customer satisfaction is likely to be poor.
Now this has often been true in larger businesses. However in the smaller mom and pop types, customer service was almost always what kept them going. It was word of mouth that fueled their success. It seems that this has changed as well. Perhaps an example of the child following in big brother’s shoes. Or perhaps the cost of doing business has pushed them to this point.
Personally – I think most just don’t care.