Why there are businesses that treat their customers badly and continue to operate

Luckily treating customers well is part of the corporate culture of many companies. There are also businesses that do just the opposite are successful.

Seeing how some restaurant owners in the mountains treat their customers has reminded me of my stay in Rome. Italian waiters literally passed on you. They perfectly disguised that they had listened to you.

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Even if you stood on the table screaming with all your might in the middle of the restaurant they wouldn't blink. Hopefully they attended to you when writing down your order and charging, although without a doubt they made you wait for a while so as not to spoil you.

"Abuse" of customers in the world of gastronomy

It seems strange that in the world of gastronomy this can happen but in certain contexts it is possible. Imagine that you have been for 3 or 4 years climbing a mountain and you have overcome 500 meters of unevenness. You arrive hungry at the only restaurant in the mountains near you. They are simply situated in such a way that there is no competition. It doesn't matter how well or badly your customers treat you. The bad reviews on Tripadvisor don't matter too much either. The lack of alternatives will keep your business running for a long time despite lousy customer service.

The same applies to bars and restaurants near central points in Rome (and other tourist cities around the world). There is simply so much traffic of people who pass by their side every day that they do not give a damn about the bad reviews that you can find on the web of angry customers because they have nailed them about 10 euros for a coffee and even making them look annoyed for making them to work.

Types of businesses that do not require good customer service

We can summarize two factors that allow businesses to be successful for a long time by treating their customers as a hindrance:

• Monopolies and oligopolies: when there are no alternatives, you hold on. A couple of years ago if you wanted a landline you just had a choice. There were no alternatives. With the passage of time more and more monopolies are falling and there are more and more hungry customers to receive their deserved revenge. Many will survive by simple inertia. There are also clients that you can treat badly but who simply laziness in looking for a new supplier stay with the company forever.

• Much higher demand than supply: as long as there are many potential customers and you do not have infinite capacities to serve them (restaurants are limited by their seats of months and chairs), you can afford to treat those who visit you badly. You know that in every moment you will have your business full. Especially in tourist centers, there is not much repetition, so even a good deal will not generate the loyalty effect. Word of mouth is not necessary for the reasons mentioned above.

Obviously treating your client badly is a short-term vision for several reasons. The most important is that you will rarely be able to expand your business. You don't notice any negative impacts for a while because you only have limited capabilities. Regardless of what you do, you always have a full house.

The context can change and suddenly you can get competition where there was not before. When there are alternatives, you can run out of clients overnight.

Obviously the gastronomic world is not well represented with the extreme examples mentioned in this post. The vast majority of them treat their clients well either out of necessity or out of passion for their profession. Few businesses can afford not to serve their customers perfectly, and fewer still can act that way forever.

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