I read an
article
about the hidden cost of neglecting your customers. The author is a highly successful entrepreneur who suggests that the cost for both listening to the needs of customers and regularly bestowing tangible signs of gratitude are extremely cost effective. Start up expenses are a lopsided return, and keeping the customers you already have is in your best interest. He pointed out the absence of feedback of any kind going to his carrier. They have not a clue whether he is blissfully satisfied or on the verge of defecting to another company.
He was using his tv subscription as a case in point, but my mind ricochets to marriage. I am guilty of neglect. Meal prep is my current area of embarrassment. Our first years of marriage I spent hours planning tri course meals and desserts. My Moosewood Cookbook still has the splats to chronicle it. I laboriously made my own tomato sauce from fresh ingredients, and squeezed orange juice from the fruit in our Floridian back yard. I baked my own granola with a spectrum of nuts and grains. I fashioned calzones bursting with three cheeses and chopped vegetables.
But for the past few years I have slid into a routine of spaghetti with sauce in a jar, and macaroni that John can't even eat. He scrounges for himself. It's pretty lame.
While I doubt John will leave me on account of the menu, the article did shine a light on my own foibles. I have sheepishly asked him what I can do better. And I am making an effort to toss a few more of his favorite fruits and vegetables in the basket.
