My flight to Texas was uneventful. Which, when you think about flights, is exactly what you want. My taxi ride to the hotel was uneventful too. I arrived just fine, but I was exhausted.

I lumbered into my non-smoking room. It was spotless, but it reeked of smoke. Ugh!

A call to the front desk and I was quickly assigned another room. Problem resolved. . . for me. Later that evening I walked by the front desk and another guest was complaining about the exact same problem with the exact same room.

I can only conclude the hotel had no plans to fix the problem. They only had plans to assign the room to guest after guest, until one person didn’t complain.

That hotel (it’s a chain) has lost me as a customer, for as long as I remember my experience. I didn’t call management. I didn’t complain to the front desk. I didn’t fill out an online form. I just stopped doing business with them. Quietly.

Big Is Expected

Your customers expect you to get the big things right. They expect a friendly greeter. They expect a clean room. They expect a coffee maker in their room.

An amazing greeter, an amazingly clean room, and wildly delicious coffee is nice but it doesn’t wow customers. We expect it. We expect it so much that we don’t even really notice it.

Your expected to get the big things right. You are expected to perform extremely well.

The Small Annoyances

You are expected to get the small things right, too. Get them wrong and you will thoroughly disappoint customers.

An amazing greeter who has a tattoo on her forehead. An amazingly clean room that has a single cockroach scurry across it. A delicious cup of coffee poured into a mug with a lipstick stain. All these small annoyances, can ruin the entire experience for the customer.

We notice the small things. Acutely.

And when you get the small things wrong. When you have small annoyance. Your customers will stop doing business with you, too. Quietly.