Jerry used to be in the car wash business. One day, he was feeling down when he got home after work. When his wife asked him what was wrong, he said, “There were five customers who complained today.”
She asked, “How many cars did you wash today?”
He said, “Six hundred at that location and about eighteen hundred at the others.”
She smiled at him and said, “Hush!”
Jerry told me that his wife’s remark put the problem into perspective. His focus on the handful of complainers had kept him from thinking about the overwhelming number of happy customers that day. “Customer service has always been the most important thing to me and the team,” he explained. “We want everybody to be happy, but I have to remind myself that people are people and not everyone is going to be happy every time. Every now and then, we’ll miss a spot.”
The numbers reveal that Jerry has an excellent record of customer service. Those five complainers represented just 1.25 percent of his customers at that location and an even smaller percentage of the total customers that day in all of his car washes. Jerry’s big heart is one reason he built such a successful business. His wife was reminding him to be grateful for the 99-plus percent who were happy.
There is a famous quote which is attributed to the poet John Lydgate and was later adapted by Abraham Lincoln: “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
Perfection is a strange thing. On one hand, it drives us to create the best possible quality. But on the other hand, it makes bad news (no matter how small) stand out from the good news (no matter how big). On some occasions, perfection keeps us up at night.
Jerry’s story reminds me of Alicia, who has managed an ad team for many years. She once said, “We teach our team to strive for perfection, but also to accept that sometimes things get messed up.
“When mistakes happen, we do three things. First, we apologize and do everything we can to correct the problem, even if we discover it before the advertiser does. Staying ahead of the situation can keep it from getting worse.
“The second thing is to learn from the mistake. One of my favorite sayings is, ‘There are two outcomes: successes and lessons.’ The real tragedy of a mistake is when no one learns anything.
“The third thing is to celebrate the things that are going right. We deal with the blunder, then let it go and focus on the good. That’s a big part of maintaining morale in the ad department, or in any department in the newspaper.”
Alicia makes a great point. Dealing with mistakes is a little like a car wash. Below the dirt and grime, there’s a nice shine.
(c) Copyright 2025 by John Foust. All rights reserved.