WHEN I was a new business owner, I attended a management seminar and the speaker said something that I have never forgotten: "Your business is as good as your worst employee." What a sobering thought.

Have you ever walked into a hotel and felt like saying to the desk clerk: "Haven't you seen your commercials - you're supposed to be nice to me?"

Or felt like deducting 15 per cent for putting up with the lousy service at a restaurant?

I was once parked at a large garage in San Francisco, and I asked the young man at the counter if I could have a token to use for the ladies' room. He said: "We are out."

I said: "That's not very good customer service", and then staggered uncomfortably to my car.

A couple of months later at the same garage, I was about to give a different young man $16 of my hard-earned cash for the parking charges.

I said: "Could I have a token for the ladies' room, please?"

He replied: "We are out, but follow me."

We walked a few metres to the ladies' room, he turned a lever and all the tokens fell out. He gave one to me and took the rest back to the till for the next customers.

Can you imagine, the first young man would not give me good service to avoid walking just a few steps? His manager or supervisor should let him know exactly what is expected.

Another time, I was in New York with my brother. We wanted to catch a Claude Van Damme film two blocks down the street from our hotel. This was a high action film and it did not matter if we missed the first couple of minutes.

We reached the counter of the cinema exactly 15 minutes after the film had started. I said: "We know we are late, but we want to go in. Two tickets please."

The cashier replied: "You can't come in, I've closed the till."

I said: "Well, put the money in the till tomorrow."

To which she answered: "Once I've closed the till, I can't open it."

I am a firm believer of the view that if you don't like the first answer you get, talk to somebody else.

So I went to the man who was actually taking the tickets and said: "Look, we really want to see this film. We realise we are late. Put the money in the till tomorrow, let us in free or keep the money yourselves."

This was too much of a decision, so he called the manager. We went through the choices, and she said: "No, once you miss the beginning of the last show, we don't let you in."

As we were walking away, I turned around and said: "I can tell none of you own this business because the No. 1 key point in business is that if people want to give you money, you take it."

Owning the business does not mean your name is on the door. It is an attitude that everyone has to have to compete in challenging times.

Who is training all your employees? What is expected of them?

I was conducting some customer service seminars for telephone operators of a large company.

Their manager said: "Patricia, we want our employees to understand about good customer service, but they don't shop in Nordstrom (a retail store renowned for its service), they don't stay in fancy hotels. How do we get the point across?"

I said: "As they are all consumers themselves, they know exactly what good customer service is."

When I presented my seminar, I told them some of my funny, good and bad customer service stories. I then asked them to share some of their experiences. I heard some fabulous and frightening tales.

One woman recounted how she had bought a leotard for her child's Halloween costume. When she took it home, she found that it was a size too small, so she returned it to the store the next day.

The young man at the counter said: "What do you mean, you don't even know what size your own kid is?"

Then she made another purchase, wrote a cheque and made the mistake of putting the next day's date on it.

He threw the pen across the counter and said: "Will you initial that?" in a condescending tone of voice.

She went up to the customer service department and told the staff there what happened. They nodded, and one said: "That must have been Anthony."

If they all knew about Anthony's behaviour, why was he waiting on customers? Why wasn't he in the shipping department until someone had time to train him in customer service?

You need to make sure all employees in your organisation know that they are part of the sales team, the service department and the public relations campaign. Every one makes a difference.

Article by Patricia Fripp, a San Francisco-based executive speech coach, sales trainer and award-winning professional speaker on customer service and communication skills.

She is the author of Get What You Want! and Make It, So You Don't Have to Fake It! E-mail: PFripp@Fripp.com Website: www.fripp.com

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