"We don't take that card."
I dug into my wallet for cash. "No problem," I said, but mentally I took 10 points off of their Customer Experience Index. In business book jargon, this is an instance of "customer sacrifice" - the gap between what a customer wants and what the business is willing to give. In this case, if I want to shop at this merchant, I have to sacrifice the use of my preferred credit card. Now, that may sound like a small thing, but it's a classic example of customer sacrifice. Some other examples are:
Waiting in line. "Please use other door." "No food or drink in store." "No bills larger than $20." "This section closed." Paying for wireless Internet. "No substitutions." Charging a cell phone before use. Black-out dates for your frequent flier miles. "No credit cards accepted."
You get the idea. Most of the time, you don't recognize the customer sacrifices in your own business, because you see them as minor inconveniences. Perhaps. But, accumulate enough of them into your customer experience and soon you'll have a customer exodus on your hands. Consumers are getting better at spotting sacrifice and chances are you have a competitor who has eliminated the very sacrifice that you expect your customers to make.
Name some other sacrifices that you, as a customer, have experienced. Then take a hard look at your business. What sacrifices do you expect from your customers?
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