There are downsides to the small-town mentality, too, though. When I was watching 48 Hours or Dateline (yes, I confess to being addicted to those shows!), a sheriff was suspicious of the death of a wife and young child. But because the husband's parents were fine, upstanding citizens, teachers in the small-town school, his story that his family fell to their death went untested for years. So what does that mean in terms of customer service? Sometimes smaller firms continue to operate one way because that's the way they've always done things or because the management team doesn't want to invest in new tools and technologies that will improve productivity or streamline functions. And employees may feel unable to speak-up because they're afraid of losing their jobs.

Even if companies have a contract with the offending provider, there's always the option of finding a loophole to break the contract if they're angry enough. And a lot of B2B companies get their business through word of mouth, so if someone's angry... and a peer asks them what they think of XYZ provider... there's a good chance the peer isn't going to choose XYZ.

Also, denial and cover-up are often a lot more work than just admitting wrongdoing, fixing the problem, and moving on. And yet so many people and businesses would rather do things the hard way than the easy way.

Big businesses can learn a lot from a good truck stop waitress. When she gets your order wrong, she apologizes briskly but sincerely, brings you the right order, and a free piece of pie to make up for the error. She knows a certain number of screwups are part of any business, and they need to be fixed without making a big deal out of it. 

Agree. Once you understand the week points of your system you can address it and turn it into a competitive advantage. There is a reason why Microsoft, Google and others run long term beta releases, the more feedback the better the system.

I completely agree with all your points, @stotheco. When a company or its representative obsfucates or lies, it immediately puts your back up. We've all made mistakes. Our companies have often made errors. Owning up and trying to rectify the situation as quickly and painlessly as possible are the best ways to go; the examples Christine gave show how those at-fault went, at their expense, to help customers get back to normal ASAP. 

By publicly owning their mistakes and going out of their way to fix the problems they'd created, these B2B companies are great examples of how to manage crises. Today, it's all-but-impossible to sweep things under the rug--and companies shouldn't try. Even if a business is tied to a one-, two-, or five-year contract, at some point that contract will end and, if there have ever been bad feelings or distrust, there is no way that deal will ever be renewed. Businesses looking for longterm success, those who say customers are 'partners,' recognize this, and will take every necessary step to avoid lying to clients. On social media, in the board room, or in a sales meeting.

Well said DrT companies should have proper complaint handling procedures / guidelines to ensure that the customer's problem is resolved and to ensure that this does not happen again. A complaint is the best way you could get feedback and look at improving the company.

@dcawrey – Exactly social media is a good way of reaching the customers. Customer Relationship Management teams should consider every possible where they could reach the customer, to find out what the feel about the company, and what need to be done to improve the perception of the customer.

@ cparizo - Admitting the mistake apologizing and correcting it to avoid it happening again is the ideal solution a business should follow, this will make the customer feel better too.