Today’s blog is about betrayal – not betrayal in the personal relationship sense – but betrayal in the business to customer relationship sense.

For more than 20 years, I have been a loyal Shaw customer. For the most part, I have always enjoyed being a Shaw customer – and when there has been a technical glitch, Shaw support has been fairly helpful.

Until last Wednesday when my Shaw internet, cable and land line went down. And stayed down for 8 days.

That’s right, 8 days.

Let’s just take a pause here and really think about that – imagine, in this day and age, not having access to the internet for that length of time. Now imagine trying to run your home-based consulting business without the internet for 8 days.

I understand that when there is technical glitch requiring the services of a technician, there may be a delay of a day or two before a technician can get out. That is not ideal, but I can live with that.

But eight days? Seriously, how can any internet service provider in today’s connected world expect a customer to be without three major services, including the internet, for 8 days?

To add insult to injury, every time I called to enquire about the situation, I was told the same thing – that they are very sorry, that we are on their emergency list and that someone will probably be there ‘very soon’. At no time, was anyone empowered to actually mandate that something be done. At no time, did anyone offer any sort of compensation. And at no time, did anyone really indicate in any significant way that my business is important to them.

The good news is that the services have finally now been restored. But the damage to my relationship with Shaw is forever changed. Wounds from any betrayal take a long time to heal. When the person or in this case, the institution, that does the wounding appears to not acknowledge or even care that they wounded a customer, the healing may never begin.

What happens from here is really uncertain to me. It’s easy to think that you can just change service providers but the challenge is that I have a lot of equity in my shaw email address, so it’s not an easy decision. But then neither is staying with a business partner that clearly does not value your business.

This is a wake-up call to all of us who service customers. If you don’t show appreciation for your customers, particularly when something goes wrong, why should they stay? Today, do something to show at least one of your customers that their business is important to you. Trust me, you might just make that customer’s day.