You see, people don't stop doing business, they just stop doing business with you. Each of us has lost a customer or ten in our business career. Why? Lots of reasons. We all know what to do, problem is we just don't do it.

Being fired is not just maddening and frustrating, it's also an opportunity. An opportunity to figure out why and fix the problem. Here's a list of 14.5 reasons why customers fire you:

1. Showing no genuine or personal interest. Impersonal service. Insincere people. Commission (only) hungry salespeople.

2. Poor response. Take too long to get back to a customer or service a customer, and they will find someone else. People will even sacrifice quality for speed.

3. Unavailability. People or product. Formula: "Can't get the stuff I need or can't reach the person I want, equals go someplace else."

4. Hard to do business or order. Long waits on hold. People who are not product knowledgeable. Computer voice attendant rather than a real human being to answer the phone, and going through three minutes of crap only to get lost or put on eternal hold. Bye-bye.

5. Unfriendly person on the front line. It never ceases to amaze me how many angry people serve on the front line of multi-million (billion) dollar businesses. The first rule of every corporate policy in America should be one word -- "smile."

6. Poor or rude collection practices. This is a big one. Taking away someone's dignity when collecting a bill is common practice in businesses. Most have never taken the time to point out to collection people that keeping the customer is as important as collecting the money.

7. Over-promising. Customers are like elephants -- they never forget. You over-promise and under-deliver, you lose.

8. Inadequate capability to handle the customer's problem. Poor product knowledge, or too many service problems -- not enough service people. Double jeopardy if you make a lame excuse about it.

9. Too eager to do more business. (Too pushy, too much pressure) -- No one wants to buy more from a high pressure person. Help, don't sell. Create an atmosphere of buying (asking about them) -- not telling about you. Don't be a pest -- have a solid reason for following up.

10. Poor professional package or image. Customers want to feel that the quality of their business will be reflected by the quality of those they deal with. How's your image? How's your package?

11. Dumb excuses about why you "can't." Customers are calling because they want help. They want help with their situation -- not hear a bunch of bull-ony about yours.

12. Nickel and dime-ing. Charging for every incidental like copies, phone calls, and interest on late payments, puts a bad taste in the customer's mouth.

13. Poor product quality. No matter how much people pay, they expect a quality product. If you're selling price and sacrificing quality, eventually you will lose the business to someone with opposite thinking.

14. Poor service delivery. Everyone expects fast service -- that's right the first time. How's yours? How's the attitude of those who deliver it?

14.5 Poor training. Don't fire the problem employee. Shoot the person who trained them. Poor or ineffective training is the root of customer dissatisfaction. Success tactic: Make "reasons for customer dissatisfaction" the basis for a new training program.

What happens to angry customers? From a variety of reliable research, here is a compilation of interesting statistics.

* 91% who leave will never return.
* 96% who leave won't tell you the real reason they left.
* 80% will do business with you again if their problem is handled quickly, and to their complete satisfaction.
* When the incident is real bad and they leave, stories about what happened will be retold for years.

Interestingly, most of the time when we lose (get fired by) a customer, it always seems to be their fault. I'd love to have a dollar for every customer who was wrongly blamed. Ninety-nine percent of the time it's easy to assess who's to blame -- just look in the mirror. Your mirror.