I got to reminiscing over the last 6 months at my job. I’ve seen several hundred customers come and go but only remember maybe 20 names. So I asked myself if I could group them into categories to figure out what made them so special, I came up with 3 groups that contain them.

Douchebags

These are the guys that do pretty much anything to make your job just a bit harder. They can be overly pushy when you tell them that you’re unable to assist them. They will do anything to get what they want and don’t give a damn whether it’s possible on your end, but their persistence though annoying sticks with you. You use them to benchmark  your other customers. These guys stick out because they ruffle your feathers and they just beckon to be remembered.

Nice Guys

This group you don’t want to forget because they are the few people who can brighten your day up. They can call you up on short notice and you don’t have anything for them that’s decent but they are happy to take what you have to offer and so glad that you could get them out of there bind. I had one guy, Mr. Bruce, that wouldn’t stop smiling it was just so remarkably odd, normally I see people who are upset because they got into an accident or their flight was canceled. These are the people you want to come back again and again just so they can cheer you up.

Frequenters

These people come in maybe once every month or two and setup there reservations before they ever leave. You get to know exactly what they want when they show up. You really don’t want to forget frequenters because they are probably 20-30% of your business in my small town. You can’t offend them because they will go to your competitors and are unlikely to come back.

These are the 3 groups that I just can’t forget, I know them all by name and see someone from one of these groups atleast once per week. One thing about these groups though is that they aren’t self contained, I’ve got frequent nice guys and frequent douchebags. I’ve also managed to get a nice douchebag, I assume it’s just because I’m not used to the abrasiveness of people from NYC, they don’t come to small town West Virginia that often.  I bet if you wanted you could even make your self unforgetable by mixing them with your own style.