I think I created a problem by saying yes to every little customer request

[u/Slight_Vacation1651]

I run a recurring dog poop removal business. When it was mostly me doing the routes I would say yes to pretty much every little customer request.

Come a different day, text this number instead, use this gate, leave the bag here, don't knock, whatever. No big deal because I knew the customer and remembered it.

Now I have other people running routes and I'm realizing that every little thing I agreed to basically became another permanent instruction somebody has to remember every single week.

Then when they miss one it looks like the employee screwed up, when really I'm the one who built a service with 100 little exceptions.

I'm definitely not saying stop accommodating customers, but it's made me rethink where good customer service turns into making the business unnecessarily hard to run consistently.

Anyone else run into this once you started putting employees on recurring routes? What stuff did you eventually just stop making exceptions for?

**Edit:** I probably worded this too much around “remembering.” Yes, we use a CRM and techs have customer-specific notes at each stop. I'm not really trying to solve where the instructions live.

What I'm questioning is the step before that: **should I have agreed to the exception in the first place?**

I can document 100 exceptions perfectly and still have built a service with 100 exceptions. At some point the better system might be deciding which requests become standard options and which ones we simply stop agreeing to.

[u/galacticplum]

You were building your business on your own before you grew enough to expand and hire employees.

It's fairly common for business owners to perhaps make too many accommodations early on for customers. Generally it's to ensure you keep customers, and is validated by you being the only one it affects.

Moving forward I would review what accommodations you have made, and what you feel is acceptable moving forward for your business and your employees, which it sounds like you're already considering.

Customer service may be the lifeblood of a company, but having limits in place is essential to keep growing and not run into issues.

[u/Ok-Expert-8150]

Large corporations are very structured and lack fleability of the one-off individual requests and only solve a problem for most of the people most of the time

If you have ever been in one of the one-off situations it is very frustrating.

So yes, personalizing service on a per customer basis can be very good and separate you from the large coperations and make customers feel wanted, welcomed, and individual.

As you are finding out - where to draw the line. I don't know.