Failure means distrust. Distrust to you about delivering on your promises; distrust in your ability to make a difference; distrust in you taking care. Basically, it is as simple as:
- Drawing attention to a problem without communication of causes and planned corrective actions.
- Repeating the same error again (when you do not change anything after step 1).
- Making problem a habit, when it happens for the 3rd time. Now it is clear for everyone that you do not give a heck about what's going on.
After step 3 there is almost no way to recover.
At the resort I stayed with my family for a vacation, we had breakfast served at 8:00 am. The first time a crowd of about hundred people had to wait for extra 10 minutes till they started serving, I remember my thought "Can happen. Probably, they wanted to please us with something special and underestimated the time."
Waiting in the crowd the next day I thought "Something went terribly wrong here. There must be a serious challenge involved at serving at 8 am."
After the third time nothing could make me come to breakfast at 8 am. I knew they did not care that we all had to wait for 10 extra minutes in a crowded room. I had to find a solution for myself and I did! Thereafter we came to breakfast 10 minutes late. In other situations, when your customers have more flexibility, they will simply quit your service. They will not do that because there are issues, but because you do not care.
Take care to fix issues your customers face.