A good restaurant doesn't not loose its customers,it gets rid of bad dishes from the menu.Sounds good?Yes we frequent some places 'cause of its hit mouthwatering offerings and consistent flavours.And service.i overhead someone recommending the dal makhni at Moti Mahal to his friends.All of us do such a thing some time or the other.A typical low brow socialite would always make it a point to tell the manager at a given place, what is best about x place.The fact is that we all are accustomed to like what is highly agreeable to our palates instead of what is actually good food.Simply put, one man's food is another man's poison.But this done to death cliche' is not the point of contention here,it actually is this;A true story- In a relatively uncluttered place around Mumbai, a small restaurant( A) opens with a mughlai-chinese-punjabi menu on offer.Some dishes are exellent here some are so-so as the case is more often than not(i personally relished the nalli roganjosh).But it enjoyed huge patronage which came with its monopoly status for lack of competition in the vicinity.Now the real test of its strength was to keep and also grow customer base, and was too easy a job too.What then happened was, a long considered to be jinxed place right next to it was taken over from the previous owner by an optimistic entrepreneur.This new place B right opposite to our A started serving a mughlai-chinese-punjabi menu with some really interesting varieties in its Indian bread section.Within a month place B had captured one fourth of the customers of A.By the second month, a notable buzz every night outside B suggested that they were neck to neck with A now.And an even healthy sign for B was the drooping body language of A place's partners ,whilst all those associated with B looked content and at ease(i stay really close to both places).It is easy for any body to get a market share with some differentiation in product,or even without that.But capturing half the leaders business with such ease within no time is something else.i know what it is.Its called service.Place A ,having found unprecedented success, easily fell into the 'customers need us and not vice versa' trap.They were arrogant in their dealings, careless in attitude and almost never paid attention to detail.(i always got my food spicy after repeatedly requesting for non spicy food over phone).These blunders cost them a huge slice of cake.In contrast,place B from the onset worked to a plan and made every single customer their focus by listening to them and providing promt service.One one occasion it was noticed that an order was cancelled after serving(a rarity amongst small scale stand -alone joints), just because the customer said 'it's not what i thought it would be', period.Such is their devotion that a person waiting for 10 minutes for something is informed politely about the dish getting ready, again something that was missing in A.So the moral of the story is that however good you are, the future will not hold true unless the present set of clients are not touched by your product and service.They form your base clients, your set up for a precious word of mouth publicity.Needless to add,i had switched loyalties to B soon after they opened for this cold approach of A.