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Once when I was shopping in one of our local lumber yards, I noticed a sign which read:
81% OF YOUR CUSTOMERS WILL BE LOST TEN YEARS FROM NOW
Under this startling headline the following statistics were given:
- 1% will die.
- 3% will move.
- 5% will give their business to a friend.
- 9% will be lost to competitors.
- 14% will be lost due to dissatisfaction with a product.
- 68% will quit because of an attitude of indifference of an employee.
The Lord’s business also loses customers for all those reasons. Death is steadily calling men and women into eternity. In our very mobile society, the local church is constantly affected by members moving.” Those with no real conviction concerning the importance of doctrinal purity and of “making all things according to the pattern,” are being led into denominationalism. Others, finding that following Christ requires daily sacrificial, self-denying cross-bearing, will become “dissatisfied with the product” and will drop out.
Interestingly, the great loss to business comes at the point of “employee indifference.” Have you ever walked into a store and felt that the salesman or manager would rather not be bothered? Right here is where most customer casualties occur. If there is any lesson a businessman should consider elementary, it should be to make the customer want to return.
Christians are the Lord’s “salesmen.” We would do well to look into the matter of how we treat our visitors in the classroom and the assembly. Do we expect the announcer or the preacher to do all the greeting or do we personally and warmly seek out visitors? As we filter out into week-day tasks, do we drive off potential “customers” by our indifference? Do we ever speak a word for Christ and the church? Or worse, when we speak and act, do we forget who we represent? (Many a soul has been soured on the truth by hot-headed, razor-tongued, or worldly-walking members of the church.) Indifference simply means, “I don’t care.” We must care!
[Note: I wrote this article for, and it was published in the November, 13, 1975, edition of the Granbury Gospel, weekly bulletin of the Granbury Church of Christ, Granbury, Texas, of which I was editor.
Attribution: From thescripturecache.com; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.
