Q: What are some penalties for not recognizing the value of customer service?

A: Customers will take their business elsewhere, and you'll find up broke, homeless, and living beneath an overpass.

Sure, you might think you have it made now, that you can weather any storm, handle any competition, survive any economic downturn, because you have the best product. But there's a lot more to business than having the best product. You also need to have the best service. In business, the old cliche rings true, the customer is always right.

I wasn't always broke. I wasn't always homeless. I didn't always live under this overpass. I used to be somebody. I used to have a business, a huge, successful business. I owned 14 used car lots in Nevada alone. I had the finest autos, at the lowest prices. Couldn't keep them on the lot. If you saw my office, you would have thought I owned a federal mint, all that cash flying around.

I had it all. Money, women, fame - I starred in my own commercials - private jet, solid gold robot butler, everything a man could possible imagine. I let it all go to my head, began to lose touch. I placed more value on my product than on the people buying it. Customer service went right out the window.

I'll never forget the day it happened, the day I made the fatal mistake that drove them away for good. President's Day weekend, 2004. I remember it like it was yesterday. I launched a new ad campaign, hired Martin Scorsese to direct my commercial. There I stood, in front of a fleet of Chevy Impala's, dressed like Mussolini - I even had a chest full of fake medals. "Hi, I'm Bill Ed Musgrave,"I said, "if I don't buy a car from me, go fuck yourself." The rest of the commercial, all eight minutes of it, consisted of nothing but me cackling like a madman, flipping off the camera, while the message "Go fuck Yourself!" flashed over and over again on the screen. At the time, I thought it was my best ad yet.

Seems I miscalculated.