There are only a few things that you are not allowed to discriminate against: Age, Gender, Race, Colour, Sexual orientation, Marital status, Religion or beliefs, Gender reassignment.

In this case you could pull them up on discrimating against both gender and sexual orientation (not that I’m saying you’re an advocate of man love) which is a direct contravention to the Equality Bill: http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2008-09/equality/documents.html.

If you explain to them that there are quite serious ramifications for discriminating against the protected characteritics (outlined in Part 2, Chapter 1), such as, compensation awarded by a court of law or the withdrawal of their licence, I am more than sure that they will buckle and let you in.

I’ve had that so many time’s now i’ve stopped heading to that end of town. I usually head for the top end of town these days.

“…the non-monetary value added (or subtracted) through customer service”.

I (and many more) have bee saying this for years. Your product, at the end of the day, is relatively insignificant compared with the way you treat your customer. Customers will always remember “how” they are treated, as opposed to “what” they bought.

In your example, you may not remember that on that night at a bar you purchased 4 local beers, some nuts and snacks…and a burger to hold it all down (dependent on the variable beer=n). But, you lasting memory of this type of exchange is more often…”we had a great night. The staff at x-place were great. Friendly. Tops place to hang out”.

That’s good customer service that keeps people coming back. The product (unless you have a monopoly) can be bought anywhere.

To save me pasting it all in here, head on over to http://bit.ly/4FLjCU for a story on how it all went wrong.

Cheers