In both good and bad times, there is no excuse for a business owner to leave money on the table. Following are seven simple examples of real businesses doing just that. Don't be one of them.

One: Letting current customers slip away. A few years ago I had an ear infection. The ear doctor needed to see me every month or so to make sure this very dangerous infection didn't return. After a year or two, I figured I could stop seeing him unless something flared up. However, had I received any call or notification from the doctor's office to make an appointment, I would have. I would think that for both business and medical reasons, this doctor should have set up an automatic system to make sure current customers don't slip away.

Lesson: Have a system in place to track customers whose loyalty has slipped and follow up with them. They may only need a reminder.

Two: Failing to follow up repeatedly to reschedule a cancelled appointment with a customer. Related to the above case, my dentist recently cancelled my appointment to get my teeth cleaned. They tried to reschedule once, left a message with me, and then gave up. I have since switched to another dentist that I happened to see while driving by. I never would have done this had this dental practice been more proactive and systematic in retaining my business.

Lesson: Call multiple times to reschedule any kind of missed or cancelled appointment.

Three: Failing to schedule the next appointment. At my home, I use a window cleaning service and a lanai (that enclosure around the pool) pressure cleaning service. The window cleaning service calls me every 90 days to schedule service. The pressure cleaning service never calls me to schedule service; I have to call them when I think I need to clean the pool deck. Guess what? I have faithfully used the same window cleaning service for 7 years now, but I have changed pressure cleaners repeatedly because I forget the name of the business that came last.

Lesson: Call customers to remind them for service or, as hairdressers do, schedule the appointment immediately at the end of the current service. Another related lesson: Give customers a sticker they can post (near an applicance that they repair, for instance) or other easy way for them to always remember you name. A coffee mug with your name and contact info is better than a business card!

Four: Abysmal, robotic customer service -- especially when your customer needs you most. I am getting to the point that I will never use another national-scale bank again. For instance, I have a home equity line and first mortgage with Chase Bank. I always pay on time, have been a customer for years, and have a great credit rating. Recently they downgraded my home equity loan limit to keep up with the falling market, just as my pregnant wife and I were adding an addition to our home (which should increase our home value and more than offset the recent market decline!). I called to add just $10,000 back to the line in order to pay off the final amount of the addition from that line, citing a number of valid reasons about values in our area, and the robotic customer service rep stonewalled. They only go by a computer appraisal. My only option is to do my own appraisal at my risk, but what's the point if I will have already pulled cash from another account to complete the work on the home? I wanted a quick, small increase in my loan, at an amount still less than the total limit of the loan before Chase reduced the limit in the first place. I will never, ever do business with Chase again, and unlike the usual dissatisfied customer who tells 11 people, I'm letting hundreds of thousands of people know -- all over a measly $10,000 and convenience.

Lesson: Don't let your profitable customers down, especially when they need you most. Allow and encourage employees to make quick decisions that will keep customers loyal.

Five: No inventory on hand. As part of the above-mentioned renovation, my wife and I needed around 10 light fixtures for the home. We went to one local lighting store and thought we found a couple of really nice fixtures. Unfortunately, the store didn't have the items in stock (even though they were displayed on the wall -- but in samples of one instead of the pairs we needed). We were ready to buy from a store struggling in recession, and their lack of inventory management kept them for a sale. We went down the street to another store, and they got the order because they had supply on hand.

Lesson: Make sure you don't run out of inventory when you have a willing buyer.

Six: Unreachable. I have a great landscaper. But for no apparent reason, he doesn't have a website and isn't listed in the yellow pages. When I needed to re-landscapte my yard with a privacy screen, I couldn't find him. So I called someone else and my "regular" landscaper lost the job.

Lesson: Make sure it is ridiculously easy to reach you by web, email, phone, fax, text, facebook, linkedin, Google search, etc.

Seven: No 10,000 mile checkup. I can list hundreds of businesses that have served me over the years. However, I can list only a handful that call me after a service to make sure everything is going well. And then, per the lessons above, they call again to see if I would like another service when the time is right. The rest of these businesses don't offer this follow up -- or 10,000 mile checkup as the auto manufacturers call it -- and so they often never see me again.

Lesson: Offer a "10,000 mile checkup" to your customers. For instance, if you are an accountant, call your client a month after taxes are filed to see how everything went and whether they want to meet with you to discuss the coming tax year (my old accountant didn't do this, and if my new one doesn't, she probably won't be my accountant for very long either!).

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