Why do so many businesses fail at customer service?
It isn't because they don't have a script. It's because they don't give a sh*t.
In How to Give a Sh*t: A Guide to Service Excellence*, Bruce Prins challenges the outdated mantra that "The Customer is King" and exposes the uncomfortable truth: you cannot deliver superior external service if your internal service culture is rotten.
Drawing on decades of experience in hospitality and management, Prins argues that service excellence starts from the inside. If your employees (your internal customers) are treated with apathy, how can you expect them to treat your paying customers with empathy?
This no-nonsense guide will teach you to:
- Learn why your employees, suppliers, and managers are your most important customers and how treating them right directly impacts your bottom line.
- Understand the vital difference between being a servant and being a service professional, and why the "Customer is King" mentality often leads to abuse and burnout.
- Realize that customers are human and often opportunistic. Learn how to manage expectations, handle abuse, and set boundaries without losing business.
- Use EQ to interpret behaviour, manage conflict, and communicate effectively with both your team and your clients.
- Discover why managing conduct and applying consistent, rehabilitative discipline is actually a form of service that protects your team and your standards.
Whether you are a business owner dealing with bad reviews, a manager trying to motivate a lethargic team, or an employee tired of being a doormat, this book provides the tools you need to build a culture of genuine care, consistency, and excellence.
Service isn't a department. It's a choice.
Bruce Prins is an author and operational governance thinker whose work focuses on leadership under pressure, structural discipline, and founder-led organisational performance.
With over three decades in hospitality and operational leadership across South Africa and Nigeria, he has worked inside complex, founder-led environments where performance is shaped as much by internal governance as by strategy.
His writing explores emotional regulation as operational infrastructure, the psychology of authority, and the systems required for durable performance in high-responsibility settings.
He is the author of various works on leadership and operational excellence.
