Say It With Humor

When you own a business, you may find yourself in situations that may be a little tricky to handle. Dealing with customers who steal is one of them.

A few years back we were faced with the problem of how to handle our free water cups. It seems some of our customers were filling them with the fountain drinks instead of water. This was, of course, was theft - pure and simple, but we felt confronting the guilty customers would create a bad atmosphere in our restaurant and we wanted to change their behavior and keep them loyal.

As we were mulling over how to handle this, one of the young men on our staff decided to take things into his own hands. While he was making his rounds, checking the dining area, he came across one of our chronic offenders. He walked over to his table and looked at his drink in the free water cup and said, "There is something wrong with your water, it