What could bad service cost your store?
1How much does your store sell inside each month?
Inside sales only, excluding fuel.
2What is your average ticket?
The average amount spent per inside purchase.
NACS 2025 average basket: $7.69, excluding fuel. Source
3How often does each customer visit?
Visits per customer, per month.
NACS reference: approximately 10 visits/month. Source
4What if bad service runs off this share of customers each month?
About 75 additional customers lost each month, per store.
The cost of lost customers
Across 1 store · Over 1 year · 37% gross margin
Adjust assumptions
$200,000 per month × 12 months
A new group leaves each month. Their repeat purchases stay lost for the rest of the period. Gross profit is before operating expenses, not net profit.
Pythia Scorecard cost & potential ROI
Two registers per store. Costs cover the same stores and years selected above.
Net return = gross profit protected − Pythia cost. ROI = net return ÷ Pythia cost × 100.
Assumes Pythia prevents all the modeled customer losses. This is an illustration, not a guaranteed return. Hardware is charged once; software is $299/month per store. Taxes, installation, financing, and other operating costs are not included.
Protect + Grow
Keep customers you might lose, plus win additional new customers. Uses the same sales, visits, stores, years, and margin above.
Customers protected each month
Additional customers gained each month
Each rate follows Question 4 until you make a selection here. These choices only change Protect + Grow.
Net return = protected gross profit + additional gross profit − Pythia cost. ROI = net return ÷ Pythia cost × 100.
Compared with losing customers and gaining none. Protected and new customers must be separate groups, so no customer is counted twice. Assumes the full modeled protection and growth are achieved. Illustration, not a guaranteed return. The same pricing and cost exclusions above apply.
The math behind your numbers
- Transactions: $200,000 ÷ $8 = about 25,000 per month.
- Customers: 25,000 transactions ÷ 10 visits = about 2,500 customers.
- New customers lost: 2,500 × 3% = about 75 each month, per store.
- Time: 1 × 12 = 12 months. Customers leave evenly through each month, so the average impact is 12 ÷ 2 = 6 months.
- Lost sales: 75 × 12 months × 1 store × 6 average months × $80 per customer/month = $432,000.
- Lost gross profit: $432,000 × 37% = $159,840.
- Annual revenue: $200,000 × 12 months × 1 store = $2,400,000.
- Total revenue change: $432,000 ÷ $2,400,000 × 100 = -18%. Revenue and impact cover the same year.
The selected percentage applies to the fixed starting customer estimate each month, not a shrinking pool. Ticket size and visits change the estimated customer count, but not the sales loss when monthly sales and the selected percentage stay the same.
Illustration, not a forecast. No return, replacement, natural churn, price changes, or discounting is included. Displayed estimates are rounded; calculations use unrounded values.
A 2007 Wharton/Verde Group retail study found that 3% of customers said they would not return to a store after being ignored by staff. Source: Knowledge at Wharton.