When we asked 2,100 horse owners 2 years ago about their relationship with farriers, 20.5 percent told us their biggest gripe was that their shoers showed up late or missed appointments altogether.

Some 24.4 percent said farriers are hard to reach, don’t return phone calls and make it difficult to schedule horses for shoeing. And 13.6 percent of horse owners indicated that farriers don’t bother to call when they’re going to be late for a shoeing appointment.

Even more bizarre things can happen, such as with the horse owner who wrote to us recently about her farrier. Some 20 clients in the area had appointments to have horses shod over a 2 or 3 week span with a farrier who apparently left town and never told anyone. As a result, they had to scramble to find a qualified shoer who lived nearly 2 hours away.

As you might guess, they certainly weren’t happy with this inconsiderate treatment of shoeing clients.

Yet farriers aren’t alone when it comes to making customers wait. Having to wait for service is by far the biggest complaint that banks, supermarkets and airlines get from customers. Unfortunately, it sends a message to customers that their time doesn’t matter and indicates the people really don’t care.

As a farrier, you know how aggravating it can be to wait in line when only two of five bank teller stations are open and there are 15 people waiting to cash checks. Even more aggravating is to see two tellers…