Bottom Line Communications™

By John Landsberg
      It’s basic human nature: One hundred people could say wonderful things about your company or service, but if two say something negative those are the ones you will obsess over.
      Why did they say they disliked us? What did we do wrong to upset them? How can we change our business to better meet their needs?
      This is exactly the situation I found myself in recently when I was contemplating changing the focus of my Web news site. I had received a few very nasty comments that really bothered me. They hurt.
      As a marketer, I was fairly confident I knew my readers, but the ugly comments bothered me to no end. I decided to share my feelings with my audience (customers) and asked for their feedback. The response was overwhelmingly supportive of my site; and very gratifying.
      I was very glad I did not make a decision based on the few negative comments I had received. I had been caught in the trap of (over)reacting to a handful of nasty folks.
      I shared my story with another marketing guy. His advice was blunt about dealing with extremely nasty customers: Tell them to kiss off or just ignore them entirely. Ouch!
      His logic was that some customers are never happy. You likely could spend day and night trying to make them happy and find out your efforts were in vain. He pointed out that it also can take a lot of money to try and make those customers even remotely satisfied.
      His views followed the same logic as “firing” customers. It almost goes against everything you learn in business; but in some cases, certain customers really deserve—and should be—fired.
Fire Your Worst Customers
      Not too long ago, Sprint “fired” some of its worst customers. Many of these folks were the type who called repeatedly to complain with the hope that Sprint would knock money off their bills each month.
      It was a game to many of these customers, but not to Sprint employees who had to deal with them. Many of these customers were slow/no payers each month on the cheapest calling plans. In reality, they demanded the most and paid the least.
      It was practically impossible for the company to satisfy their needs without just giving them service for free each month. Even that would probably not have made them happy. (I can pretty much guarantee these former Sprint customers are driving customer service reps nuts at some other carrier today.)
      While you can question the way Sprint “fired” these customers, it is tough to say it was not justified in most cases. It only takes a few of these customers to cause morale problems throughout an entire organization.    
Focus on Your Loyal Customers
      Really bad customers can be like an infection in an organization. If one customer representative can’t make them happy, they call other ones; or supervisors, or  higher level supervisors, etc. They may eventually contact the president or CEO and all of a sudden things really hit the fan throughout the organization and involve hundreds of hours of employee time.
      Yes, it is important that we listen to our customers and try our best to meet their needs. Solicit feedback from them early and often and listen to what they are saying. Those are just sound business practices. But, don’t get caught in the trap of spending excessive time and money trying to satisfy the handful of folks who will never, ever be satisfied. Your time would be far better spent keeping your loyal customers happy.
   LINK: http://www.kcsmallbiz.com/web-columnists/june-2009-landsberg-why-do-we-focus-on-those-people-who-dislike-us-.html
 

   John Landsberg operates Bottom Line Communications, a Leawood-based marketing communications company. (913) 338-5760// [email protected] This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it