Sacking Customers

Sooner or later in most businesses, you have to fire a customer.

The relationship may simply be a bad fit. Those are the easiest situations. There can be amicable and respectful separations. But the usual break is less direct and far less pleasant. Some customers are impossible to please, some are flat-out rude, and a few are crazier than bedbugs.

The biggest mistake is to refuse to sever a relationship because of money. As I tell my classes on harassment prevention, would you want to tell your employees, "You know, if someone pays us a lot of money, we let them harass you?" A public works executive put it even better: "We wouldn't let someone abuse our machinery. Why would we let anyone abuse our employees?"

The decision to fire the customer is often a matter of self-respect. Some customers skirt the edges of improper conduct, coming close to the breaking point, and then backing away. A few are so skilled at doing so that it is natural to suspect that they enjoy it. You are fortunate if you can spot that type before you commit to the project, but once you do, if at all possible, drop them like a hot rock.

Life is too short to be a door mat.

Customer Service: Slick or Genuine?

David Brooks once noted how furniture styles evolved from chrome and smooth lines to distressed wood and antique effects. It appeared to be evolution in reverse but it was an indication of a desire for the genuine as opposed to the slick; coffee beans from a paper bag instead of ground coffee in a can.

I've been reviewing various books on customer service and have been struck by how often they propose transparently slick techniques for "handling" the customer instead of addressing the customer's real concerns. There is a need to cut through the techniques so the customer gets one thing first and foremost: Respect.

Respect means:

• Listening for the customer's concerns, not for an opportunity to voice your own.


• Adapting your approach to those concerns. A customer who is in a hurry may not want to hear about this week's sale.


• Being knowledgeable about your product. You are supposed to be the resident expect and, if that is not the case, the expert should be readily available.


• Treating the customer like a human being and not a prospect or an account. Human beings have fears and vanities that are far from irrelevant and deserve attention.


• Doing what you say you will do.


• Following up to make sure that other members of your team did what they said they would do.


• Listening for ways in which products and services can be improved.


• Always being courteous and thanking the customer for being a customer.


• Making the person feel important.

Open Dialogue

Conversation with a small business owner:

"How's business?"
"Fantastic!"
"Is that true?"
"Er, sure."
"If it were not true, how would you respond?"
"Fantastic!"
"Why not tell the truth?"
"Because people don't go to businesses that are in trouble. If they sense a problem, that's the kiss of death."
"Slow down. You're telling me that if you're honest with your customers, they'll run away?"
"At least in that regard. They don't want to hear sad stories. They want to hear that everything is running smoothly."
"That's odd, but I guess it makes sense."
"You bet it does."
"So setting business aside for a moment, how are you personally doing?"
"Fantastic!"