When Should You Fire a Customer?
Firing a customer might sound like great fun. After all, isn’t that what we are in business for – to make our own decisions and be our own boss? It’s not like we ever had the choice as an employee. If you work for a company, you’ve got to put up with all their customers – no matter what.
That being said, firing a customer is a very serious thing and should not be taken lightly. Personally, it’s always a last resort for me, and I only proceed when I have a very good reason to do so.
It’s a well-known fact that customer service will make or break a business. Take care of your customer and there’s no telling how far you can go – no matter what industry you’re in. Most companies today have made customer service their number one priority.
However, is it wise to allow customers to take advantage of you? As a business owner, how far should you be willing to go in order to satisfy your customers? To what lengths will you go in order to make the sale?
While it’s no secret that customer service should be part of your overall strategy, there are those that refuse to play by the rules and wind up costing your company more in the long run. Fortunately, these people are a minority and, for most companies, it’s just the cost of doing business.
However, if you run a small, one-person operation, one or two bad customers can really affect your bottom line. You might find yourself running around wasting precious time and resources while putting everyone else on hold. Ultimately, it just may not be worth it.
There are many reasons to fire a customer. One of the most valid would be to eliminate a time-waster. This is a person that will take advantage of all your company has to offer with no intention of ever purchasing your product or using your services.
In my gutter cleaning business, I’ve run into a few people that aren’t satisfied with a free estimate from the ground; they insist that I take out my 32 foot ladder, climb to the edge of the roof, and inspect their gutters. When I first started in this business, I didn’t know any better and I always, grudgingly, obliged. Well, you would assume that after going through all that trouble that most of them would hire me on the spot. Nope, many of them simply thanked me for the free inspection and said that they’d be in touch. Did I ever hear from them? Not a chance.
In my window cleaning business I’ve also run into customers I’ve had to fire. Many people just don’t understand that your time is valuable.
As an example: I always give a seven day guarantee for all my work. This allows the customer to inspect the job afterwards and get back to me within seven days. Although I have this policy in place, I have yet to return to touch up work that I’ve done. I’m very meticulous when it comes to doing a quality job because I simply don’t want people taking me up on my guarantee – I’d rather spend a few minutes after the job is done.
However, I have had two customers call to complain about my work. In both cases, the complaint was for something that was out of my control. One person wanted me to remove the hard water stains from her glass (after she allowed the sprinkler to soak the windows for years), and the other was unhappy because I hadn’t washed the screens (they were actually sun damaged and not dirty).
In both cases I returned to the job site and proceeded to try and fix the problems. I spent five hours trying to remove the hard water stains, and I spent another hour washing the screens. In both cases, I failed to produce the results they expected and wound up refunding their money. Both happily accepted the refund and made a point to tell me that they would be calling next year for their annual window cleaning. I’ve since blocked their numbers from my toll-free service – there is no way they can contact me, and I don’t want to hear from them.
Although this hasn’t happened to me, another reason for firing a customer would be for verbal or physical abuse. That would be a “one-strike-and-your-out” situation. I would never tolerate that.
Yet, I’ve been to retail stores where a customer is verbally abusing the sales staff, and the manager fails to do anything about it. In fact, I remember one customer that was verbally abusing a cashier. The employee was doing everything in her power to accommodate the person when they asked to see the manager. The manager came over and the first thing he did was to apologize profusely to the customer – giving them a significant discount on their purchase. Nothing was said to the cashier afterwards. If anything, she might have even been reprimanded for the incident at the end of her shift. I saw the entire thing and I can tell you that this particular customer was simply bullying the store employee because they knew they could get away with it.
Unfortunately, as employees, we have little choice when it comes to difficult customers. As a business owner, we have the power to fire certain people when they become a burden to our business. With that being said, always make rational decisions and keep emotions out of it. Eliminate troublesome customers because they’re affecting your bottom line, not because you’ve got personal issues with them.
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