Is it ever okay to fire your customers? The small or struggling business may gasp in horror, “NEVER!” But the truth is that we fire customers everyday; too often in a passive aggressive manner of being slow to respond, offering shoddy products or delivering sub-par service.
You should delight your customers but I think that customers should delight you as well. Otherwise, what’s the point? Oh yeah, money… but sometimes there’s not enough money in the world to make certain customers worth it so why not focus on finding customers that are a delight to delight! Businesses are, after all, relationships and don’t we all work harder to maintain & nurture relationships we enjoy?
I’m sure most of you have heard by now about Sprint’s decision to fire about 1,000 customers. You might have reacted in outrage or bemusement at Goliath telling David that he’s tired of being pelted with those stones, so just go away.
Sprint’s in the business of making money and when you have a significant population of customers who are costing you more money than they return in profit — yeah – get rid of them. According to Sprint these ‘customers’ were averaging 50 calls a month to customer service. In my view that’s pathological. Sprint nicely informed them that it was pretty obvious they weren’t happy with Sprint so we think you should take your business to someone who can make you happy.
It was the business equivalent of, “It’s not you, it’s me!”
A question to ponder, as posed by Seth Godin, “What would happen if you fired (nicely) the very few customers that take your best effort but rarely appreciate it or spread the word?”
I think you’ll be happier, your employees will be happier and it will be easier to delight the customers you keep . After all, sometimes, “It’s not me, it’s you!“
