I remember in college taking a job as a waiter at a new restaurant. I have been waiting tables for a quite a while and knew the game pretty well. My very first customer, on my very first day, turned out to be “one of those” There was not a thing I could do to make this guy happy and it was quickly going bad, I thought I was going to be fired for sure. My boss was a very passionate and emotional woman about her restaurant. My only recourse was to say, “You know what, this guy is a jerk, and it was my day to serve him” She shrugged her shoulders and let it go. I got to keep my job and three years later the boss would walk through broken glass for me. It was life lesson that I use today in Ecommerce. Some people are just jerks.
I sell power tools on one my Ecommerce sites, and well, some people just should not own power tools. Most Ecommerce owners can tell you story after story about returns, and customer dissatisfaction and problems with delivery. I had a gentleman order a particular part and type in the wrong address in the shopping cart. So, guess where we delivered it? Right to that address, which was wrong but is somehow my fault. So the dance begins we go around and around about how to solve this dilemma. I get rude emails about how stupid we are and yada yada yada. I am trying to be cool calm and collect when it suddenly occurs to me. I don’t need this guy as a customer and he can take his part and stick it in his ear for all I care. So I fired him! Yes that is right, vamoose, your gone, here is your money back and your not welcome here any more. I can write off the $40 sale as a loss and preserve my mental health. Sometimes that is more important than anything, keeping your mind clear and focused. Why feed the stress machine?
So what’s my point? Well good customer service does solve a lot of problems, you can many times turn a negative into a positive by using good techniques such as follow up and discounts. But sometimes, you just have to turn the fire hose on and clean house a bit. Some customers are just not worth having. If you are new to the Ecommerce game, then don’t be eager to put this into regular practice, just keep it in the back of your mind that these situations exist. The customer may very well be like my passionate restaurant owner, mad one day, and then, your best customer for life.
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