# Firing Customers -- a goal most forget



## treefox2118 (Sep 23, 2010)

I decided this spring to start firing our worst customers. When it comes to running a business, people often forget that bad customers are usually bad people who treat everyone like dirt.

So since May 1st, I've fired 1 bad customer a week. Today was my 4th this month.

The weight that is lifted when you let someone go is cathartic, it's freeing. My staff is happier because we don't have to deal with their disrespect. When I do it, my staff knows I respect them. I've done it in front of other customers and explained to them that the bad ones harm everyone because we have to price the headaches into everyone's prices.

When they say "I'm going to tell everyone to not shop here", I always smile and say "Good luck with your future print supplier."

19 years of firing customers and I'd say 40-80% of them (depending on the market) come back to us eventually, and act like nothing happened. Of course I'm happy to take them back, at a much higher price since it's a "new account".


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## valleyboy_1 (Jan 23, 2010)

How do you fire them? Tell us the juicy stuff


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## Louie2010 (Feb 26, 2010)

I have spent my entire adult life in the business of dealing with the general public, so I understand completely the value of knowing that there is a small percentage of customers that one is better off not doing business with. 

I also understand the importance of both understanding and knowing ones profit margins, and then targeting those customers that achieve that verses taking any order.

However this is where you and I depart. Having an actual goal to "fire" customers, to also seemingly take pleasure from doing so, and then going to the extent of having a form at the ready IMO seems extreme, and indicates too much of an adversarial attitude.

IMO if you find yourself "firing" a customer weekly, and then taking pleasure in it should be a warning for a little self examination as to why? 

When dealing with the public you deal with all and every type of personalities, and yes how some will line up with yours will often be challenging. However I don't believe that there are so many that are truly problem customers to the point where they can't also be profitable customers. Many times it requires better communication and training from ourselves and our employees. For certain people it requires more work on our parts in order to both empathize with the customers situations and individual personalities, quirks and all. 

It is so easy to slowly fall into the trap of an "us against them" mentality and not even realize it. Instead of giving employees an excuse to find faults in customers, I believe in demanding they constantly work at bettering their skills of understanding and correctly communicating with them. Of course this doesn't mean you would allow someone to curse or belittle an employees, but if a staff is professional those types are not going to be very common occurrence.

It is also important for a staff to have proper sales training in order to more efficiently sell the customer the benefits of your company and service, and how to handle a customer wanting to only paying $40 when you need to charge $45, so that doesn't even become an issue brought to your attention to where you feel the need to fire them over it. Or for that matter how if they can't overcome that they can properly turn that customer over to you in order for you to have the opportunity of selling them at the right pricing.

I apologize if this comes across too critical, because that isn't my intentions. I completely understand the frustrations that come with dealing with the public for many years. I just want to suggest that in the long run it is better for a business and yes even more satisfying if your figure out how to convert most of the difficult customers into satisfied profitable ones.


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

Wow! you sell business cards for $45? That is cheap!


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## Hegemone (Oct 18, 2011)

I have never needed to fire anyone I simply put my cards on the table and the customer makes there decision. A negative word never leaves my mouth. In a small town, really any size town, future customers rarely hear both sides of a story and very often bad customers and oppourtunistic competitors have loud mouths. It is poor business for me to give ANYONE ammunition to hand a future customer or competitor. In this way I am never in a position to need to defend myself because the client is always making the decision to not work with me. Good clients are rewarded with perks and others get what they ask for, a good product at the price I quoted. If any of my staff is catching flack I immediately take the situation over and handle it. I am the owner and I get paid enough to smile politely and steer the situation and customers.

As a person I strive to be as good a customer to businesses as I would like to have come into my shop. I have worked in retail, at universities, and in the tech industry and have been on both sides of the counter. I have witnessed first hand companies fail because of talking behind a customers back, being unprofessional, or making inflamatory statements. But at least those failed companies knew that they were right when they closed the doors. I can only do what is right for me, treat everyone (even a bad customer) with respect and sometimes undeserved courtesy and count on the fact that good referrals come from good service and nothing good comes from adding fuel to a fire. Working this way, making money, and gaining customers allows the other stuff to fade off into darkness.

This is my two cents. Toss them in a well and make a wish.


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## treefox2118 (Sep 23, 2010)

Louie2010:

I'm a lover and ardent supporter of markets. If you abide modern day economists (drivel, pure and simple), they look at a "supplier" and a "customer". This is an unrealistic description. In fact, it's wrong. BOTH parties are gaining a profit in a transaction. You may think a "customer" is buying my product with his money. Wrong. I am buying his money with my product. If his money isn't up to par because his service is junk, I won't pay him with my product.

I have quite a reputation in a certain consulting industry -- I walk away. I've up and left meetings with bigwigs because of the belief that I am to degrade myself or my reputation because they want to negotiate. Negotiations happen when there is time. If someone is pressed for time, there is no negotiation. This neighbor of mine has been bad news since day 1. When I searched his emails in our archives, for 2 years we hounded him for payment, for files, for approval of proofs. Every email we send costs me $2-$4 gross. Add it up yourself and see. When the jerk has the gall to negotiate with the employee of mine picking up a check, and doing the negotiation with a bad attitude, he's fired. Gone. I told him to go to VistaPrint and good luck.

Binki: $45 is for reprints of previous artwork. In this guy's case, because he is our neighbor, I waived the $15 artwork fee and proof fee to change an email address and name. It was a 10 minute job to fix ($4 in labor), plus an email back and forth ($4-$8 in labor). The $40.50 for the cards ($4.50 in tax) still would net me a net profit after overhead of around $22. Not too shabby for literally 20 minutes of work, total. Business cards are loss leaders -- people hand them out, and others ask where they got them. It drives about 40% of our new customers in the door already.

Valleyboy: First I told him his check was rejected and to come (3 doors down, same side of the street) and pick it up. He asked why. I told him it wasn't the proper amount and we would need the proper amount to fix it. His response? "That's what I always pay." I checked (wasted 10 minutes of my time looking over past invoices) and saw that it wasn't. I also saw that he used the same line on 3 previous jobs where I waived fees. So I told him "We will return your check. You're fired." He emailed back a few times, I told him he can pay us a $60/hour email consulting fee if he wants to discuss his firing. Haven't heard back from him.

Hegemone: I owned retail stores in the sticks back in the day -- really small towns of a few thousand people. I fired retail customers then, too. Why? Because I can tell a jackhole when I meet one. If a jerk goes and tells their friends about my attitude, I usually end up with work because of it. In 2013, I know I've gotten 20 smallish clients who said "I heard you stopped working with (so and so), they're really mad about it, I had to come see the guy who finally told them to hit the road." Bad people are rarely told to go away. I keep a handful of my competitor's cards in my desk and I am happy to hand them to people if they don't understand my policy.

If someone is in a rush, here's a price. It's non-negotiable. They have 15 minutes to make a payment, or I start billing a consultation fee of $15 per quarter hour. That's non-negotiable. A gal came in today who wanted 2500 flyers for TOMORROW. This was at 6pm. Glossy, 5x7, on a Friday night. I told her $175 plus tax, she paid it. We'll have them ready at 7am. 2 weeks ago, I fired TWO people (club promoters) over the exact same package, both on Friday at 5pm.

Why? Because if they can get it cheaper elsewhere, they should! Why would they come back to me anyway? I don't need those headaches.

Now, if a customer has 2 weeks till they need their product, I'm happy to negotiate, up until the deadline to submit the job into our workflow. I'll go back and forth all week (but I keep track of my time, and I tell them what I am billing them for invoice negotiation).

10 years ago, I hadn't been concerned about reputation from jerks, because I had more people sing my praises. That was pre-big Internet days. Now, 80% of our customers are online -- and I still fire some of them. 300 million people in the States, I'm not worried about angering the jerks.

Last week I fired one of the most insane customers ever. You know the type: "My garment line" "my fashion brand" "my hot summer designz" (with a Z). Wasted 20 hours of our time, and when it came time to print samples, she didn't have $150 to her name. Fired. With a big smile, and a cocky smirk, I handed her a VistaPrint card and said "Good luck, have a nice day, if you want our artwork, it's $1200." Bu-bye.


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

We almost fired a customer yesterday and it turned out we only had to make one adjustment to an embroidery job we did for him. I spent about 10 minutes fixing the problem and he was happy and we saved a customer. 

The lesson here is to first seek to understand, then to be understood.


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## T-Styles (Oct 3, 2006)

So you invoice your customers for emails and fire any of them that raise an issue...


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## Hegemone (Oct 18, 2011)

Thanks for sharing your experiences. It's sounds like you have it all figured out for yourself when it comes to working with jackholes, jerks, gals so on and so forth. There are things to learn from every situation and sharing your point of view is a valuable tool for all of us. 

This quote personally resonates with me when reflecting on difficult situations:

"Our ego is our silent partner-too often with a controlling interest."
-- Cullen Hightower


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## treefox2118 (Sep 23, 2010)

binki: If a customer earns us a profit long term, there's zero reason to fire them. Losing on a job, or even 30% of jobs, means nothing if the relationship is a gain for both parties. I would say that at least once a week, I refund one job entirely. Maybe we were late, maybe the color was off, whatever the case -- if a customer isn't happy, I just refund and move on. But if it's the same customer who is never happy, but they keep coming back, it's obvious to me they're just trying to get something for nothing.

T-Styles: Why wouldn't I invoice my customers for communications? We sell our product below most Internet pricing. That way, we're cheaper than online. But, if they want customer service, not just products, they pay for the service.

If they walk in the door and they're new, they get 15 minutes to discuss. After 15 minutes, the billing clock starts ticking, and I let them know this. Online shops don't have in-person assistance, so they can be cheap. We're open 7 days a week, and extended hours (up to midnight, most days). Try getting that for free, anywhere. It's 10:50am on a Sunday and I have 2 guys working the front desk now -- because people need promotional goods, and most people have "real jobs" and can't come in during the work week.

Hegemone: There's no reason to fire a customer over small disagreements: as long as the company profits, and the customer feels they're gaining what they want, then move on from petty disagreements. The customers I fire are the ones who continuously waste our time and either we lose money on, or we lose precious time when we can be working with others.

This industry has endless money to be made. Endless. Why waste your seconds or minutes or hours on a jerk? Fire them.


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## Hegemone (Oct 18, 2011)

treefox2118 said:


> Hegemone: There's no reason to fire a customer over small disagreements: as long as the company profits, and the customer feels they're gaining what they want, then move on from petty disagreements. The customers I fire are the ones who continuously waste our time and either we lose money on, or we lose precious time when we can be working with others.
> 
> This industry has endless money to be made. Endless. Why waste your seconds or minutes or hours on a jerk? Fire them.


I am not sure I get why you addressed this to me. I a not asking you to explain or justify your point of view.

By the way I am in a medium sized city. And all my experiences range from small town ("sticks") to major metropolitan cities and I have found most principles apply everywhere but it's a matter of how immediately visible the fallout/result is. 

My two cents toss them in a well and make a wish.


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## lrsbranding (Aug 6, 2011)

Yea..I don't know about the whole firing customers as a goal thing. I respect your way of doing business but are your employee's able to discern when it is necessary? One of our competition shops is a mega multi location printer that could buy me over a hundred times and not even notice. I have received more business from them than any other method because they are so hard to work with. And the funny thing is that the customers that came to me because of them are some of the nicest people I have worked with. Not once haggled over anything, cycle time or price. Now I am in the process of buying some equipment from another shop that is closing and getting her clients too because none of them will deal with the other shop. I understand you can't give it away, but be careful you don't drive it away.


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

treefox2118 said:


> ... But if it's the same customer who is never happy, but they keep coming back, it's obvious to me they're just trying to get something for nothing...


That is the way we are. This guy in particular was on his second order and his second complaint. Getting him in the store with his product cleared the problem. 

We have fired customers though, mostly wholesale customers, who abused our good nature.


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## EXTouch (Mar 22, 2007)

I've never "fired" a customer, but in a sense, have done the same. We put our prices out there and I'm not going to let my company be nickeled and dimed. If you feel you can get a better quality product for cheaper elsewhere, by all means, feel free to shop there. Our prices are what they are and I always try and put our best quote on the table from the beginning. I think the "formal firing" of a customer is a bit much lol. 

But also have had the same experiences that some of the same jerk customers who try and treat US like we're the bad guy for whatever reason (and we've been through them all), in 9 years, I can honestly only think of one who hasn't come back.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

I have been on both sides of this......I have to admit sometimes I push my suppliers too hard and they no longer want to do business with me......On the other hand, I have had clients push too hard and I "fire" them......It is not realistic for every business to do business with everyone that comes there way......We need to pick and choose the customers we want and let the rest go....


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## EXTouch (Mar 22, 2007)

All business isn't "good" business.


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