Time to take out the trash…
Today’s email is inspired by a question I answered on Quora.
The person asked how they should respond to a customer who accused them of “false advertising” for not including an end date on a promotional email.
First of all, the premise here is silly. The lifespan of any email, especially a promotion is naturally SHORT.
If it doesn’t get read, deleted, or ignored within the first day or 2, max, it isn’t going to. Digging up a promotional email from weeks or months or ago and expecting the company to honor it is an exercise in futility. And likely to fail.
I’m not writing this today to tell you to put end dates on your emails. Nor am I going to start putting end dates on mine.
I’m writing this because this question demonstrates a major mistake in how many of us think about customers, and about business.
This person asked how to respond to this customer. The question, like most questions, betrays their assumption.
They’re operating under the model of “the customer is always right.” They think they need to do something to ease this person’s concern, win them back over, make the situation right… whatever.
In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
We all know all customers are NOT created equal. Some are great, buying again and again and again without ever having any problems. You’ve probably never even spoke to these people, an you might not know they exist.
Others are average, neither good nor bad. And still others, hopefully a small minority, are just bad customers.
They ask stupid questions. They demand refunds and file credit card disputes. They harass customer service workers and DEMAND that a “manager” call them right away.
And yes, they make ridiculous claims like the one in this question.
Everything else equal, we want more of the good customers and less of the bad in our businesses. Ideally we could eliminate the bad customers all together.
But this is difficult. We don’t know who the bad ones are, until they rear their ugly head. And sometimes it’s too late.
Someone accusing you of “false advertising” because they sat on an old email too long is a gift, really. They’ve outed themselves as the worst kind of customer.
The only thing left to do is to get rid of them.
If they’ve already bought something, you may want to refund them. At very least, turn off all automatic renewals.
Then unsubscribe them from all email lists, block them in your credit card software, and never mention any of this to them.
This includes not replying to the accusatory email at all. Nothing good can come of it.
You aren’t mad at this person. You don’t need to get any petty revenge on them.
You just need them gone.
So make it happen, forget them, and go back to making money.
They’ll probably forget all about you soon enough anyways. Good riddance.
— Mark
P.S. This email is just one example of how you can avoid major customer problems by doing things right.
It’s pure 80/20.
The problem you prevent is ALWAYS better than the problem you handle.
And the 80/20 Service Guide gives you the blueprint to get it right the first time.
Get it here: https://gumroad.com/l/rkbth/VIP
