This post is by Michael Pollock, the original owner of Small Business Branding. Yaro Starak now owns and produces the latest content for this blog.
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Damned psycho customers. They have no tact whatsoever. They’re more than happy to inform you – sometimes using language that would make a sailor cringe – just how bad your product or service is. Sure, it’s easy to just let them have their say, go away and then write them off as deranged and sorely in need of a Thorazine drip. And besides, you can’t please everybody. Right?
The only problem with that strategy is sometimes – many times – they’re right. And if they’re uninhibited enough to rip you a new one, do you think for one minute they’d hold back telling anyone and everyone they know just what they think about you? What’s more, it only takes one small rock to initiate an avalanche, and before you know it, you’re buried.
In fact, one study published by TARP, a customer loyalty research firm, suggests "on average, twice as many people are told about a bad experience than they are about a good experience." 2 for 1. Not a very good ratio, huh? And that study doesn’t even take into account what’s happening nowadays with the proliferation of blogs (e.g. Kryptonite locks takedown) and online forums (e.g. "coachville – it’s not what’s for dinner").
Of course, you could take the oh-so-refreshing Jones Soda approach to psycho customers:
"If you don’t like Jones Soda, if you’re not into it, I don’t give a
rat’s ass. I’m not going to change my formula to please you. That’s a
very profound statement because if you talk to companies today, they
say the customer’s always right. Well, no. Forget that. The customer’s
not always right. If you are always trying to cater to all of the
customers you have, you have no soul. You have to define yourself."You’re always going to piss people off. We had people pissed off
that we had a salt and pepper shaker on our label, because they said it
was promoting ‘racial commingling.’ You are an idiot. It’s a salt and
pepper shaker. There was a cue ball, and that was promoting cocaine.
There was a Zippo lighter and that was promoting ‘smoking and weed.’
The point is, fine, have a nice day. But I’m not going to pull those
off. Now do I have a kid being beaten? No. I had a salt and pepper
shaker."
Oh, to know oneself so well.