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Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009

Sometimes it’s vital to drop customers

Make the customer happy. The customer is always right. These are sayings I’ve heard for most of my business career. They make for great corporate mottos but they should not be the primary focus of your business. Operating with excellence is much more important than always making the customer happy. There are some customers you just can’t make happy! Trying to do so will prevent your business from operating with excellence.

I often hear that it is vitally importance to retain customers. I watch businesses struggle to make customers happy and volunteer organizations stretch their limited resources to cater to the desires of all members. Being all things to all people in the effort to retain them all is never a good philosophy. I am aware that the economy is down, and businesses, more than ever, are motivated to please customers. Yet, certain customers will retard your growth if you work to retain them.

If you have ever worked with plants, you are probably familiar with the concept of pruning. Getting rid of old growth often accelerates new growth in plants. If you plant a fruiting plant, it is best to remove fruit in the early years of its growth so it can put its effort into growing. A young plant builds its “infrastructure” more effectively if it can focus its energy only on growing, not on producing fruit.

The same can be true of an organization. Certain customers are complainers, and no matter how much effort you put into retaining them, they will consume far more time than the revenue you earn from them. They might pull your business in directions you don’t want to follow if you focus on meeting all their needs. I have seen businesses stray from their core strengths, their infrastructure, to meet the needs of demanding customers who aren’t going to be happy even if the entity meets all their needs.

When you stray from your area of expertise to meet the need of a chronic complainer, you risk damaging the reputation of your business in several ways. First of all, because you are in business territory that is not your strength, the risk for error is even higher. And remember, you are already working with a touchy customer. You have created a volatile situation when you mix the complaining customer with a service outside your core strength. You are more likely to fail when you are not working in your areas of strength, and when you do, not only will you hear about it from the complaining customer, everyone they know will hear about it, too.

As difficult as it may be, you should focus on your core strengths and prune away those customers who are chronic complainers. It is better to have an excellent small business, with excellent customers who value the core services you provide, than one that is larger but is spread thin and offers mediocre service to customers who tell everyone how poorly you meet their needs. Just as diseased limbs should be pruned from a tree, you should sever ties with certain customers who infect your company with negativity. It’s not always easy to do, but businesses who have culled their complaining customers discover they have much more energy for growth when they eliminate the deadwood.

Ann Smith is a small-business consultant based in Macon.