{"id":31020,"date":"2014-05-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hyken.com\/some-customers-arent-worth-doing-business-with\/"},"modified":"2023-09-13T17:48:18","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T17:48:18","slug":"customers-arent-worth-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-experience\/customers-arent-worth-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Customers Aren\u2019t Worth Doing Business With"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hyken.com\/customer-experience-2\/customers-arent-worth-business\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-5072 size-full\" title=\"customer service speaker shep hyken\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hyken.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Fire-Bad-Customers-Low-Res.jpg\" alt=\"Fire Bad Customers - Low Res\" width=\"360\" height=\"432\" \/><\/a><\/h2>\r\n<h2>Bad Customers are bad for the Company&#8217;s Culture<\/h2>\r\nOne of my favorite topics to write and speak about is what happens when the customer is not right.\u00a0 I love to say it\u2026\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>The customer is NOT always right!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\r\n<em>But, they are always the customer.\u00a0 So if they are wrong, let them be wrong with dignity and respect.\u00a0<\/em><\/blockquote>\r\nIt&#8217;s okay for customers to be misinformed or make a mistake.\u00a0 However, sometimes the customer is not only &#8220;not right,&#8221; they are abusive and disrespectful toward the people who are trying to do their best to help them, our employees.\r\n\r\nI decided it was time to resurrect this concept after hearing the same story three times in one week.\u00a0 It&#8217;s an old Southwest Airlines Herb Kelleher story that I first heard years ago.\u00a0 The short version is that a passenger kept writing the airline about how unhappy she was.\u00a0 She didn&#8217;t like the boarding process, not having an assigned seat, a small bag of peanuts versus a meal and more.\u00a0 After a number of letters, one of them finally made its way to Herb Kelleher, the CEO of the airline.\u00a0 He took the time to respond.\u00a0 He wrote:\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>We&#8217;re going to miss you.\u00a0 Love Herb<\/em><\/h3>\r\nThis simple response sent a clear message to the customer: We appreciate you, but it&#8217;s not working out.\u00a0 It also sent a message to the employees.\u00a0 We appreciate you, and we value you to the point that we&#8217;re willing to put you ahead of the customer.\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Some customers aren&#8217;t worth doing business with!<\/strong><\/p>\r\nWhen I use that line at some of my speaking engagements, it&#8217;s almost always met with applause.\u00a0 In other words, it&#8217;s okay to fire a customer \u2013 certain customers!\u00a0 Abusive and disrespectful customers can bring down the morale of the company.\u00a0 They can take fulfillment out of the employees&#8217; jobs.\u00a0 They can suck the positive energy out of the culture and put employees in a bad mood.\u00a0 And, they can make it worse for the next customer.\r\n\r\nA <a href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-experience-2\/customer-service-must-deeply-rooted-companys-culture\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">company&#8217;s culture<\/a> that evokes the <em>customer is always right <\/em>rule is just fine until the customer is wrong to the point of being abusive.\u00a0 Then it creates a dilemma for the employee.\u00a0 It gives a customer the advantage in that they can bully an employee, pushing them to the point of being very uncomfortable.\u00a0 This makes an employee apprehensive about what is the right or wrong thing to do.\u00a0 It can take away an employee&#8217;s dignity and self-respect. It can also cause an employee to lose respect and resent his or her manager and even the company.\r\n\r\nThe customer is <em>not <\/em>always right.\u00a0 And some customers aren&#8217;t worth doing business with.\u00a0 It&#8217;s okay.\u00a0 Toxic customers may be bad for you and your company&#8217;s health.\r\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shep Hyken<\/a>\u00a0is a customer service\/CX expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. Learn more about Shep\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/speaking\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">customer service and customer experience keynote speeches<\/a>\u00a0and his\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/training\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">customer service training workshops<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hyken.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.Hyken.com<\/a>. Connect with Shep on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/shephyken\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>(Copyright \u00a9MMXIV, Shep Hyken)<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bad Customers are bad for the Company&#8217;s Culture One of my favorite topics to write and speak about is what happens when the customer is not right.\u00a0 I love to say it\u2026 The customer is NOT always right! But, they are always the customer.\u00a0 So if they are wrong, let them be wrong with dignity [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53407,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6791],"tags":[5103,5104],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.5 (Yoast SEO v22.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Some Customers Aren\u2019t Worth Doing Business With<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of my favorite topics to write and speak about is what happens when the customer is not right. 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