5 Techniques to Lose Any Client, Employee, or Customer
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
Let’s be honest, business would be much easier if you could do what you want, how you want, without worrying about the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of the people interacting with your business. Those pesky clients, employees, and customers are taking up your valuable time when you already know that your way is the right way! So, you could take Mr. Gates’ advice and conduct research to determine what people think about your business, where you can improve, and ultimately make decisions that add value and grow your business, or you can use any of these 5 easy techniques to get rid of any client, customer, or employee.
5. Low Quality Product or Service
We start off our list with a classic technique – provide a bad product or service. If people feel they got ripped-off, they will leave and never return. Customers liked to feel valued and by providing a high-quality product or service that exceeds their expectations they will become frequent patrons of your business. To prevent this from happening, work to make sure your product or service is below par and below expectations. Customers will then happily take their business elsewhere and then they are your competitors’ problem.
The top complaint we see related to quality of service is service or product not meeting customers’ expectations. Consumers enter a customer experience with expectations either based on previous experiences or personal viewpoints. As each individual has their own thoughts and opinions, it can be difficult to match up to varying levels of expectations. However, if your product or service is of high quality and perceived to provide high value, then customers are happy and will return. To determine how customers feel about your service or product, you have to actually talk to the customers.
4. Slow Service
When this technique is paired with the Low-Quality Product or Service technique, customers will be leaving your business faster than you can say “undskyld” - sorry in Danish. If there is something people hate more than feeling like they wasted their money, it is feeling like they waited a long time to waste their money. Slow service – whether that is completing a task for someone or a slow consumer experience in a store – agitates people. Couple slow service when you know the customer is in a rush – needing a repair on their truck in the middle of a project, needing your analyses to create a client presentation -- and you will have extremely angry former customers.
Top complaint we see for speed of service is that delays by the business causes a trickle effect of delays to other businesses, projects, clients, customers, etc. Often consumers are left wondering why there are delays as no explanations are given.
3. Bad Website Design
In the digital age most people prefer to find their answers online rather than talking to a person. People get frustrated when your website doesn’t load quickly, has poor choices in color and font, and is difficult to navigate. This one is an especially effective way to lose customers – because you can lose them before you even have them! To lose customers, your website should have jarring color combinations, varying size fonts, and be completely illogical. Basically, your website should be like a trip down the rabbit hole to Wonderland, but without the fun talking animals.
Top complaint we see related to website design is difficulty navigating the website – section headers do not make sense, no search box or the search box pulls up irrelevant content, or content is buried in the site. Lack of updates to the site, no easy way to contact the business, and slow loading are additional complaints we see.
2. Unknowledgeable Customer Service Staff
When a customer cannot find what they are looking for on your website and has to resort to calling your business, the first way to anger them is to make it hard for them to talk to an actual person. Have an unhelpful robot take your customers on a winding journey through your phone system just to have them end up back at the start. If someone is able to defeat your robot and get connected with a human, then make sure that human has no knowledge of the issue the customer has. Customer service staff should be like the repair man who has “never seen a model quite like yours”. Meaning, they may have general knowledge about your business, but not enough to be helpful to the customer.
Top complaints we see related to customer service staff are they are difficult to get a hold of, are not the right person to help with the issue, and do not provide a solution to the issue. People want to talk to a person who can actually help them. For example, a customer calling about an equipment issue wants to speak to someone who has knowledge about the equipment and can provide solutions. Often customers are directed to a general help center which does not have this specific knowledge.
1. Bad Communication – No Communication is even better!
If you only use one technique on this list to lose your customers, nothing will make them leave faster than Bad Communication! Related to the above technique, having Unknowledgeable Customer Service Staff, if it is impossible to talk to a person, then customers cannot give their complaints and you don’t have to hear them or deal with them. Also, if there is a problem or delay in the service or product a customer has purchased, do not communicate this information to them. Ignorance is bliss.
This is the number one complaint we see with any business struggling to retain customers, clients, and/or employees. When people feel left in the dark, they get frustrated, feel they are under-valued, and are getting a low-quality service/experience. Even though people may get upset when you say there is a delay, if a legitimate explanation is given, they will understand.
Conclusion
Use some or all of these techniques and soon you will have no clients, employees, or customers to bother you – so proceed with caution!