Sacking Customers

Here are the words of two attendees from recent Let's Talk seminars where we often bang on about why we should sack difficult customers!

And I quote from an article in the Mail On Sunday by Helen Beckett:

Last year Matt Somers, owner of Peak, a Sunderland-based company offering bespoke training in management skills began sacking customers who behaved badly. And the results have been impressive.

'In the last year turnover has risen by 25 per cent and profits have been boosted by up to 10 per cent,' he says. 'They quibble about price and constantly squeeze you for more...I realised that many businesses shared the problem and it was OK to do something about it'

Laura Brown, director of Leeds-based event management company Circle Events, also sees advantages in turning away bad business.
'I very politely told a customer that he could call back when he knew what his budget was for an event,' she says. Brown believes the business has benefited from saving time on nurturing flaky customers. 'We've gained more credibility as a result,' she says.

I reckon that "Pond Life" generally accounts for 20 per cent of a business's customer base, but they can soak up 80 per cent of its time and resources. That's time that can be more profitably spent winning business from good customers. It seems like a no-brainer to me!


TAKE ACTION
Write a list of your worst customers... Which ones would you like to sack?
What are you going to do?



RELEVANT LINKS:
Circle Events
Peak
Let's Talk seminars
Mail On Sunday article - "Awkward Customers? Well Sack Them"
Get Rid of The Scum - entry on this blog