I’ve posted before about my views of what I call “one-percenters” – those rarest of people who just plain think differently that the rest of us and have different expectations for customer service. In actuality, it’s more like one-tenth of one percent. I have thousands of customers, and only have 8 people on my one-percenter list. I think that’s pretty damn good. After being in business 8 years, there are only 8 people who I’ve made a mental note to never sell to again. The weird thing is that until last month, there were only 5 people on the list. I don’t think I’ve changed my attitude recently, so I’m a bit perplexed at things. Is it something in the water that Ducati owners may have drank?  IDK. Here’s a recap of events.

1. Customer wanted to get a free Hottie calendar with his preordered ST4S silicon hose set. When things fell apart with you know who, I circular-filed the calendars. Customer wanted a rebate for the price of the calendar, even though he never paid for one and the promotion said “while supplies last”. He got pissy over the lack of a calender, so I threw him into the circular file as well.

2.  I responded to series of emails from the customer up to his placing an order. He ordered the day I decided to leave for a 3 day weekend in the mountains, so I couldn’t ship until I got back. He got angry that I wouldn’t be able to ship the next day saying his bike had been laid up for 2 months and now I was the cause of him not being able to get things back together. I kindly responded that my customer service obviously didn’t match his needs, so I refunded his money and sent him politely on his way.

3. This was the worst ever.  Customer had placed quite a few orders with me over the past year. Several weeks ago he praised me that I’d get all of his business from now on (big red flag — a lot of flattery may mean mood swings). He ordered a fuel-injection box from me and sent me a question that hit my mailbox at 9 at night as I was climbing into bed. I was tired so waited until the next morning to reply. When I awoke a terse email was waiting for me that since I didn’t respond to his earlier email he would never order from me again (see, the mood swing… I told you). I used my canned response that I was sorry that my customer service didn’t match his needs and that it was best if our business relationship ceased. The customer then contacted Paypal and filed fraud cases against me for that order, plus the previous 3 orders, then sent me an email saying that he hoped I had fun dealing with Paypal. Oh yeah, he also called me a douch bag (I thought douch has an “e” on the end, but I decided not to correct him).

So there you have it. That’s a trifecta for a two month span. Is it something in the water? The luck of the draw? I don’t know. I’m careful to not let such occurrences effect my relationships with other customers, just as I don’t let any bad student experiences effect how I deal with other students. It does cause my blood pressure to go up though. Last week was particularly bad because sales decided to drop 50% for no apparent reason, so I didn’t need the customer issue. I’m getting better at not sweating the little things, but when it’s your business it’s hard to not take things personally.  My motto has always been that life is too short to put up with people lacking civility. If people wore such signs, they’d be a lot easier to spot. Of course, I don’t know how that would work for an e-business. 

Enjoy your work week.

TTYL – LT