High Maintenance Clients: Should We Break Up?

An interesting article appears from 2007 demonstrating that Sprint had more kahunas than most frustrated customer service reps when it “broke up” with a group of high maintenance customers. The note went like this:

“Our records indicate that over the past year, we have received frequent calls from you regarding your billing or other general account information. While we have worked to resolve your issues and questions to the best of our ability, the number of inquiries you have made to us during this time has led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs. Therefore after careful consideration, the decision has been made to terminate your wireless service agreement effective July 30, 2007.“

Sprint explains that these customers impact the service given to other customers causing long delays in service.

This leads to the question of the day. Especially during this recession. Should you break up with high maintenance clients?

You know the old addage that 20% of your customers provide 99% of your income and I’ll add to this that at least 10% of your customers demand 100% of your attention at one time or another and don’t care how many other customers suffer because of this. It’s difficult to offer good customer service with these types of clients.

But more importantly the provider has to set the tone for the expectations of the relationship. Nobody likes fine print but when it comes to customer service and support, it seems to be a necessary evil. There is always at least one of your clients that is going to abuse the privilege and skew the system.

During this recession, some of our clients have reported that a good percentage of people  are willing to abuse the system most likely out of lack of funds and desperation to get things without having to pay for them. Certainly on their side they can claim that something is wrong with your service or product, but the fact of the matter is that for some people it’s time to lay down the law or cut your losses.

Life is too short to let a few bad apples to ruin the bunch. If you find that more than 1% of your customers are taking advantage of you, it’s time to write a bit of fine print and put that out in the view of your customers so they understand what you will and will not do to please them. This is especially true of first time customers.

Even Zappos.com has tiered their services for loyal customers vs. new customers.

The retailer had typically upgraded both first-time and repeat customers to overnight shipping even though it wasn’t advertising that perk. But starting in 2009, Zappos will no longer offer overnight upgrades to first-time visitors. Instead, CEO Tony Hsieh is moving those dollars into a new VIP service for Zappos’ most loyal shoppers. [1]

Sprint may have raised eyebrows when they “fired” their high maintenance customers, but in these hard times it ‘s becoming more and more important to cut costs and cut your losses early with problem customers.  This provides you an opportunity to provide the type of customer service to the rest of your loyal customers that is needed to survive in the current business climate.