I am merely a researcher, the closest I have come to being in business is when I walk into one to buy something. With that footnote out of the way...
I would agree with the premise that some customers are a pain in the neck and in many other mentionable and unmentionable parts of the anatomy. I would agree that a retail company might well be better off if they did not have those customers. Assuming, as you say, that they are both difficult and unprofitable. However, this does not mean that the company is better off getting rid of such customers. The problem is that you are treating the obnoxious rude unprofitable difficult customer as though he/she (most likely he) was an isolate. And as though the world had two static states: a) damn troublemaker customer still here; and b) whew! the idiot is gone! However, the world is a bit more dynamic than that, they probably won't go quietly, rather they will continue with renewed vigor to spew invectives about your service and products. So as you rid yourself of a problem, but lose many potential good customers in the process. And disillusion others of your current customers who had some mental model of you as a peer, as a company with a shared interest in good photography (or audio or whatever) products at a good price, as a company where you sympathize with the customer because you share their love of the passion (photography/easy listening/whatever) which leads them to indulge in with your products. Oops! Now it seems that you are after all a company out to make a profit at whatever moral costs. In short, the process of "dropping" the troublemakers may be more trouble than it is worth. One of the implicit assumptions of this discussion is the the only raison d' outre for a business is to make as large a profit as possible, no matter what. But since we accord corporations the rights of living breathing citizens (e.g., first amendment rights to buy and sell politicians), I would like to think that in return we might expect good citizenly behavior from corporations. In that idealistic world, I can see a bar or restaurant or audio/video/photo store deciding that "difficult" customers should be banned to save wear and tear on the nerves of the employees and of other customers. However, the wealthy, steady purchaser would be just as likely to be bounced for bad behavior, and the choice would not relate to the profitable/unprofitable issue at all. And by the way, when will you start stocking the Pentax 645-D and how will it be priced? [There! Back on topic!] stan > On Feb 4, 2010, at 10:14 AM, Henry Posner wrote: > > ... the real issue ... is -- are there customers too expensive or too > troublesome for a company to keep and does a company benefit from purposely > dropping unprofitable and difficult customers? > > -- - > > regards, > Henry Posner > Director of Corporate Communications > B&H Photo-Video, and Pro-Audio > http://www.bhphotovideo.com/ > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
