Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users shares with us some of the pitfalls of listening to all your users (customers) and how to go about filtering the negative feedback. I would think that it would be good to listen to your customers, but there are some customers you should not listen to and Kathy advices us that these are customers to "completely ignore":
* The Haters
* The Uncaring
My view of haters is this: "Haters" are just downright rude and don't provide valuable feedback. They proceed to rant, but do not offer some kind of solution or suggestion so that you can improve your business to please them. Haters will tell everyone in the world how much they hate you, but won't tell it to your face. Haters are simply jealous of your company and probably wish they were in your shoes right now.
I would categorize the Uncaring with the Haters, although uncaring people are probably more self-absorbed. The Uncaring don't necessarily hate you or your company, but could really care less whether or not you succeed to help them. They feel that there are other companies out there who could help them if you weren't around.
But here's the challenge: What could you do to turn those haters and uncaring customers into customer evangelists?
Here's the problem with that. Everyone would like to appease all of their customers. But in doing so to these types your creating the blueprint for future behavior. You bend over backwards to gain their business possibly even losing money to retain them and they only call back to behave in the same demeaning and demanding manner because it got them what they wanted in the first place. It is ok to bend over backwards to appease customers who were definitely done wrong, but doing this to a consumer who is simply trying to swindle your business is counterproductive to the bottom line profits. So in summary they stress your staff, they lose you money, and they don't see you as people but as a corporate entity whom they feel is ok to swindle.
Posted by: Louie | August 4, 2007 1:03 AM | Permalink to Comment