Would you bar a rude customer?

[SillyJokes]

Just out of interest, if a potential customer (or existing one) was (unprovocted) extremely rude in an email would you bar them?

[creospace]

if no appology, then get rid.

Gary

[Cornish Steve]

It depends.

Unfortunately, aggression and rudeness form part of the culture of some companies. Personally, I see no reason why someone should have to be unnecessarily rude; however, I've witnessed rudeness many times as someone attempts to get something more than if they were pleasant. If you know this is a company's tactic, and if you know they will buy from you, what do you do? It probably depends on the relative health of your company. The income is there if you're willing to endure the insults.

In an ideal world, I would turn away such customers. In startup mode, however, I have a little more patience. What I do not do is short-change such people; I don't think it's right to seek some type of pay-back.

[coxadmin]

There is no excuse for being rude and abusive and I would decline to continue to do business with such a client.

[Top Hat]

I'd simply return thier cheque and order

[Jayne]

Yes i'd bar them! And have done it the past! :D

Jayne

[SillyJokes]

It was a postal order

[cjd]

Haven't done so yet, but it's only a matter of time before the finger hovering above the 'delete account' button actually presses it.

[DavidHorn]

depends on the situation ... a postal order (and I'm assuming they were rude in a letter of some sort), I'd suck it up. There's no point getting angry at a letter - cash the cheque, accept that you're a better person than them, and move on. If someone came into my store, or was rude like that on the phone - I'd be much more likely to tell them exactly where to go.

[SillyJokes]

It was an initial rude email, followed by an even ruder reply when I gave them the info they 'effing' wanted but suggested they would get better customer service in life if they weren't so rude.

Ha ha. I didn't bother replying to that.

I barred him from ordering on the website but he still placed an order through the mail.

I deal with so many customers every day it beggars belief but I have only ever received about three such offensive emails, one of which I told you about - the school boy who I told to report to his head teacher in the Evil Thing thread.

Everyone else I deal with seems perfectly reasonable.

I'm not a startup and it was £10. If he apologises he can have his toys.

[DavidHorn]

Yeah - for a tenner, I think having the satisfaction of not completing the order is probably worth it!

[Cornish Steve]

Yeah - for a tenner, I think having the satisfaction of not completing the order is probably worth it!
But someone who is angry by nature anyway may start posting messages around the Internet trashing the company. This is why I don't believe that we should respond in kind.

[Pebble Communications]

I did it recently. I took on writing and distributing a press release for a company who then proceeding to ring me constantly in a very aggressive and nasty sarcastic manner with all sorts of daft complaints (i.e. that I'd just lifted a load of stuff from their website - I'd taken their address and contact details yes, but was I supposed to invent new ones for them? Then he rang me ranting that I'd left out some important information that was in there, and I had to read the release to him three times and point out exactly where it was before he grudgingly admitteded that ok, it was there, he just hadn't read it properly), and I realised that they were never going to be happy and I could visualise a stream of really nasty phone calls going on into the future. I was really nervous about picking up the phone. then I realised that one advantage of working for myself is that I don't have to take this sort of rubbish, emailed him that I no longer wished to work on the project, stuck a refund cheque in the post, and never heard from them since! It was such a lovely feeling to have the authority to do that.

If I end up with staff I wouldn't expect them to deal with people like this either.

[Rob Holmes]

Just out of interest, if a potential customer (or existing one) was (unprovocted) extremely rude in an email would you bar them?

Yep :)

[DuaneJackson]

Yep - I had one particluar customer that I was doing a great deal for on an ongoing basis for his internet radio station. He was constantly rude in emails, CC'd to othe people too.

I told him to take his business elsewhere. As soon as he realised he was going to have to pay 7 times as much elsehwere - instead of doing the sensible thing and trying to work out a solution he said he'd sue me if I refused to do business with him.

[Rob Holmes]

Good lesson in life..

People only treat you as badly as you let them.

Rob

[Cornish Steve]

Good lesson in life..

People only treat you as badly as you let them.

Rob
If that's the case, why does Mr. Sugar succeed?

As a matter of principle, I would prefer not to deal with people who are rude or nasty. On the other hand, these people often spend a lot of money (personal wealth may be the source of their arrogance), and I could be turning away good business. It can't be a black or white decision; it depends on context.

[dcraigdc]

Good lesson in life..

People only treat you as badly as you let them.

Rob
If that's the case, why does Mr. Sugar succeed?


I guess it comes from a 'respect/fear' of what he has accomplished. You have to respect that he has got to where he is by being who he is. Much the same way that old Cowell was hated by the public he is a man who knows what he wants and doesn't care what anybody thinks about the way he does it. It would be interesting to see what would happen if somebody stood up to him and I don't just mean said a couple of words I mean really asserted themselves, difficult to do to a man in his position though.

In respect to barring, if somebody wants to be rude, obnoxious and downright disgraceful I would bar them. I have a similar aspect to sales. If somebody is constantly rude to me over the phone I simply explain that I wouldn't want my clients dealing with somebody that is so pig headed and then end the call calmly.

[Amber]

Yep, I have: someone who wanted to register for my writer's website, couldn't remember her paypal password, and felt the need to send me a stream of abusive emails as a result. I realised that this was someone who was going to find fault with everything I ever did, and the nominal membership fee just wasn't worth that kind of grief.

I paid my way through university (and my first low-paid journalism job) by working weekends in a call centre, where almost every call was from someone who wanted to use me as a verbal punch bag. I can still clearly remember thinking to myself, "one day I'm going to run my own business, and I'll never have to deal with this kind of crap again." So I don't. As Fiona says, it's one of the best things about owning the company.

I also agree with Steve's comments, though, and I'm careful to always resist the temptation to bite back at these people. At the end of the day, rude people's money is as good as anyone else's, but there's still a limit to how much rudeness I'm prepared to take.

[Hayles]

I recently got told by a prospective customer that MY attitude stunk - and then he put the phone down on me!

He wanted us to cater for 50 people at his party, but said he had 100 people attending. I explained that as a professional company we couldn't do this as he'd run out of food and it would look bad on us.

He said he wanted to run out of food as he didn't like waste! I politely declined again and said there may be some smaller companies willing to do this but we wouldn't let our reputation suffer by doing it... I was very, very polite but to no avail.

I was sooo tempted to phone him back and tell him he was a tight git!!

[Toon]

Fair enough it was only a ten pound order but what if he was to order again in the future? What if he recommends a friend who recommends their friends? It might only be a tenner now but it could end up being thousands in the future. If you refuse to serve him he won't send those possible recommendations etc.

Personally, I think I would just serve him and be over and done with.

[SillyJokes]

That would be wonderful but it is just as likely to end in him never ordering again and not telling his friends.

It's a risk I'm prepared to take.

I may sound old fashioned but I think people should understand there are consequences to their actions and there isn't enough of that about these days.

If you deal with hundreds if not thousands of people each week it is regrettably unavoidable that some are going to be displeased with the service no matter how hard you try.

If they contact me I can put it right but often they simply won't bother. I'm sure people have said bad things about us in the past or decided not to order again but I can't afford to loose sleep over it. I just have to concentrate on running the best darned joke and party shop I can and the praise letters, emails and calls show that we get it right most of the time.

[gordonthegofor]

and were you sued DuaneJackson