Is there a good or bad customer !!!!

This is a thought which is there in my mind for quiet sometime. I use to wonder when my colleagues or people around me start categorizing a customer as a GOOD customer and at times (most often) BAD customer. I use to counsel people saying there are no good or bad customer’s. To me a customer’s reaction to a given situation can be sometimes nasty and most of the times good.

Each customer expects some service from the service provider. As long as the service provided meets the customer’s expectation the behavior of the customer is good. If the service provided does not meet customer’s expectation the customer would start demanding corrective actions from the service provider. Repetitive failures from the service provider’s end makes the customer lose their patience. The customer would now start making noise. We immediately start categorizing the customer as a difficult (bad) customer.

When you start retrospecting you would find that each one of us is a customer to someone yet we all have our own customer's. We have customer's at home and in our work. Generally these customer’s are called internal customer. Let us examine how the behavior of an internal customer from our household changes.

Your child wants a pair of shoes. The child has some expectation on the shoe (customer expectation). You might decide to go and buy on your own without the child accompanying you. When you comeback and present the shoe box to your child there is some expectation initially and you could see a smile in the child’s face. The child opens the shoe box and soon you might see the child reacting negatively. What happened here?

The shoes you bought didn’t match child’s expectation. It doesn’t matter how much you spent or how much trouble you went through to buy the pair of shoes. You have not understood the child’s expectation properly. You provided a service that doesn’t meet the expectation of the child (customer !!!). Do you call the child a bad child (bad customer) ?

I work in IT and I see same thing happening in my workplace. I have customer’s who have clear expectation on a piece of work we deliver. Many times what we deliver may not meet the expectation of the customer. It is quiet possible that we have not understood customer’s business issue or problem and we delivered a solution that doesn’t resolve the business problem. We had the best intention, put lot of effort and time. But customer didn’t see value because the service delivered didn’t address their business problem. Do you call this customer a bad customer?

Many times I have seen a customer move from a good quadrant to a bad quadrant over a period of time. The initial days the relationship is good. Customer believes you would deliver a good service and are impressed by the way you conduct yourself. The customer is very optimistic. They respond positively (good customer). When the customer start seeing the outcome of the service provided they start reacting and start escalating. The customer turns pessimistic. You now start feeling the customer is turning bad.

Does this mean there are no bad customers? Again I would say it is highly contextual. Some customer’s expect services more than what they have originally requested and contracted. As a service provider this is more than what we priced. At times we may not have the required skills to provide the service the customer is now requesting. The customer starts escalating. To us the customer turns to be a bad customer. To be fair with the service provider it is the expectation of the customer that is the cause for this move from a good customer to a bad customer.

To summarize I believe there are no good or bad customers. The reaction of the customer to a given situation makes us classify a customer as a good or bad customer. As long the customer reacts positively the customer is a good customer. The moment the customer starts reacting negatively the customer would become a bad customer for us. So let us believe most of the times the quality of the service we provide evokes the good / bad reaction from the customer. Let us take little bit of time to understand the customer’s need and deliver top quality service and keep the customer a good customer all the time.

Before I end this post I would like to explain an interesting situation that I was part of. I bought a ‘Dish TV’ from one of the large service providers. The day the service was activated I could watch programs till 10:00 PM. Next day morning when I switched on the TV I could see only a blue screen. I called the service center and they told me the problem would be fixed within 48 days – a standard reply. They didn’t realize that I just got the service activated and hardly watched programs for few hours. They said how they value the opportunity to serve me – a good customer!!!

I called again in the evening. They promised to address the issue immediately. I was patient still listening to them – a good customer!!!

Next day afternoon I called again. Almost 36 hours passed. I still got the same reply that the problem would be fixed in 48 hours. I asked them why they are not able to fix the problem in 36 hours and what makes them think it would be fixed in 48 hours – Am I not turning to be a bad customer!!!

Next day morning, (48 hours over) my problem is not fixed yet. I called again and I was told they would attend to the problem soon. I started losing my patience and started showing my frustration. I found out the head of the group from my friends and escalated – Surely I know I have become a bad customer!!!

My problem finally got fixed after three days. Am I really a bad customer???