[thelist] losing irritated / arrogant customers off my books

[Alex Beston]

Phil

> This will definitely cause a reaction from your customer.

HAHA!

/no kidding.

[....] They may begin to realise the value of what you are offering.

Sure. Good point.

> There will be an outcome, one way or another.

I think the problem is that Im not brave enough - but once I decide to
go for it, it has to be the right one. Nothing else will be quite
right.

> Either they will be outraged, and simply leave.

Interesting....

> Or they will be outraged, and will want to negotiate.

Possible.

> Or they will be outraged but wish to maintain the status quo.

Unlikely, but yes a possibility

> In this case, you
> can appear to be the decent chap, and forgoe the hefty bill (which you had
> no intention of collecting, in any case),

/evil_laugh

> but 'unfortunately cannot offer
> free support'.

Totally.

> Any support calls/emails they send to you should be met by a
> standard response requiring a support contract to be purchased before any
> further support can be given.

Hmm. I like the sound of that.

> If they do take out a support contract, you can forgoe the (bogus) bill as
> goodwill. This makes you look great, you got a contract and you win!

HUM.

> I have no problem whatsoever in 'sacking' poor quality customers,

Neither do I.

> but I see your situation is not so bad, if they were paying you.

Yeah and this is the thing I cant get my head around.

> If you customer rings you once a week with an email problem

Well-its-sort-of-every-2-months but very reliable, this frequency. The
next one will almost certainly be more annoying than the last one.

> which invariably turns out to be the
> size of attachment, you tell them to use ftp

Yup. Tried that.

> and explain how that works.

More or less. It was ignored. I aint his servant if that is what he
thinks he got for his £75. The situation is complicated since he
designed my logo and I want him to help me on my future new look. Hes
actually pretty good at the thought process behind creating a new
brand / product / service etc. I hope to God he doesnt get evolt in
his Inbox :(

> They invariably ignore your advice, and it happens again and again.

+1

> That seems to be a waste of time, but if they are paying you to do that, do you
> really care?

I know, I shouldnt. I think Ive just let it go on. Hence the inquiry.

>  A sale is a sale, after all!

God I hate commerce. I ought to stick to the 48.

> Hth

Yes, it does.

I cant tell him to **** off because 1) I actually quite like him 2)
Hes good at his job 3) I think he can do a good job for me on the
relaunch. So I will just wait till the next complaint comes through
and handle it better. Lets see whether he really is as I think he is
or its all just talk.

A.