“I’m not going pay you, your technician was constantly looking at his watch,” growled the customer when asked why she’d stopped a cheque for some work we’d done for her.
There’s many excuses for not paying your bills but a tradesman trying to keep the client’s bill to a minimum is an excellent dodge.
Over the phone call’s ten minutes, it was clear this lady was going to be a tough customer.
First the job wasn’t done properly, then the charges were too high, she accused us of taking advantage of vulnerable women and finally she was going to complain about us to her union.
It was clear we were in for a fight to get a hundred dollars from her, so I let it go. She went away believing she was right.
The saying “the customer is always right” was coined by US retail pioneer Marshall Field and exported around the world by Harry Selfridge, one of his employees who also founded a business empire.
We can be sure neither of them actually meant that customers are always correct in what they do, just that the key to successful service is the client walking away believing they are right.
Regardless of how well we deliver on our promises, there are always going to be some that aren’t happy. In most cases this is due to misunderstanding, or just a bad day on our part, but sometimes there’s the one percent of customers who are mad, bad or dangerous.
The Mad
Some customers just aren’t quite with us. These people, some of whom have genuine psychological problems, simply aren’t going to be reasonable.
There’s no point in fighting them as that’s only going to make their issues worse and maybe even transfer some of their problems to you.
Fortunately as you become more experienced in business you get better at detecting and avoiding these type of customers although there’s always the odd one who sneaks through.
The Bad
There’s a certain breed of people – and businesses – who don’t pay their bills, seeing their suppliers as banks and an invoice as an interest free loan.
Often these customers are charming and the perfect client before the bill is presented then they string you out for months of years before paying your invoices.
For these people and organisations, who are genuine deadbeats, there’s the fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me philosophy. It’s usually better to write them off rather than sink hours of management time.
The Dangerous
Of all the bad payers, the most dangerous is the game player. To these people, not paying debts is an intellectual challenge which they enjoy and play for fun.
These folk will just as happily mess around the phone company or the tax office as much as the local plumber or newsagent, it’s just a game which they’ll play to their maximum enjoyment and your frustration.
For the big companies, these people can be a benefit as they justify the existing of entire bureaucracies dedicated in getting them to pay; small business though don’t have the time and resources to spend the hours of work over years to extract payment from them.
Thankfully these folk usually stonewall as the first invoice so there’s early warnings you’re dealing with trouble. Resist the urge to play the game with them as they are usually better at it than you.
Regardless of which category these bad debtors fall into, in each case it’s better for your valuable time and sanity to let them believe they are right, write the debt off and move on to helping customers who really matter.
Fortunately these people really are the One Percenters and only representative of a tiny proportion of our customers.
The taste of copping a loss is always painful, but at least we get good stories from the excuses they give. What’s the best reason you’ve heard for a customer trying to dodge a debt?
