ignorant consumers

[aweston]

I think I'm getting this right (from the further posts contributed by other people), but just want to confirm.

I don't want to respond line by line as I do have a lot to do today, but I will give a brief overview.

Do you know what a Code of Honour is? If you do, do you have one? Do you live by it (or try to)? I have my own Code that I live by. There are some things I just don't do because it's not honourable. Fighting "battles" with clients is one of them. If you don't have one I encourage you to develop one. It completely changes your context and will give you a lot of clarity, consistency and focus.

Besides, if my business is a battleground I've always felt that there's something seriously wrong with me and my business model...unless I sold weapons or drugs. There's no such thing as "ignorant consumers". There's only such thing as my perceptions of those consumers.

 

[Geek007]

Erm... I'm afraid I don't know what a Code of Honour is, however I have just Googled it.

If you do have a lot to do today, then might it not have been a good idea to come back when you do have the time, and respond to my query with a more suitable answer.

You gave a scenario that had happened to you in real life. As I wasn't exactly certain I'd understood you right, I queried it giving my interpretation of what I thought you meant. I then proceeded to ask further questions based on the theory I was right.

What I'd like is a straightforward answer, sort of like a simple true/false. Yes/No. Etc.

The very vague 'non-answer' that you've given me, tends to make me think that I'm right, however, even if I am, you didn't answer further questions that I put to you.

"There are some things I just don't do because it's not honourable. Fighting "battles" with clients is one of them."

So, you don't fight any 'battles' with clients then. So... does that mean that each and every client you've ever dealt with has always been 'right', even though you have known for a fact that they WERE wrong?

 

[aweston]

There is no simple answer to your question, but I'll do my best. First let's frame the context. When you're self-indulgent and self-absorbed, there is a black and white, right and wrong. You frame that context because it needs to make sense to YOU, all else be damned. You need to be able to control and define the outcome.

There's only one truth, that being that your rights end where the next person's rights begin. One should always live their life in such a way that one does not infringe on another person's rights. Unfortunately that's not considered an acceptable answer in America so it might be pretty hard to swallow.

Now that we've framed the context, we know there is no right or wrong answer. Each party has their own truth, their own perspective. When the client came to me and said "I left my drive here" that's his truth. My truth was "our systems tell us the drive was picked up". Where is the evidence that he didn't? Can I prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did? Can he prove the opposite? This isn't a Court of Justice which means ethics, common sense and wisdom reign supreme.

I choose my battles wisely, framed by the context of my Code of Honour. I decide when something is worth fighting or not and it will always boil down to whether or not it infringes on anyone's rights and whether it's in the best interest of all concerned. Without that context you will never get an answer that is acceptable to you and you'll keep offering line by line "questions".

Let's say I "won" and kept his $120. Not hard to do, I just say "too bad". Not exactly a fair fight. Problem number 1, not an honourable "battle". Problem number 2 is that I will lose their trust, their business and the business of many of their associates and friends. By honouring the man and his truth, I will have many more opportunities to make far more than a mere $120.

If you can't maintain that context, your business will always be a battleground. You will exhaust yourself fighting stupid, immaterial battles while losing focus, time and energy on what needs to be done to build your business and deliver excellence to your clients.....and you will always have to sweat over that $120 as a result.

I'm guessing that what I've put above must be right, going by your last sentence above. So...... even though you KNEW YOU WERE RIGHT, you're then 'admitting' that your wrong. Having great trouble following your reasoning on that one I'm afraid.

The problem isn't in the truth, the problem is in your bastardization of it, a product of your perception and context.

 

[Appletax]

How often are you told by consumers or (or anybody) that you do not know what you are doing (with respect to computers)

So far I've had 98 computer jobs and not once was I ever mistreated by a client. Lucky me I guess

 

[redmon]

Let's say I "won" and kept his $120. Not hard to do, I just say "too bad". Not exactly a fair fight. Problem number 1, not an honourable "battle". Problem number 2 is that I will lose their trust, their business and the business of many of their associates and friends. By honouring the man and his truth, I will have many more opportunities to make far more than a mere $120.

I agree completely. This following line is the extent of our official follow up procedure I have my manager reference.

"Ultimately we need to find a solution which is both a win for us and a win for the client. It is preferred we err in favor of the client, giving some service away if needed. Use your best judgment."

To give away some free service or money is good business in my opinion. We spend tens of thousands on advertising last year to get new customers, so to spend $120 to smoothing out a situation is money well spent(bring in lots of business at a better rate than advertising) .

If I'm right in assuming this, would you do this for everyone that came into your shop with the same situation? I'm guessing you did this as a way of avoiding a possible argument/confrontation, whatever you want to call it? So, you effectively paid them to potentially 'keep quiet' about it and continue spreading good words about your business?
I don't care whether you say you trust the client or not, all I'm now thinking is what happens if word gets around and other people start doing the same things to you? Where would it end? Or would it not? And would you just hope/pray that you got extra business because of doing that, that would cover those 'losses'?

Personally, if what I've said is true, I find this a bizarre way to run a business, to put it mildly. Are you a millionaire or something?

In my experience, that does not happen(we give free estimates, yet vary rarely do people abuse us, just a few times per year) . If investing $120 in a situation will return $1000 in future business, it is just good business, it doesn't matter if you have $1000 or $1000000 dollars.

Edit added later //
Just a few weeks ago we got an email from a client saying how she paid $109 and nothing was fixed(in her mind she may have believed that) and lots of bull to why she never mentioned it. Her words "I ended up having my cable company fix it, what you were unable to do". At the end of the email she implied a threat of spreading bad word/reviews around. She hinted around to a full refund of her money everything, then everything would be OK: it felt like extortion. I just refunded her money. Money well spent. $109 to smooth things out was good financially in two ways: first, good press(at least no bad press) from the client will spread good word and bring in more revenue; second, I could benefit from the peace of mind of the problem being rectified and use my thoughts to better my company and life instead of filling my head with negativity now and in the future dealing with this person.

 

[Geek007]

Ah ha, yes, I do see where your coming from now. I'm afraid I can't speak for America because I am slightly ashamed to say that I don't know the place, and have never been there, so you have the advantage I guess.

However:

When the client came to me and said "I left my drive here" that's his truth."

Yes, I agree with that, that being his knowledge of events.

My truth was "our systems tell us the drive was picked up".

Yep, your systems do indeed tell you that.

"Where is the evidence that he didn't?"

There IS none, other than his word.

Can I prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did?"

Well, ideally, you should be able to fall back on your systems, after all,

"I have lots of systems in place to prevent that".

However, as you feel that you cannot use what your systems tell you as evidence, perhaps your systems are not very efficient or fit for purpose? Otherwise you would have used them? After all,

It turns out that they hadn't failed"

, well... actually they had?

Can he prove the opposite?

No, he indeed can't prove that he didn't.

Just wondering, might it not be a good idea to have some kind of ticksheet system in place, signed by the client, so that in the event of a possible dispute... well, actually, there wouldn't be one in that case... or would there?

I am also wondering what the point is in having "lots of systems in place to prevent that", if you will never be able to rely on them in the first place? Seems like a waste of time?

Another small matter (although less important, why didn't you just give the client a replacement for free, instead of writing a cheque? Or didn't you have that item in stock at the time? Or wasn't the item bought from you in the first place?

Problem number 2 is that I will lose their trust, their business and the business of many of their associates and friends. By honouring the man and his truth, I will have many more opportunities to make far more than a mere $120.

Although you might consider it a small risk, your making an assumption that your going to get the business of his associates and friends. After all, they have their own mind and can decide where they want to do. In your mind, it is a hope and NOT necessarily a guarantee.

 

[jft135]

I agree completely. This following line is the extent of our official follow up procedure I have my manager reference.

"Ultimately we need to find a solution which is both a win for us and a win for the client. It is preferred we err in favor of the client, giving some service away if needed. Use your best judgment."

To give away some free service or money is good business in my opinion. We spend tens of thousands on advertising last year to get new customers, so to spend $120 to smoothing out a situation is money well spent(bring in lots of business at a better rate than advertising) .



In my experience, that does not happen(we give free estimates, yet vary rarely do people abuse us, just a few times per year) . If investing $120 in a situation will return $1000 in future business, it is just good business, it doesn't matter if you have $1000 or $1000000 dollars.

Edit added later //
Just a few weeks ago we got an email from a client saying how she paid $109 and nothing was fixed(in her mind she may have believed that) and lots of bull to why she never mentioned it. Her words "I ended up having my cable company fix it, what you were unable to do". At the end of the email she implied a threat of spreading bad word/reviews around. She hinted around to a full refund of her money everything, then everything would be OK: it felt like extortion. I just refunded her money. Money well spent. $109 to smooth things out was good financially in two ways: first, good press(at least no bad press) from the client will spread good word and bring in more revenue; second, I could benefit from the peace of mind of the problem being rectified and use my thoughts to better my company and life instead of filling my head with negativity now and in the future dealing with this person.

I never refund money when the customer is clearly in the wrong and I can prove it. Doing so encourages their bad behavior and hurts every company they do business with in the future. I think it is a fair assumption that their friends and family are probably similar to them, and I don't really need/want them as customers anyway. Besides, by the time somebody has started being really rude, giving them a refund isn't going to magically make them like you. My hope (which has worked so far) is that most of these people lack the basic skills needed to leave an online review anyway. I'm also the kind of person that would run down to the courthouse and file a defamation suit if they did leave a bad review that was at all untruthful.

Note: This is harsh, but we're talking about 2 or 3 clients a year who are clearly in the wrong. If their is shared blame or a failure to properly manage expectations, that is a whole different story. For example, I had a guy bring in a Dell laptop for warranty that was an HP when I worked on it. He refused to believe that we had worked on his other laptop. I don't think he was trying to be deceptive, but genuinely thought we had fixed that one. My records said otherwise, so I obviously refused to give him a refund.

 

[aweston]

I am also wondering what the point is in having "lots of systems in place to prevent that", if you will never be able to rely on them in the first place? Seems like a waste of time?

The systems are there to ensure we do our best to avoid the "battle" to begin with.

 

[Geek007]

The systems are there to ensure we do our best to avoid the "battle" to begin with.

I see you've just given a one line response to what I wrote, which indicates to me that you either didn't have time to leave a proper response to everything I said (and I have indicated in a previous post, a suggestion for that), or it was for some other reason.

However, I think I now know what you're trying to get at. Your systems are in place to do everything you can to TRY and avoid that situation occuring. Which is a BIG difference.
But, I believe that my point remains the same. If you have those systems in place, but when you DO get that occurence happening, all your going to do is take a look at your records, and even though YOU know you're in the RIGHT, you're just going to write a cheque out to 'avoid the battle', then I ask again, WHATS THE POINT of having the system there in the first place??????? In that situation to me, the client is ALWAYS going to WIN, and you're going to 'lose'.

I reckon that one of the problems is that you might not be explaining yourself very well, and not giving the entire story. I also believe that might be compounded by the fact that you are using 'business consultant' speak language, which may just be confusing everybody, and making them think one thing, when in fact, you mean the other.

I choose my battles wisely

I decide when something is worth fighting or not

Using the two quotes as an example, what I think you mean is that, depending on the circumstances, you won't actually always give the client a 'refund' or you won't always write a cheque out for 'lost goods'. Which if I'm right, also means that 'Problem number 2' is really only half true, because you won't always get happy clients at the end of the day. This also means that your processes ARE actually doing their job, but YOU are basically overriding them now and again for whatever reason.

 

[brandonkick]

To answer the OP's question:

I've had it happen enough that I've learned to brush it off and ignore it. What that means is that I don't take it to heart, and also that I do not do business with those people any more.

I know what skills, knowledge and qualifications I do have and that I am competent in the work I choose to take on. I have spent much time, effort and even money in building myself to this point and I will not have anyone belittle me or the work that I do. It is a point of personal pride, I think every self respecting person should do the same.

In all reality there are over 300 million people in the united states alone. Even if our potential target audience is some very small portion of that, there are still plenty of customers out there. The rude and ignorant ones can go right on down the road.

I don't know about the rest of you but I've been brought up to be respectful. If I've acted like some of the customers I've done work for, my parents would have smacked me upside my head. I was brought up to be respectful of others and to have enough respect in myself to conduct myself in a proper manner.

I do realize that when you service the general public, you deal with quite a lot of a holes. Some businesses choose to put up with it, some do not. I belong with the latter group.

 

[gunslinger]

I notice it more and more these days. People think they can do everything themselves because they watched a youtube video. By the time I get there they have the side panel off the computer, and 30 different AV/ Anti-malware programs installed. Sometimes they have tried to do a repair install and really screwed things up. I still remember the one guy who had to call me because his hard drive was full and he didn't know why. Turns out he would reinstall every time he would get infected from porn sites, but he didn't know to erase the partition. He had 6-7 different installs of XP on the computer.

When I see this type of thing I'm quick to let the customer know I charge more for a fix when they have been trying to fix it themselves. Normally I can train them to call me at the first sign of trouble.

 

[Digital Sage]

My good customers put my bad customers to shame.

They really do. The contrast is amazing.

That being said, I usually install a remote client on every job I do just to iron out the bugs. Half the time customers will ring me after a job just because something isn't working. Sometimes it's something I will fix in ten minutes, other times it's got nothing to do with me, I'm just their current go to guy because I'm fresh in their mind. It's a pain in the arse when they r obviously screwed up something simple. But I'll give them that follow up for free, usually. Just once. If it repeats, I'll tell them that I'm happy to help, but it does involve money. That stops the freetards from calling back. Boundaries keep the good customers in and the bad customers out.

 

[redmon]

WHATS THE POINT of having the system there in the first place??????? In that situation to me, the client is ALWAYS going to WIN, and you're going to 'lose'

I'm not defending aweston, but I have an opinion. I suspect the difference of your opinion and his is what winning and losing are. I suspect what you call a loss he may call a win. I guess it all matters what your long term goals are.

 

[scott00049]

aweston said:

I won't get out of bed for $120 anymore.

I once knew a girl like that....except the other way around. lol The problem is that you let someone who you knew was lying get away with $120 of your hard earned money. And you could prove it!!! I call either BS, or you're just way too nice. I know what my sig line says, but there has to be a line, and i'd say right at about $120.

-Scott

 

[jft135]

My good customers put my bad customers to shame.

They really do. The contrast is amazing.

This is absolutely true. I have one sweet old lady who will call with random questions once or twice a month which would normally really annoy me, but she swings by the shop and gives me a $50 bill the next time she's in the area. I also have a few customers that insist on paying for a diagnostic (we don't charge). It brings tears to my eyes when they realize my time is actually worth something.

 

[Geek007]

I'm not defending aweston, but I have an opinion. I suspect the difference of your opinion and his is what winning and losing are. I suspect what you call a loss he may call a win. I guess it all matters what your long term goals are.

Redmon, if you have read properly (no rudeness intended) the responses I have provided to what Aweston has put, you hopefully will realize that all I am trying to do is get his confirmation that what I have put is right, and I don't mean to sound big headed there.
I am also looking for feedback to the questions that I raised with him.
I think I know what he actually means, but I don't know for certain (because he hasn't responded). I also believe, if you read what I've put, that there may be flaws in his thinking.
Don't mean to sound nasty (I'm not that sort of person), but I'm not really bothered if your defending Aweston or not. We all have our opinions, and are more than entitled to them. For what it's worth, I believe that I do actually agree with some of what he says.

 

[red12049]

aweston said:

I once knew a girl like that....except the other way around. lol The problem is that you let someone who you knew was lying get away with $120 of your hard earned money. And you could prove it!!! I call either BS, or you're just way too nice. I know what my sig line says, but there has to be a line, and i'd say right at about $120.

-Scott

Which would be true if you could be inside his head and KNOW that he was lying,rather than mistaken. Lots of differences between those two.

Rick

 

[callthatgirl]

How often are you told by consumers or (or anybody) that you do not know what you are doing (with respect to computers)?

Never. Not anymore. They are obviously calling me because they...

• Have given up
• Don't want to try
• Don't even want to try
• Googled to their hearts extent and told me, aka...found me on Google.

 

[Nerrad]

I find the best ones are the customers who say my diagnosis is wrong because their friend/family member said what's wrong with it.

 

[Geek007]

I find the best ones are the customers who say my diagnosis is wrong because their friend/family member said what's wrong with it.

LOL well if their friend/family member diagnosed it, I'd be thinking, 'why did you call me then?'