Let’s imagine you have these two choices.
You treat all customers like they are your best kind of customer.
Or you treat all customers like they are your worst kind of customer.
Which would you choose?
I ask because the chiropractor I’ve just started going to pressures me to pay really quickly. I get asked to pull the car over whilst I’m driving, to pay. I get pointed texts, to tap, tap, tap remind me. This is, I assume, because their worst kind of customers pay slow. And as they don’t yet know if I’m their best or worst kind of customer in this vein – they have chosen to treat me like I’m the worst kind.
Like posh jewellery shops locking me out in case I’m a thief. Like toy shops asking an 8 year old Izobel not to play with display toys in case she treats them like shit. Like stores saying, ‘All breakages must be paid for’.
Business is hard. Customers can be trixy. But all of the above is shitty, lazy, short term business thinking. I think businesses that treat all customers as if they are their worst kind of customer, are amongst the worst kind of businesses. I don’t want to be made to feel like your worst kind of customer. I want to be made to feel like your best, and in some cases – only. But that’s a whole other story.