So it’s been a while since I’ve written, but here I am. A potential customer called (and I’ll call him a customer, because he’s certainly not a client) and told me about his older Cadillac. Apparently it had some paint transfer on it from some kind incident and the inside needed to be cleaned as it was apparently pretty dirty.
All of this isn’t a big deal for us and something we could handle. As soon as I gave him the price, he couldn’t get off the phone with me quick enough.
This interaction got me thinking about different types of clients and how to handle them.
At one end of the spectrum you have what I call value shoppers. They’re looking for the cheapest price and the most amount of work. These customers tend to be difficult to satisfy and maintain clear expectations with. They are also the quickest to run around speaking negatively should anything happen to not meet “their” expectations.
At the other end, you have clients who don’t care about price but care about the service and product. These clients usually come by way of referral and are quick to speak highly of your services and if there’s any issues, they’re handled quickly and without making a big deal. These are critical relationships to maintain.
For us, there’s a difference between a customer and a client. A customer is a single time contact. A client has ongoing relationships with you. They come back. They tell people about you.
The value customer brings up an interesting point too. When a client brings up cost or walks away over cost, do you offer a discount? We don’t. We let them go. There are other companies that are price oriented, and they’re a better fit for that client.
What we don’t want to do is to train our clients to dictate the cost of our service. We control that based on what we need to make to stay in business and be profitable. Once we start letting the client dictate price, we lose control of our business and profit margin.
Question
shane@detailedreflections
So it’s been a while since I’ve written, but here I am. A potential customer called (and I’ll call him a customer, because he’s certainly not a client) and told me about his older Cadillac. Apparently it had some paint transfer on it from some kind incident and the inside needed to be cleaned as it was apparently pretty dirty.
All of this isn’t a big deal for us and something we could handle. As soon as I gave him the price, he couldn’t get off the phone with me quick enough.
This interaction got me thinking about different types of clients and how to handle them.
At one end of the spectrum you have what I call value shoppers. They’re looking for the cheapest price and the most amount of work. These customers tend to be difficult to satisfy and maintain clear expectations with. They are also the quickest to run around speaking negatively should anything happen to not meet “their” expectations.
At the other end, you have clients who don’t care about price but care about the service and product. These clients usually come by way of referral and are quick to speak highly of your services and if there’s any issues, they’re handled quickly and without making a big deal. These are critical relationships to maintain.
For us, there’s a difference between a customer and a client. A customer is a single time contact. A client has ongoing relationships with you. They come back. They tell people about you.
The value customer brings up an interesting point too. When a client brings up cost or walks away over cost, do you offer a discount? We don’t. We let them go. There are other companies that are price oriented, and they’re a better fit for that client.
What we don’t want to do is to train our clients to dictate the cost of our service. We control that based on what we need to make to stay in business and be profitable. Once we start letting the client dictate price, we lose control of our business and profit margin.
How do you deal with different types of clients?
Link to comment
Share on other sites
14 answers to this question
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now