To All Employees:
It has come to our attention once again that customers are still getting in the way of our doing business. We thought we had addressed this issue last year when we fired most of our salespeople and customer service representatives. However, for some unknown reason many customers are continuing to bother us.
Kindly be advised that this problem has grown to intolerable proportions. Effective immediately, ensuring customer dissatisfaction will become the responsibility of everyone. We will be offering training in customer abuse shortly. In addition, Marketing is working on a profile of the unsatisfied customer. Once we have a clear picture of what the customer doesn't like we will be in a better position to ensure that he stays disgruntled.
Thank you for your attention to this most important matter. If we all work together we will be able to reach our goal of being out of business by early next year.
Cordially,
Your Management Team
RULES FOR ENSURING CUSTOMER DISSATISFACTION
(Also available in palm card.)
Rule No. 1: Assume an Attitude of Arrogance.
This is the cardinal rule. You can always fall back on it when any of the other rules don't work. Always remember that you know better than the customer. The customer is usually pretty stupid and seldom understands the inconvenience he is putting you through. Don't let him get the mistaken idea that you are there to serve him. Remember, the customer is there to provide you with a job. If the customer gets too impatient, remind him—in a subtle yet condescending way, of course—that if you are going to have to be there eight hours today, so will he.
Rule No. 2: Keep the Customer Confused.
You must always strive to make the customer feel stupid. Stupidity is the hallmark of the unlearned, and you can keep your customers from learning anything by communicating poorly with them. Doubletalk works well here. So does the use of jargon, business-ese and gobbledegook. These techniques can be used verbally, but are most effective when put in writing. We can all take a lesson from our brethren in the computer software industry. If your product requires a manual, make it so confusing that the customer will have to buy another manual for dummies in order to understand it. The terms attached to your credit cards are another good resource for studying customer confusion techniques. Here you will learn not only how to confuse with numbers, but also how to keep the type so small the customer will need a microscope to read it.
Rule No. 3: Make It Difficult for Your Customer to Do Business with You.
Most businesses today have pretty much mastered this one, but here are some tips in case yours is still making it easy for the customer to buy. If you're not doing these things by now then you are way behind the times. So in order to catch up quickly just run out to your nearest retail store and take a look.
The most effective technique you'll observe is that stores no longer have salespeople on their floors to help the customer. Duh! Is this obvious or what? If you're still employing salespeople you are no longer cutting-edge. Not only are you keeping the customer satisfied, you are wasting money on wages and training as well. This works particularly well if you're selling something like women's shoes. Women buy too many shoes to begin with. Why make it easier for them by having a salesman available to go back into the stockroom and pull twenty boxes off the shelves? The poor guy will probably pull his back and now you've got a workers compensation claim to add to your problems. Better to just not have any sales help at all, if possible.
But assuming the customer perseveres and does find something to buy, you're going to have to arrange to take her money. So just open one check-out aisle. That way, if the line gets long enough the customer may walk out in disgust and leave that pint of ice cream to melt in the shopping cart. Oh and by the way, if you must have an express line be sure and put your newest trainee on it. That will slow it down to approximately the same speed as the other line.
Rule No. 4: Make Your Customer a Partner in Your Problems.
Ask not—What can I do for my customer? Ask—What can my customer do for me?
Let's face it, the customer doesn't pull his fair share of the load. This needs to be nipped in the bud. The best way to do that is to make the customer feel right from the get-go that it is his responsibility to help you run your business. For example, if you operate a fast food restaurant, make the customer clear off his own table. Why should you have to pay extra help to do that? If you're an health insurance company and you pay the doctor instead of reimbursing the customer like you were supposed to—no problem. Ask the customer to get his money back from his doctor, not from you.
Rule No. 5: Give Each of Your Employees His Own Little Turf to Rule Over.
This works best in government agencies, bureaucracies and in companies where the work is dull, repetitive or unrewarding. People who work in these jobs are usually sleepwalking through life. In order that such employees don't go home at the end of the day and kick their dogs, give them something to feel important about on the job. Let them become little tyrants. Let them know that they are at least the boss of something. That way, not only will they develop a better self-image but they may even inspire your customers to get into a fight with them (see Rule No. 13).
Rule No. 6: Keep Telling Your Customers What a Great Job You're Doing.
Nothing irritates a customer like hypocrisy. So load him up with a lot of facts and figures and advertising hype about all the reasons why he should be happy he's doing business with you. Brag about anything you can—your on time arrivals, your fastest loan approvals, your largest monthly circulation, whatever. And, of course, don't forget to tell him how satisfied all your other customers are.
It helps to have an independent and unbiased outside consulting firm to testify on your behalf. There are plenty of firms willing to do this for a price. Customers hate this kind of manipulation because they can't argue with the truth, as flimsy as it may be. And, of course, the customer always knows that there's something else you're not telling him. Even, for example, if you convince him that you have the most on-time arrivals or the fastest loan approvals, he still knows that it also takes 45 minutes to collect his baggage and that usurious interest rates accompany that quick loan. Telling the customer what a great job you're doing is a sure way to infuriate him.
Rule No. 7: Stay Isolated from Your Customers. Don't Get Involved Directly.
This rule is primarily for top management, although some fast-track junior executives are cleverly applying it as well. It's also known as the Ivory Tower Rule. The trick is to position yourself as far away from the customer experience as possible. Surround yourself with layers of managers, assistants, consultants and other assorted brown-nosers who will confirm to you that you know what's best for the customer. Implicit in this rule is that you never, ever, use your company's product or service yourself. That would force you to confront the reality that your product sucks and that the customer may have a valid point when she complains.
Rule No. 8: Let Your Customers into Your Kitchen.
On the Long Island Rail Road whenever there's a problem—a jammed door or a blown fuse, for example—the conductors and the engineers talk about it to each other over the public address system. Every passenger gets to know the intimate details of everything that's wrong with the train. They also discuss who's going to open which doors at each of the train's stops, who's going to collect the tickets in which cars and why the train is being delayed at any given moment. This is much more than the customer wants or needs to know.
To ensure that the customer knows he is buying an inferior product or service, make sure he gets a good taste of what you do behind the scenes. This is an excellent way to not only disillusion your customer, but to possibly scare him as well. Let him listen in on those conversations with the control tower during that hailstorm. Invite him into your kitchen to see those roaches crawling around. Get the idea?
Rule No. 9: Spend Lavishly So You Can Raise Your Prices.
Just because the customer doesn't want to spend anymore than he has to is no reason why you shouldn't waste as much of your company's money as possible. That way, when your profit margins start to shrink you can recover your losses by raising your prices. There are three ways to do this.
The first and most blatant strategy is to encourage conspicuous consumption on the part of your customer. This way you can get your hands into the customer's pockets without him even being aware of what's happening to him. This also allows you to keep your prices high to begin with, instead of trying to sneak them up as your profits fall. The best way to accomplish this, of course, is to make doing business with you an event. Create an environment where the customer can not only try out your product, but he can hear loud music, eat something, drink bottled water, meet a celebrity, entertain his kids and get his feet massaged at the same time. Anesthetizing your customer this way will cost you a tremendous amount of money, but he will be so zoned out he won't realize until it's too late that you're ripping him off.
The second strategy is to encourage conspicuous consumption on the part of your company's more visible employees. The great thing about this technique is that you get to spend your company's money directly on yourself and your buddies instead of pretending that you're investing it back into the business. Pay your top executives outrageous salaries. Take full advantage of unlimited expense accounts and fringe benefits. That way, when the customer sees your vice presidents getting into their limos to go back to their homes in Scarsdale, she will have a clear understanding of why her insurance policy costs so much.
The third strategy allows you to raise your prices after you’ve screwed up and profits are shrinking faster than an igloo in Hell. What you really need to do here is get the whole company moving in the wrong direction. That way, just before the company goes under, you can raise your prices. You can't lose with this one. Customers will absolutely hate you if forced to pay for your mistakes. The only problem with this technique is that it's hard for the customer to actually see you wasting your money. You can counteract this, of course, by inventing a silly public relations campaign. That way, the customer will know you're wasting money by telling her something she either already knows—like how to ride the escalators in Penn Station—or doesn't care about.
Rule No. 10: Take Advantage of Your Customer's Ignorance.
This is similar to Rule No. 2 except that it allows you to hit and run and the customer doesn't find out how badly he's been taken until it's too late. Chances are in your favor that the customer is not an expert in your product or service. This leaves you in the enviable position of being able to take advantage of his ignorance. It also allows you to bone up on Rule No. 1 and practice your arrogance skills.
This rule works best when the customer is facing an emergency. Fear plays an important role. Doctors have pretty much mastered this rule and we can all learn from them. They know that most people don't even know where their thyroid (for example) is—let alone what it does. So if the doctor is lucky enough to find a bump on your thyroid he can probably talk you into his operating room faster than you can get to the bathroom with a bad case of the trots. Only much later—after you've made a $10,000 contribution to his next BMW and Synthroid is now keeping you alive—do you learn enough about thyroid nodules to know that you probably didn't need the operation. Plumbers, car mechanics, funeral directors, and any industry where your customers are under the pressure of time can apply this rule most effectively.
Rule No. 11: Keep the Customer in the Dark.
This one is great! Try it the next time you are having difficulty making good on your promise to the customer. Simply don't tell her what's going on. Watch her do a slow boil. An uninformed consumer is a disgruntled customer. She's asking what's taking so long with her food? No problem. She can wait at least an hour before you tell her the kitchen lost her order. The point is to always keep the customer guessing, wondering and fidgeting over what's going on.
Keeping the customer in the dark is primarily a waiting game. The longer the customer waits, the more you enjoy the game. It works especially well with businesses that have to deliver their products and services directly into the customer's home, like furniture, for example. Tell the customer that you will deliver her sofa sometime in the morning. That way she'll think she only has to take a half day off from work. Then when she calls at noon asking where her sofa is you can say you don't know, everyone is at lunch. When she calls back at 1:30 you can tell her the sofa is definitely on the truck and that it will definitely be delivered sometime before 7:00—definitely. But, of course, you know the truck will never show up and you can begin the process all over again tomorrow with new delivery dates and times. All of this presumes that you have already kept the customer in the dark for weeks or months waiting for the sofa to be made.
Note: The airlines have adapted this rule quite nicely by not telling their passengers when they will take off or when a gate will be available. With a little creativity this rule can be applied to almost any business.
Rule No. 12: Encourage Your Customers to Be Obstreperous.
Even if you've kept them confused, ignorant and in the dark, most customers will still remain friendly, courteous and patient throughout their ordeal. This is fine, as long as you are certain they are dissatisfied. But with some people you never can tell how you're doing unless you get them really pissed off. If they yell at you or storm out of your store that's a pretty good clue. What you really want the customer to do is to make a scene.
The best way to work the customer into this state of agitation is to try and goad him into some kind of argument. Pick a minor issue and blow it all out of proportion. Accuse him of trying to shoplift, for example, because he took more than two garments into the dressing room. Tell him his off-peak train ticket is not valid because he's traveling during peak hours. Then threaten to throw him off the train while it’s still moving if he doesn't cough up the difference. Only when you get your customer to be obstreperous can you deploy the tactics of the final rule.
Rule No. 13: Don't Take Any Crap.
Never let the customer overstep his bounds. Remind him that you don't have to take his abuse and that there's no such thing as a Customer's Bill of Rights. Tell him just where he can go if he doesn’t like the service you're not providing. Walk away from him. Hang up. Call the cops. And, of course, never, ever, reveal your name so that the customer can complain to your boss.
© Copyright 1999-2004, Richard Bradley. All rights reserved.
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