Five Cases When You Shouldn’t Listen to Your Customers

We are currently living in a world where the customer is always right. Therefore, it feels strange and contradictory to disregard what they say about your brand and its products. Listening to customers and closely analyzing their comments and feedback does seem logical. However, sometimes it is better to trust your own instincts to figure out how to keep your brand alive and successful. This blog will discuss five reasons why listening to customers may not be the best for your business.

Businesses Have Limited Resources 

As a business owner, you have limited resources – patience, time, money, and energy. Unfortunately, there are some customers that will never be satisfied with your brand and its products, no matter how much effort you put into making them “perfect”.  However, the reality is that there is only a limited amount of time, patience, and energy you can give for any one customer. If a customer has an issue with your product, you are obligated to help them resolve it. Once it’s been resolved, you have done your job. According to Business2Community, “your business is not exclusively limited to one customer.” The right thing to do is move on to the next customer rather than spend more time on the same one, time and time again. It is rather irresponsible for a business to “play favorites” and dedicate all its resources to one exclusive customer. Your resources should be shared equally with all your customers.  

Critical Customers Make Employees Miserable  

All businesses face nasty and rude customers at some point during the course of their journey. The sad truth is that there is always a set of customers that wake up on the wrong side of the bed. If employees force themselves to treat the customer like they’re always right, they will be so miserable that they will quit their jobs. There is no doubt that your employees will face irritable, nasty customers. But your job is to support them as much as you can. Yes, it is important to value your customers. However, that does not give them the power to abuse your employees.  

Customers are Not the Expert 

Some customers may act like they know your brand and its products from head to toe, but that does not necessarily mean they truly know your brand and its products inside and out. You know your brand and products the best. While heeding customer feedback may be useful, it’s up to you to make the final decision as to what’s good and what’s not good for your brand and its associated products. Customers’ thoughts and expectations can exceed the bounds of logic. According to Forbes, “employees need to shift the customer service mantra from ‘the customer is always right’ to ‘the customer is sometimes wrong.'” When customers approach a certain product, they may have a fantasy as to how wonderful their experience would be with it. Sometimes, that fantasy plays out, but more often than not, it doesn’t, which leads to critical feedback on the reality of their purchase.

You Don’t Need Every Single Customer You Come Across 

Like it or not, we all go through breakups in life. But sometimes, those breakups occur for the best. Businesses need to change their mindset from “we don’t want customers to break up with us” to “customer breakups are absolutely okay.” It’s totally normal for a customer to not be satisfied with your product. There are so many issues that customers face with businesses, from inflated pricing to customer service concerns to logistics issues. These just give you opportunities to make the experience better for the next customer that comes across your brand. According to Forbes, “there are customers that are not worth having, including those who are often unreasonable, don’t pay on time, micromanage, are abusive and take up way too much valuable time.” Time is precious and there is no reason for that to be overlooked when it comes to dealing with unwanted customers.  

Bad Customers Create Bad Experiences  

No business is immune to problems. Businesses will face angular and agitated customers. There is no reason for businesses to please anyone and everyone. Bad experiences are lifelong memories. They might never go away. Customers tend to lean on social media to vent their frustrations. One bad review can change everything. When it comes to the professional side of things, experts and critics may have good constructive feedback. However, some might just post negative comments for the sake of getting attention. Addressing such comments publicly as a brand shows the full picture of the brand and that you are not afraid to hide from the negativity. Addressing negativity is important, and in this manner, you can ensure that you stay transparent as a brand. 

Improving Customer Experience with PxidaCX

Retaining customers is always a plus for businesses. At the same time, losing customers can also be a plus for businesses, in the right circumstances. Make sure you’re gathering all possible feedback from your customers in order to keep building on your business strategy with the best source of intelligence supporting you. Give us a try today, with a free trial of our customer satisfaction product PxidaCX!