Lots of customers have done it. You didn’t get the answer you wanted from your vendor’s support organization. So you ask again, in a slightly different way. You still don’t get the answer you wanted — oh, they answered you, and said no, just like they did the first time, and maybe tried to sell some consulting hours, but you don’t want to pay that if you don’t have to (you don’t have that kind of signature authority, anyway), so you go to your vendor’s sales rep and tell them how outraged you are the product doesn’t work they way you think it should. Your sales rep texts their VP, all a-twitter the customer won’t renew, and the VP thunders both at support and development how horrible they are for not bowing and scraping to Important Customer A, and immediately calls the CEO of Important Customer Co and swears up and down how he’ll make certain they get their needs met by next Tuesday. Everyone at Important Customer Co (who, by the way, was spending a couple hundred dollars a year with you, and promising, always promising to up their purchase any day now) snickers behind their hands at how gullible VP person was, sales person was, and how they’re going to continue to sabotage the support rep over there. And Big-Co Software is now delayed in the next release, because the sales VP unwittingly committed a six month development job to be complete by next Tuesday.
Lather, rinse, repeat. I call it the a/b/c/d approach, or more colloquially, the mom/dad/aunt/uncle or parents/aunts/uncles/adults response to “No.”
Once I’ve seen a customer do it at my job, I’ll set the bozo bit on that customer contact without hesitation. Here’s how it usually runs
Someone using your software or systems is having a problem, and they want something from their software or systems vendor. They’ll send in a support case asking how to make your product do Thing X. Thing X turns out to be an extra cost option, or a new feature, or a script, or normal system administration, or just about anything that isn’t covered by the normal support agreement. Thomasina, a senior support person, knows this isn’t covered, and gives the customers their options to obtain Thing X, which typically are: a) file an enhancement request; b) pay some money for some consulting; c) wait for a future release; d) adapt the script in an application note, using the documented product API; or e) suck it up and deal, since the product doesn’t do that and the customer doesn’t pay us for that service.
The customer never responds, and leaves the case open and running. The customer files a second case, hoping the next support rep will fall for it. They make the same request. This time, Aleksandr gets the case; he’s fairly new to tech support and very new to your company. Aleksandr, in hopes of impressing the customer, and not understanding the support agreement with the customer, writes a custom script and delivers it to the customer, beaming triumphantly at how clever and helpful he is.
The customer got something free from their vendor just by asking the same question twice. They’re definitely going to continue asking for things, over and over, because you’ve trained them it works. Your company lost revenue giving something away free, and paid for the privilege. The customer is laughing all the way to the bank, and your entire organization probably doesn’t even realize it lost money.
I like to call this approach the parent 1/parent 2/aunt/uncle syndrome. Because childhood behavior works all too often when you’re grown up. Hopefully, you’ve all experienced children asking one parent if they can do something they know they shouldn’t be doing, let’s say they ask their mom. Dad says no. So, they go to the other parent and ask them; that parent says no. They will continue going through the adults in their lives until someone says yes. They will continue to do this, running craftier and more subtle campaigns, honing their skills, so long as this tactic continues to work. (Hopefully) Eventually the adults will get together, discover this con game, and put a stop to little Janie’s maneuvering once and for all by communicating amongst themselves. This con will work, though, if the adults don’t care or can’t communicate or want to be nice to little Janie for some reason or any of a thousand other reasons. And that’s why tech support teams see this sort of behavior all the time. The larger and less communicative a team is, the more frequently customers will get away with it.
Another favorite a/b/c/d tactic run by customers is to threaten to pull their account if they don’t get their way. Let’s say every time they ask for Thing X from normal channels, they are given the same answer, an answer the customer doesn’t like. This is just a slightly higher stakes version of asking the question to a succession of adults, with the added frisson created now that the customer has conflated the issue with money. Sales will definitely get involved now, since their compensation is on the line, and their inclination will be to promise the customer anything to ensure they (sales) make their numbers and reap that sweet, sweet commission at renewal time — they’ll show the customer just how powerful they are. Except now that customer has been trained to threaten revenue when they don’t get their way. In this scenario, the sales rep is the uncle, and the VP is the aunt.
In tech support life, customers will often get away with this for some time, until they establish a pattern of behavior and get a reputation. Such people need to be dealt with firmly; “No” must always mean “no”, from everybody. Make sure that the entire account team is aware of this bad behavior, including appropriate VPs — if you don’t, shame on you, because the customer will soon learn that all they have to do is email or text VP Soft-Heart and they’ll get their way, gloating at you every time they pull it off. Escalations or lateral traverses through your company must be dealt with calmly, rationally, and the first answer from someone outside customer experience should always be “Let me check on that and get back to you.” People who give other answers need to be checked before they give away the company, the fools. That person should immediately follow up with an inquiry to the rest of the organization to find out the backstory. And then it’s time to go back to the customer and say, “Amr in our customer experience team tells me your request is considered a feature request. I’ve also spoken to our development and product management teams, and they’d be delighted to speak with you in more depth regarding this. I’d like for them to give you a call next Tuesday, would 10AM your local time be good?” In other words, you’ve just told the customer no, just like Amr did, and started shoving them down the path that Amr provided, with prejudice. You did not promise them anything, you did not go on a power trip, you did not go off without the backstory, and you certainly made yourself more trusted by your customer experience team. If the customer repeats the behavior after that, or the creep-back of the behavior once the boss looks the other way, every further instance must also be dealt with firmly.
If the customer continues this bad behavior, and everyone on your side knows, then teach those assholes a lesson, and deliver updates 1 minute before they’re due, work to rule only, never give them anything more than they paid for, and explain it all quite directly if they whine in your general direction.
Of course, if you work at a major brand or tech support team with hundreds or thousands of reps, or work for a company that is losing money by the hands-full, chances are high this customer will continue to get their way. In cases like that, where you know they’re abusing your company largely with impunity, do the tech support equivalent of spitting in their food: wait until the last moment to give them an update — every time — then give them subtly incorrect advice, commands that have unknown-to-them consequences that are expensive, time consuming, and/or sub-optimal, but won’t break things or tag you as not-a-team-player nor incompetent. Use passive aggression to save your sanity and punish the assholes who won’t take no for an answer. Create a honey pot for them and string them along just long enough that they will eventually give up with you and move on to try to sucker someone else.
If it’s bad enough, fire the customer. They’re just going to continue being a money pit, and you and your entire company are better off getting rid of them now.
And if you peers and superiors can’t even deal, it’s time to move on. If your company wants to let customers get away with bad behavior because reasons, they’re likely too desperate, corrupt, or clueless to survive the long term.
Coffee and Fury 