Somewhere in the early part of the 20th century, retailer Marshall Field famously declared "the customer is always right," underlining his emphasis on customer satisfaction as an important part of the retail experience. It's a catchy saying, and variations of it have appeared throughout the retail and customer service industries. However, as Scott points out, the 21st century customer experience has been shaped by online shopping and services. Behemoths like Amazon deliver a faceless service with a priority on rock bottom prices, free shipping, and no hassle returns. Customer expectations have changed accordingly.

This puts the small business in a precarious position when it comes to customer satisfaction. Small businesses do not have the margins or scale to compete on price and volume like Amazon, and they usually can't offer instaneous service either. The small business customer experience typically thrives on personal connection, good communication, and direct access to the owner or product designer/experts -- the things you can't get from very large companies. Consequently, small businesses need to be picky about the customers they deal with. Demanding customers with expectations well out of line with what your business can offer (or should offer) can cost you a lot of hassle, grief, and ultimately, profit if you don't identify them and create a plan for steering them away early. Mitchell and Scott talk about their own experiences dealing with problem customers and how they have defined their ideal "customer avatar" in the process.

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Email: [email protected]

Mitchell Baldridge

Twitter: @baldridgecpa

https://baldridgecpa.ck.page

https://baldridgefinancial.com

Scott Hambrick

Twitter: @hambrickscott

IG: @ogscotthambrick

https://onlinegreatbooks.com

https://scotthambrick.com