Do you get rid of "bad" users?
Ahmed Saleh
14 replies
For example, one of our users signed up with a credit card and made the payment for the first month. We had an open grace period, so he never paid for 4 months total. Our team reached out to the customer 3 times, and he acknowledged. In the meantime, he was still using the full system features (premium and all).
Eventually, we said enough is enough, so we downgraded the customer's plan and decided it's okay to lose a bad customer.
When you find users like that, do you get rid of them or try to compromise and find a way to keep them?
Replies
Ivan Ralic@ralic
Collabwriting
You just need to stand your ground.
The idea I stand by for my team is:
"Nothing will kill a great employee faster than watching you torellate bad employee"
The same goes for customers.
The McKinsey says that in the future more and more companies will be selective towards their customers. I agree with this.
Share
SanctionGuard
It depends, whether your bad user makes you lose money. If it doesn't I would allow him to use your system. Why? This user will use it and probably promote to others. So your potential user count will grow. And these others may not be "bad" users as they may consider, that it's easier to simply pay without any tips-and-tricks steps.
Exception would be if this bad user would actively try to turn other users into bad users. But also in that case you simply should improve the system and understand his motivation. Maybe you can turn this problem into advantage.
@valdist @stefan_morris yeah that's what I thought. I guess I just agreed strongly and ended up writing an essay 😆
@valdist In my experience, "like attracts like". Whether its customers or clients or employees, avoid those who are not compatible with your values or the way you work.
The hopes of these "bad" users attracting other users would actually concern me - chances are, they would be attracting others like themselves.
SanctionGuard
@stefan_morris It all ends up with discussion what "bad" actually mean. As "bad" is hard to measure...
@valdist @stefan_morris I think Valdis is on to something here. For our case at least, that one specific customer was causing us a loss of money. And now after my experience, I think it's best to simply avoid bad customers. It just leaves a bad taste. And really simply promotes a bad culture within the team. A non-tolerance for bad behavior both from our selves and our customers is where my gut is. Oh, and finally, if they don't cause a waste of money, they will surely cause a waste of time (arguably more valuable)
@valdist @ahmedsaleh For sure - I was not advocating for "bad" customers, but rather against them.
SanctionGuard
For some weird reason just got a great newsletter from indie hackers, where this topic is described in detailed manner:
https://www.indiehackers.com/pos...