There may come a time in the life of your business when you find yourself faced with a bad customer. While we like to think that all of our customers have our company’s best interest in mind and want to conduct their business in a fair and honest manner, this may not always be the case. You may find yourself spending entirely too much time and money on one customer. There are several kinds of bad customer.

1. The returner – This customer will show their bad customer tendencies over time. They may repeatedly buy and return products. Watch out for customers returning similar products multiple times.

2. The impatient customer – This customer may not pay attention to the posted time-lines for shipping and demand that his money be refunded for slow service.

3. The threat-maker – This customer may threaten to take drastic action, such stopping payment with a credit card company (which may raise your fees with that company). Note, this may only be a bad customer if he or she jumps to this action first, before trying to resolve an issue in another way.

4. The high-maintenance customer – This customer may repeatedly ask for discounts on low profit margin items or make frequent specials requests that demand a lot of your time. Are you really making any money helping this customer?

So what can you do about a bad customer? You will have to decide if hanging on to that customer is worth your time and effort. All of your customers are important, but there may come a point where a customer is costing you money. You time may be better served in trying to find new customers.

So how do you “fire” a bad customer? There are several schools of thought on this subject.

Some people promote the honesty method: simply nicely telling a customer that their actions are costing your company valuable time and money because of extra credit card transaction, restocking, etc.

Others say they prefer to make excuses for rejecting a customer’s order, such as telling them the item is out of stock. This may work, but the customer may just decide to order a different item instead.

Another method is to treat the customer badly; lose orders, ship late. This may chase the bad customer away, but that customer may also decide to seek revenge by posting negative reviews in multiple places.

One more method is the vague method: Simply state that you don’t think your company is a good match for their needs and you will no longer be conducting business with them. They may ask for more details, in which case you will have to decide what to tell them.

Some final helpful hints on “firing” bad customers –

1. Post your shipping guidelines and return policies clearly on your site. That way, if a customer argues that they did not know about a certain policy, you will have a place to direct them. It is the customer’s responsibility to inform themselves on such policies.

2. Don’t beat around the bush. When you’ve made the decision that it’s time to let a customer go, get right to the point. Don’t waste more time and money.

I hope that you don’t have to deal with this issue soon, or often, but when you do, keep these tips in mind.

For more information about running a successful Internet business, visit Diego Norte’s site here: http://www.DiegoNorte.com/

I live near a retirement community. It’s scary. There’s a major problem in this country, and very few states are willing to addressing it. The elderly are still getting behind the wheel, and it’s DANGEROUS!

Sure, you’ve got these idiot teenagers text messaging while they drive (“OMG, I just farted… lol”), but these old people pose just as much of a risk to fellow drivers on the road. Each and every time I leave my house, I have an encounter with one of these drivers. They’re driving 20mph UNDER the speed limit, weaving across lanes of traffic for no apparent reason, or driving the wrong way down a one-way street. They are completely oblivious to other drivers, and pose a real danger to others. There have been countless accidents across the country, many even resulting in death!

About 10 years ago, a 90-year old neighbor of ours “got confused between the brake pedal and the gas pedal” when he was backing out of his garage, and somehow managed to drive across our neighbors yard at full speed, CRASHING into the side of our garage. He knocked out a major support beam for our house, and it was 2 months until we could move back in! The police didn’t really do anything. Luckily, this guy’s kids decided it was time for him to stop driving. Ya think?!

Still, nothing changes. There should be a rule that once you hit 60, you have to take a drivers test again, and continue to do so every 5 years. This would make the roads a much safer place. You’re 85 years old, where the hell are you going anyway?!

Rant off.

Everyday, my inbox is filled with e-mails promoting the next great Internet Marketing program. And while I’m sure they’ve all got some nuggets of useful information, the best course of action is to focus on your own agenda. These “programs” are nothing more than distractions, that eat up valuable time and make you a little poorer. In reality, there are very few NEW techniques out there that will make your business better. It all comes down to you.

That said, I actually spent the time yesterday going through a PDF from StomperNet for a Formula Five video they did. Having it in PDF format was great for me, as I don’t like to waste 60+ minutes watching a video that may or may not be useful. With the PDF, I was able to quickly scan through the document, and see if there were any useful tidbits in there.

Low and behold, there are actually some good things you can learn from this video/PDF! Now, the price of the full product is VERY steep in my opinion, but you’ve got nothing to lose by trying a few of their “free” suggestions outlined in their presentation. I’ve already implemented a few of them in my e-commerce store, and while it’s too soon to tell, I truly believe that it will help increase my conversions and profit margins. If the changes are significant, I might have to reconsider and actually purchase the program.

I don’t have the link handy, but if you head on over to the StomperNet Blog, you should be able to find it. Good luck, and let me know how you make out!

This video explains Twitter perfectly.. And yet, it’s got a ridiculous market cap and no real monetization model. You don’t need to be psychic to see how this is going to end. Badly.

Thank the asshat Make Money Online “gurus” for making this tool popular, and having all of their followers follow suit.

Today marks an important moment in American history, as Barack Obama is officially sworn in as our 44th President of the United States! While I was a McCain supporter, I still can’t discount the importance of this election. He comes into office during a terrible time (economically), and the chips are stacked against him. It should be interesting to see if he can turn things around.

Continuing with my string of bad luck, I came home from lunch yesterday to find my hot water heater leaking. Since we’ve got the “worry-free” protection plan, I called the company and had them come out this morning to replace my heater. He shows up, determines that the heater must be replaced, and then informs me that our plan only covers repairs, not complete replacements.

We get a quote from them for a new unit, and it’s around $1000! And the kicker, they don’t work on Sundays. We haven’t had hot water in 24 hours, and it’s hard to function without it.. So we headed over to Home Depot and Lowes to see if we could get one installed today. No dice. We’re in Eagles country, and NO ONE is working today.

So I’m off to my gym to get a hot shower, and I’ll have a new water heater hopefully installed in the morning.