Why Letting Go of Bad Customers is a Good Thing

| December 3, 2015

Why Letting Go of Bad Customers is a Good Thing

There are several business gurus who’ll tell you that every customer is a good customer. They’ll advice that when you have a bad customer, you just need to grit your teeth and bear it, without murmuring a word in protest. But that’s not always a good idea. In fact, if you’re running a small business, it’s a massively bad idea.

Your customers are your lifeline and you’ve worked hard to gain them, but being loyal to your customer wouldn’t benefit you at all if they’re wasting your time and energy. When you run a small business, your staff is limited and you’re spread thin.

You need to prioritize several things to keep the business running. Paying attention to bad customers would lead you nowhere. In fact, it would just harm your business. Here are a few reasons why letting go of bad customers is a good thing.

Less Stress

Bad customers can be stressful. Whether they’re people that constantly change the parameters of a project, keep asking for details without committing to a purchase, or people who’re perennially dissatisfied with the product, they’ll add to your stress. You need to avoid such customers as much as possible. They’ll not only add to your stress, but also frustrate your employees. This can harm the overall efficiency of your business.

When such customers start knocking on your door, you can avoid them by claiming that you’re engaged in other projects. If you appear to always be busy, you can avoid the overall stress of dealing with bad customers.

Employee’s Productivity

Most small business owners are tempted to just foist bad customers over to their employees. Again, this is a very bad idea. Your employees will get stressed, as we mentioned above, but their productivity will suffer as well. You gain virtually no benefit from exposing your employees to bad customers. They’ll only resent you for it and that can affect your company culture.

More Time

When you drop customers that don’t contribute to your business in any way, you realise that you have more time on your hands. Time is a precious commodity in the life of an entrepreneur. If dropping a bad customer gives you more of it, you shouldn’t hesitate. This would yield massive benefits later on.

Better Focus on Your Current Projects and Clients

If you’re not focused on dealing with a bad customer, you have more time and energy to pay attention to your current customers and projects. This means that you and your team would work more efficiently on current projects. In fact, if you do good work, you might even get referrals from your current customers.

Room for New Customers

This is the best benefit of dropping bad customers. You have more room for new, better customers. For example, if you perform well on a previous project thanks to reduced stress and more time, your old customer might recommend your services to others.

So by dropping the old customer, you might gain a new one. There are several other reasons for letting go of bad customers. You just need to avoid them in a way that doesn’t affect you reputation.