Time to Fire the Customer?
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A customer called yesterday and said he was having a problem with our software. After getting some strange answers to some questions I asked what operating system he was using. "Windows ME" was the response. We clearly state on the website that we support Windows XP and later. It may actually work, but we integrate with a 3rd party software application, and it may have problems with ME. I don't do this often, but it may be time to fire this customer. I don't think I want to try to support a product that Microsoft stopped supporting years ago.
SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill
I'm just surprised the customer failed to take notice of the large message that your app displayed, Unsupported OS. App may not run correctly.
Best wishes, Hans
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A customer called yesterday and said he was having a problem with our software. After getting some strange answers to some questions I asked what operating system he was using. "Windows ME" was the response. We clearly state on the website that we support Windows XP and later. It may actually work, but we integrate with a 3rd party software application, and it may have problems with ME. I don't do this often, but it may be time to fire this customer. I don't think I want to try to support a product that Microsoft stopped supporting years ago.
SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill
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A customer called yesterday and said he was having a problem with our software. After getting some strange answers to some questions I asked what operating system he was using. "Windows ME" was the response. We clearly state on the website that we support Windows XP and later. It may actually work, but we integrate with a 3rd party software application, and it may have problems with ME. I don't do this often, but it may be time to fire this customer. I don't think I want to try to support a product that Microsoft stopped supporting years ago.
SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill
Jim , customer do make this mistake, But why should we fire them? Some customer never read any note when installing software. :laugh: I will never fire customer till he is ready to pay my bill ;P regards,
Viral My Site Tips & Tracks
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A customer called yesterday and said he was having a problem with our software. After getting some strange answers to some questions I asked what operating system he was using. "Windows ME" was the response. We clearly state on the website that we support Windows XP and later. It may actually work, but we integrate with a 3rd party software application, and it may have problems with ME. I don't do this often, but it may be time to fire this customer. I don't think I want to try to support a product that Microsoft stopped supporting years ago.
SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill
Jim we get worse on a daily basis. We released a new major version a week ago and were called "dishonourable" by a customer because he bought six months ago and couldn't get a free update because we only offer a 60 day window. You need to get a thicker skin. Stick to the facts with them and clarify at each conversation a recap of what went on before so there is no misunderstanding and just state simply that ME is not and will not be supported but you are happy to help them if they upgrade to anything newer.
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Jim we get worse on a daily basis. We released a new major version a week ago and were called "dishonourable" by a customer because he bought six months ago and couldn't get a free update because we only offer a 60 day window. You need to get a thicker skin. Stick to the facts with them and clarify at each conversation a recap of what went on before so there is no misunderstanding and just state simply that ME is not and will not be supported but you are happy to help them if they upgrade to anything newer.
John, just curious. How did you come up with 60 days? One of my clients is re-thinking his upgrade policy, and is leaning toward 6 months.
Best wishes, Hans
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John, just curious. How did you come up with 60 days? One of my clients is re-thinking his upgrade policy, and is leaning toward 6 months.
Best wishes, Hans
[CodeProject Forum Guidelines] [How To Ask A Question] [My Articles]
We started with 90 days many years ago and started noticing everyone we dealt with had a 60 day policy for the software we buy. QuickBooks is a notable example. We release a major update roughly every 12 months though at this point where it was more hit and miss in the old days. A lot depends on the cycle you're on.
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A customer called yesterday and said he was having a problem with our software. After getting some strange answers to some questions I asked what operating system he was using. "Windows ME" was the response. We clearly state on the website that we support Windows XP and later. It may actually work, but we integrate with a 3rd party software application, and it may have problems with ME. I don't do this often, but it may be time to fire this customer. I don't think I want to try to support a product that Microsoft stopped supporting years ago.
SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill
We 'fire' several customers a year, even if they are a larger customer. We tag them as 'Do Not Call' or 'Avoid' so that our employees can identify them and act accordingly. We have absolutely no problem telling our customers to PISS OFF if they have been rude or aggressive to ANY of our employees. We do not want to deal with them in any way ever again, and they become the ones left out in the cold. You should see them come crawling back, but it's often too late! ahahaaa!! It is a zero tolerance policy as far as arrogant and beligerant customers are concerned, with NO thought to loss of income for the company; we are a family (100+ employees) and it is absolutely necessary to keep this as our policy. As for your customer, it appears as though they don't deserve to be fired, really. I am assuming because they are running WinME that they are not a terribly large business, and have not had the resources to upgrade to something better. I would be a bit more understanding to their plight. Maybe you could offer them some sort of solution as far as an upgrade is concerned. If they cannot upgrade, the only thing to do is refuse support, unless they are prepared to sign a different and more costly support agreement, which, if you do not want to honour regardless, you could raise the price through the roof. :-\ Poor bastards! lol
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A customer called yesterday and said he was having a problem with our software. After getting some strange answers to some questions I asked what operating system he was using. "Windows ME" was the response. We clearly state on the website that we support Windows XP and later. It may actually work, but we integrate with a 3rd party software application, and it may have problems with ME. I don't do this often, but it may be time to fire this customer. I don't think I want to try to support a product that Microsoft stopped supporting years ago.
SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill
You could simply tell them your app won't work on that OS. As a matter of fact, your app must be checking the OS version before it could start itself, and display a message like Hans pointed out. For me, firing a customer is something more than what I would dare to think of.
It is a crappy thing, but it's life -^ Carlo Pallini
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Jim , customer do make this mistake, But why should we fire them? Some customer never read any note when installing software. :laugh: I will never fire customer till he is ready to pay my bill ;P regards,
Viral My Site Tips & Tracks
Viral Upadhyay wrote:
I will never fire customer till he is ready to pay my bill
I think you mean 'while he is ready'. :) Till he is ready implies that he is not ready yet.
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We 'fire' several customers a year, even if they are a larger customer. We tag them as 'Do Not Call' or 'Avoid' so that our employees can identify them and act accordingly. We have absolutely no problem telling our customers to PISS OFF if they have been rude or aggressive to ANY of our employees. We do not want to deal with them in any way ever again, and they become the ones left out in the cold. You should see them come crawling back, but it's often too late! ahahaaa!! It is a zero tolerance policy as far as arrogant and beligerant customers are concerned, with NO thought to loss of income for the company; we are a family (100+ employees) and it is absolutely necessary to keep this as our policy. As for your customer, it appears as though they don't deserve to be fired, really. I am assuming because they are running WinME that they are not a terribly large business, and have not had the resources to upgrade to something better. I would be a bit more understanding to their plight. Maybe you could offer them some sort of solution as far as an upgrade is concerned. If they cannot upgrade, the only thing to do is refuse support, unless they are prepared to sign a different and more costly support agreement, which, if you do not want to honour regardless, you could raise the price through the roof. :-\ Poor bastards! lol
One of our resellers is exhibiting exactly that sort of behaviour towards our online merchant at the moment (they paid for a substantial order by wire transfer, forgot to account for the transfer charges and then threw a major paddy when the merchant contacted them to tell them that there was a shortfall). It's not pleasant to see, and if it wasn't for the fact that the order is for an existing customer we'd have blown them out by now.
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
modified on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 5:50 AM
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A customer called yesterday and said he was having a problem with our software. After getting some strange answers to some questions I asked what operating system he was using. "Windows ME" was the response. We clearly state on the website that we support Windows XP and later. It may actually work, but we integrate with a 3rd party software application, and it may have problems with ME. I don't do this often, but it may be time to fire this customer. I don't think I want to try to support a product that Microsoft stopped supporting years ago.
SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill
As with several others, I don't think you're to the point of firing the customer just yet. But for lack of information we cannot truly say. Sure your website clearly states that you have to use XP or newer, but does this person even know that ME is older? Not every computer user knows the family tree of the MS OS's. I've had users on technically unsupported OS's and generally they get a spew something like "I have no idea if it'll work on that or not, but if upgrading or replacing that workstation isn't an option, I'll see if I can help you through anything you come across. Obviously it'll be auto-billed [in our case that means they pay for every minute even though they have a support package that includes a couple hours of pre-paid support] and we may not get anywhere, but we can give it a shot." Some features just plain don't work, but if you work with them in cases like this it seems to boost their loyalty, they tend to think, "hey, this guy helped even though we were beyond their limits, just think if we had the proper OS..." I have a coworker that we always teas about only reading the first and the last part of sentences or paragraphs. She said her son has the same problem, I don't know if they just rush through what they're reading or what, but she often misses critical pieces of information or at least the answers to her questions. Maybe your client just didn't catch that. Now if they happen to be fully aware that ME is seen as slightly worse than the plague and are simply trying to be a pain in the neck, fill out that pink slip. Bottom line, don't fire the customer for not realizing they were doing something wrong as long as they're willing to accept that they are on their own or to upgrade/replace that system.
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We 'fire' several customers a year, even if they are a larger customer. We tag them as 'Do Not Call' or 'Avoid' so that our employees can identify them and act accordingly. We have absolutely no problem telling our customers to PISS OFF if they have been rude or aggressive to ANY of our employees. We do not want to deal with them in any way ever again, and they become the ones left out in the cold. You should see them come crawling back, but it's often too late! ahahaaa!! It is a zero tolerance policy as far as arrogant and beligerant customers are concerned, with NO thought to loss of income for the company; we are a family (100+ employees) and it is absolutely necessary to keep this as our policy. As for your customer, it appears as though they don't deserve to be fired, really. I am assuming because they are running WinME that they are not a terribly large business, and have not had the resources to upgrade to something better. I would be a bit more understanding to their plight. Maybe you could offer them some sort of solution as far as an upgrade is concerned. If they cannot upgrade, the only thing to do is refuse support, unless they are prepared to sign a different and more costly support agreement, which, if you do not want to honour regardless, you could raise the price through the roof. :-\ Poor bastards! lol
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Viral Upadhyay wrote:
I will never fire customer till he is ready to pay my bill
I think you mean 'while he is ready'. :) Till he is ready implies that he is not ready yet.
oops i made a mistake :^) Thanks for correcting me. :-\
Viral My Site Tips & Tracks
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A customer called yesterday and said he was having a problem with our software. After getting some strange answers to some questions I asked what operating system he was using. "Windows ME" was the response. We clearly state on the website that we support Windows XP and later. It may actually work, but we integrate with a 3rd party software application, and it may have problems with ME. I don't do this often, but it may be time to fire this customer. I don't think I want to try to support a product that Microsoft stopped supporting years ago.
SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill
Most of the comments so far recommend not "firing" the customer, but frankly, if you can't support them you are basically telling them the same thing. If you fire them, you tell them to go away, if you tell them you can't support them, your telling them to go away (assuming they wont upgrade).
Proudly drinking the finest Maryland craft beer. Visiting Maryland for business? First round is on me!
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We 'fire' several customers a year, even if they are a larger customer. We tag them as 'Do Not Call' or 'Avoid' so that our employees can identify them and act accordingly. We have absolutely no problem telling our customers to PISS OFF if they have been rude or aggressive to ANY of our employees. We do not want to deal with them in any way ever again, and they become the ones left out in the cold. You should see them come crawling back, but it's often too late! ahahaaa!! It is a zero tolerance policy as far as arrogant and beligerant customers are concerned, with NO thought to loss of income for the company; we are a family (100+ employees) and it is absolutely necessary to keep this as our policy. As for your customer, it appears as though they don't deserve to be fired, really. I am assuming because they are running WinME that they are not a terribly large business, and have not had the resources to upgrade to something better. I would be a bit more understanding to their plight. Maybe you could offer them some sort of solution as far as an upgrade is concerned. If they cannot upgrade, the only thing to do is refuse support, unless they are prepared to sign a different and more costly support agreement, which, if you do not want to honour regardless, you could raise the price through the roof. :-\ Poor bastards! lol
Logan Black wrote:
Maybe you could offer them some sort of solution as far as an upgrade is concerned. If they cannot upgrade, the only thing to do is refuse support, unless they are prepared to sign a different and more costly support agreement, which, if you do not want to honour regardless, you could raise the price through the roof.
No need to set it insanely high, $400ish will cover a new bottom end desktop that'll still be faster than an ME relic.
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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A customer called yesterday and said he was having a problem with our software. After getting some strange answers to some questions I asked what operating system he was using. "Windows ME" was the response. We clearly state on the website that we support Windows XP and later. It may actually work, but we integrate with a 3rd party software application, and it may have problems with ME. I don't do this often, but it may be time to fire this customer. I don't think I want to try to support a product that Microsoft stopped supporting years ago.
SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill
:thumbsup: TOS is and should be a two way street. I assume they clicked to agree to yours; & had they not done so, no deal or software would be allowed to go to that client. Most bottom-lines don't have room for hand-holding. Who wants this type of 'confused client' tying up and frustrating help desks and Tek. That said, if you have a heart & just feel like being nice....buy them an upgrade lisc. :~
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A customer called yesterday and said he was having a problem with our software. After getting some strange answers to some questions I asked what operating system he was using. "Windows ME" was the response. We clearly state on the website that we support Windows XP and later. It may actually work, but we integrate with a 3rd party software application, and it may have problems with ME. I don't do this often, but it may be time to fire this customer. I don't think I want to try to support a product that Microsoft stopped supporting years ago.
SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill
This is not a time to fire the customer since this appears to be a one time incident with this customer. Either the customer did not read the required system specifications or the customer thought the specifications did not apply to them for some reason. Simply explain that the software will not function on ME due to incompatibilities and this is the reason that you specify in your system requirements that the user use either XP or a newer operating system. Offer them possible solutions such as upgrading to a newer operating system (even be prepared to tell them where they might can find the software) or offer a refund with a restocking fee. Afterwards, apologize for the inconvenience and ask if there is anything else you can help them with today.
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We started with 90 days many years ago and started noticing everyone we dealt with had a 60 day policy for the software we buy. QuickBooks is a notable example. We release a major update roughly every 12 months though at this point where it was more hit and miss in the old days. A lot depends on the cycle you're on.
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You started with a 90 day policy and reduced it to 60 days based on the policies of other companies? Why? To make more money?
Yes. We didn't have a 90 day policy for very long, just in our early days. In fact 60 is generous these days, a lot of companies have 30 day policies. Again as I said before it depends on the release cycle overall and as we support every major past release as long as it's practical to do so it's no real hardship on our customers, it's their choice if they want the new features or not.
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One of our resellers is exhibiting exactly that sort of behaviour towards our online merchant at the moment (they paid for a substantial order by wire transfer, forgot to account for the transfer charges and then threw a major paddy when the merchant contacted them to tell them that there was a shortfall). It's not pleasant to see, and if it wasn't for the fact that the order is for an existing customer we'd have blown them out by now.
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
modified on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 5:50 AM