June 10, 2015 | In: Opinion

Stop Intimidating Your Clients

There are some companies who like to intimidate their clients. Here are few examples:

– Every time I watch a Disney Movie, I am forced to watch a few minutes of what will happen to me if I ever decide to buy a pirated copy of the movie that I’m about to watch and that I already paid for. In my opinion, this is dumb. I don’t like Disney for this practice, especially since the only people who watch all these threats are those who bought the movies legitimately: pirated copies of any movie don’t even have these warnings (which makes this whole warning even dumber)! We all know the laws so you don’t need to remind us everytime.

– While trying to buy a new phone off ebay, I noticed that one of the sellers had this warning: “All unauthorized payments are reported to the FBI. No Exceptions”. Really? So, the FBI now have nothing to do except tracking a scammer overseas who bought one of your phones for $500 with another person’s credit card and then the credit card owner charged back?

– While waiting in the line in a bank, I saw a teller literally interrogating a client because he withdrew some of his money from 3 other banks before and he wanted to withdraw some more. The guy explained to her that he was traveling and that each bank had a cap on the amount of cash withdrawn per client (I’m sure that she knew about this rule – some banks won’t give you more than USD $1,000 in cash if you don’t book that cash in advance), but she kept on for like 15 minutes until the branch manager came in, asked the same questions again, and finally allowed the person to take his own money.

– While trying to pay the bill for a mobile phone overseas, I was amazed by the rudeness of a so called “customer care representative” who literally told a client (who asked the same question a couple of time) that she (the client) is stupid and if she asks the same question again she will call security.

– Other countless examples…

I just can’t believe the mentality that many of the businesses have out there. How do they believe that intimidating their clients is good for their business and its continuity? And why do they even bother to have a department for “customer support” when they mainly offer their clients direct or indirect threats?

On the flip side, I think any business treating its clients with respect, dignity, and friendliness will thrive because most companies don’t!

This article (as well as all other articles on this website) is an intellectual property and copyright of Fadi El-Eter and can only appear on fadi.el-eter.com.

Comment Form