I could make a crack about the Harvard School of Business being nearly
as destructive to good business as the Harvard School of Government has
been to good governance, but I won't.
On 2/3/2010 1:45 PM, Henry Posner wrote:
A cardinal rule in all businesses is that the customer comes first.
Granted there could be an exceptional customer that deserves
to get the boot or who makes unreasonable demands. In this
case, resolving the problem to the customer's satisfaction,
in the big scheme of things, was a rather small concession
for B&H to make considering the volume of business they do,
the monetary amount, and the fact that the mistake was theirs.
I read a very illuminating article in the Harvard Business Review a few years
ago which made a strong case for companies dropping the least profitable 10% of
their customer base annually and replacing it with a combination of new
customers and increased business (or more profitable business) from existing
customers. I don't recall every detail but the article defended the idea that
unprofitable customers were a cancer on the business, draining resources and
costing, not earning, money and as a side benefit, sending these troublesome,
difficult, expensive customers to your competition put more burden on them,
benefiting you again.
I cannot say I necessarily agree with every detail of this argument, but it
does have points worth considering.
In the particular instance under discussion, various compromise offers were
tendered. None were accepted. Lawyers I know say a compromise is when both
parties are equally dissatisfied. This customer declined all compromise
efforts. Those here arguing this so vehemently should consider there's more to
the tale than they know.
-- -
regards,
Henry Posner
Director of Corporate Communications
B&H Photo-Video, and Pro-Audio
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/
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\viewkind4\uc1\pard\f0\fs20 I've just upgraded to Thunderbird 3.0 and the
interface subtly weird.\par
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