The Client Who Shouldn’t Be

My Gut Told Me to Run Like Hell

Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

My sales process is usually pretty seamless. But every now and then I let it get out of hand. And when I do, it screws me.

When you’re in my line of work (food safety consulting and information products), customer service has to be your top priority. So when a potential customer wants to buy a digital product without using my normal automated system, I go out of my way to help.

When I sell products manually, it usually ends up costing me money. And sometimes it’s so pathetic that I just have to laugh.

Here’s a transcript of my emails with a recent problem customer, plus a running tally of the time I spent looking after him.

Email 1, a simple enough request

A request for a quotation? Weird. All the information about this product is accompanied by a large blue button that says ‘USD99, buy now’. But hey, the guy is from South Africa, maybe he doesn’t have a credit card.

The customer contacted me to request a quotation for a simple, instant download digital product. It’s strange that he didn’t know the price of the product, since it’s on every page. He’s from South Africa, so I surmise that he doesn’t have a credit card and is seeking a way to pay off-line.

I always want to do the right thing for my customers, so I prepared him a quotation.