Digg this!

My recent posts about Homestead's philosophy of putting the employee ahead of the customer seem to have hit a nerve in the blogosphere.  Last week one of our unhappy customers (yes, unfortunately we have a few) posted on his own blog an article entitled Homestead CEO says screw customers!  It was an interesting (if not entirely accurate, especially the catchy title) interpretation of a post of mine from November entitled Maybe you should fire that customer?   His post was then posted on a popular social bookmarking site called Digg and you can read all of the 150+ Digg comments here.  The beauty of the web is that you can draw your own conclusions and join in the conversation yourself, so if you have time on your hands, "digg" in. 

I won't respond to his post here but I do want to emphasize that this is not a practice which we employ widely here at Homestead.  Nor should any business, as I mentioned in the postscript of my original post--if you do, you've got a big problem with your business.  You can count the number of Homestead customers whom we have ever fired on your fingers, and I'm the only one who's ever literally "fired" a customer.

However, the philosophy that our employees have the right to demand basic respect, integrity and decency from everybody that they deal with--each other, our customers, our partners, our management team--is very powerful and pervasive in the Homestead culture.  It allows them to do their jobs with pride, professionalism, and self-respect.  Of course, our support reps have to follow much stricter rules of politeness and conduct than we expect from our customers, and we record every single call so that we can monitor their behavior.  Every single time we get a complaint (even mild ones) from a customer about our support, we review the recording and take the appropriate action.  Sometimes this results in termination or strict reprimand, more often a coaching session with their manager.

But let's return to the general topic of putting employees ahead of customers, and rejecting the hackneyed philosophy of "the customer is always right."  The topic seems to have struck a chord with people on both sides of the argument, but mostly from business owners who feel customers have been falsely empowered to act like jerks, sapping their resources and energy, and hurting their ability to serve their non-jerk customers (most people) and build great businesses.  This response is entirely predictable, because in my experience almost all businesses feel this way--they are just afraid to say it.  I'm not.

Contrary to the belief of some of the vocal critics I've heard from in the past few weeks, businesses do not exist in order to provide the lowest level of service to everybody except for "squeaky wheels" or people who have difficulty finding the value in what they offer.  They also don't exist to provide every conceivable benefit to anybody who asks for it, in any manner, at any price. 

To prove my point, I'd like you to humor me in a thought experiment:  Imagine a group of people walking into a restaurant dressed slovenly, talking loudly, cussing, and reeking of alcohol.  Assume that they manage to get by the person at the front.  Then they are rude to their waitperson, accuse them loudly of having a bad attitude while they are ordering, and then shout "this isn't what I ordered, you $!@&" when the food arrives.  Does the restaurant have a responsibility to serve these people?  What do the other patrons think, and how does it impact their quality of service?  How can the waitperson be expected to serve the rest of the tables with a positive attitude after being treated so disrespectfully?  Could you really blame him/her if customers later in the evening got poor service, or if she snapped at them rudely when she thought another party was about to behave the same way?  If you were the owner of the restaurant, would you tell your employees to suck it up, how dare they be short with your customers no matter what happened earlier, and if they don't like the atmosphere and the customers, they can quit?  Or would you kick those people out of your restaurant, make it clear they were never allowed in again, and tell the employees that they can use their judgment and alert the manager sooner next time if they think things are getting out of hand?

If I owned the restaurant, I would definitely do the latter.  First of all, just based on principal, I don't want disrespectful jerks in my restaurant, and I can choose to deny service to anybody I want, as long as it isn't discriminating on the basis of race, age, gender, sexual preference, looks, or some other discriminatory bias.  Secondly, it's bad business.  The other people in the restaurant that night didn't get their money's worth.  The ambiance was destroyed, service was slower because people were dealing with the jerks, and even later in the evening employees were still rattled and not giving good service.  The food was probably a little less tasty, and more likely to arrive cold.  Employees probably didn't turn over tables as quickly, or didn't push wine/dessert/drinks quite as much, which resulted in lower revenue.  One or more employees became a step closer to quitting that night, and lost respect for the managers and owners because nothing was done.  In short, trying to treat that one table of jerks with respect creates a huge domino effect, that leads not just to loss of short term profit, but erosion of long term quality in your business.

This is my point.  If you are starting or building a business of your own, you have to decide where you draw the line for dealing with disrespectful or unreasonable, or impossible-to-satisfy customers.  It's a decision that will have broader implications than you might suspect, because any business has limited resources, and you have to use them as wisely as possible to achieve your definition of success.  My definition doesn't include serving extremely rude or unreasonably demanding customers, at the expense of my employees' happiness and capacity to delight the rest of our customers.  Does yours?

Comments

[Service Untitled - Douglas]

Hi there,

I posted a series on firing your customers and cited your posts as an example. Check out my blog (serviceuntitled.com) and let me know your feedback.

[fatmansliiming]

When I’m not doing my own very new blog I am running a very successful natural therapies centre, we provide remedial massage, acupuncture and herbal medicine. I definitely agree that sometimes you have to fire a client, I have only had to do it once, but it comes to a point were you have to put the emotional/mental needs of your staff and self above those of the client and there are plenty of other business's that they can go too and plenty of other clients out there for us.

Keep up the very informative and insightful blogging!

[jwlrychc]

"Fire that Customer?" What ever happened to customer service? Your company might be good at setting up a fast site but your company lacks in customer service! Perhaps if you didn't coddle your employees so much they might actually do some work or know what they are talking about...After waiting on hold today for 12 minutes I finally got someone on the phone who had no clue how to fix my problem and instead of them contacting the design team he told me to email them....well I did three times today.....and I tagged it with a read receipt and guess what......it was deleted all three times without being read..by design services....SOME CUSTOMER SERVICE....I've also tried contacting your recommended web site companies to help me add to my site and NOBODY EVER GETS BACK TO ME.....Also my site was down and completely unsearchable on Friday.....I couldn't believe it but my hands were tied.....you have NO SUPPORT ON THE WEEKENDS.....you have got to be kidding.....the internet functions 24/7...therefore problems arise 24/7 ....you need 24/7 tech support regardless..........I emailed every support team possible and guess what I finally got a response.....4 days later......4 DAYS LATER....is that a joke.....then there is the issue of intergrating with EBAY.you have nobody in support who knows what they are doing with respects to ebay.......or quick books premier.....and linking with quick books premier is impossible because you have your terms mixed up...with quick books so it's impossible to link.....unless you use your title of the product as the quick books SKU number...which is completely unrealistic.....when it comes to keeping track of product.....

[Yvonne DiVita]

Well, well... the old "the customer is always right" adage. Well, they are. To a point. When customers get belligerent... without good cause, then they aren't right. If they have cause, we need to address their issues.

I've had to fire clients, too. Sometimes they just don't fit. And, I've been a belligerent customer, at times. I have to admit - not every time was it warranted.

The best companies know how to calm down an irate customer. They allow the c/s rep free reign to deal properly with the customer (and train them, too). And, when all else fails... they chalk it up to the learning curve.

I'm impressed that you posted the negative comment here. This person is a bit too over the top for me to take him or her seriously, though... if those issues are true, I hope you're resolving them. What people need to understand is that most business owners (I'm one) try to do the best thing - try to let customers be 'right', and generally work hard to solve problems. But, not all customers are willing to let the problem be solved.

[Kerry]

There is no question that you need to occasionally and selectively choose to fire the customer.

Jack Welch made exactly that point recently in his business week column: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/toc/07_08/B4022magazine.htm

I have some different color on it here focused on software scenarios:
http://simplematterofsoftware.typepad.com/weblog/2007/02/when_to_fire_a_.html

[Clay Cook]

Hi Justin,

You've certainly created some interesting discussion.

You should always fire your "D grade" customers. And also possibly your "C" customers, but keep and concentrate your efforts on your "A" and "B" customers.

On a slightly different tangent...

I believe in the following business circle...

If you (the business owner) take care of your employees, then they will take care of your customers who will take care of your business, which in turn will take care of you.

This also backs up your thinking i believe.

Regards
Clay

[R. B. Chandler]

Yes, I can certainly identify with fatmansliiming and his issue with Homestead customer support. I've bumped heads with getting cut-and-paste answers to questions that had nothing to do with my problem at the time. I tend to think that it comes from skimming the (complaint) text rather than reading it. I've been known to write back in an effort to educate your customer service reps to this fact especially if I've already seen the same cut-and-paste answer 10 times over the years. I'm still waiting, since before 2000, for the Frames element the cut-and-paste answers keep saying you are working on.

I love Homestead and have been with Homestead for a long time since before we had to pay for our web sites. Having been with Homstead so long I figure anything I can do to help make it better benefits me in the end. Yes, I do ask for help, or complain, from time to time, but if I find the solution to one of those unsolvable problems at the time I do share that answer with the customer service rep for their future reference. My questions tend to run to the how can I push the envelope of what the SiteBuilder can do; so I know going in that customer service might not know the answer. It only bothers me when I get a cut-and-paste answer that had nothing to do with the question and it was evident they did not take the time to read what I wrote. "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer but it seems most customer service departments are not comfortable with their reps giving out that answer.

I would think that if the customer service rep had the customer's records available would give them a clue as to how to respond to the customer. I would think that the reps would know that you don't answer a customer who has only been building his web site for a couple of months the same way you would respond to a customer who has been with Homestead for several years.

There is a part of me that has toyed with the idea of applying for a job in customer service because I know a lot of the answers having a very techically complex web site(s). Homestead is a product I believe in and I want to see it get better and grow with whatever my future needs may be.

You wrote: A website that doesn't change frequently is dead. And a dead website is a dead business.

You need to take your own advice here. While A-Z Help Index even though it seems to have been updated recently still needs help as some of the really useful information seems to have been removed. The Web Page Styles haven't changed or been expanded in how many years? Graphic Libraries are the same way and they're hardly worth using anyway. At least you're still connected with the Animation Factory. To bad you don't have a link to www.grsites.com instead.

In a world where there are a lot of button and navigation generators and other similar stuff it seems to me that you should have your own library of useful java scripts and generators for members only. It just seems to me that there are so many little things this that could be done to improve customer satisfaction overall. Found in a help search: Can I use Frames on my webpages? It is not currently possible to build frames with your website account. However, because of numerous requests similar to your own, we are considering implementing Frames support in a future version of SiteBuilder. - That was your answer more than two SiteBuilders ago. You use to supply the code for a simple Iframe. If you're not ever going to create a Frames or Iframe Element then the least you should have is a Frames and/or Iframe code generator. I have one on one of my web sites with tips for Homestead users (www.shipscomputer.galacticenterprise.com). Simple things like this can save questions or be used as part of the answers your customer service people give out.

While firing some of your customers is not a bad idea. You might consider the concept of hiring your customers too. After all they are the ones who are actually using the product. Some of us tend to push the limits of what the SiteBuilder was designed to do. We love Homestead because it allows us (without real web building knowldge) to push against those limits and sometimes go beyond them. That is what your customer service people need to know if they are to truly help your customers.

How can I use 50 or more mouseover buttons to control an Iframe on one of my web pages? This is not a question I would expect customer service to be able to answer, but it is possible using just the SiteBuilder and a simple Iframe code. This is where hiring your customers starts to make sense on some level.

[Justin]

R.B.,
Thanks for the thoughtful comments and suggestions. Actually, we have hired quite a few of our customers over the years and agree it is a great way to serve our customers. If you're interested, contact jobs@homestead-inc.com or send me an email at ceo@homestead.com.
Thanks!
Justin

[Bill Catania]

In defense of Justin, I have to say that his level of customer service and attention to small details would rival any CEO or entrepreneur in the country. I had a personal experience in which I upgraded to Homestead Storefront, and had opted for the cost to be divided over the course of 12 months. The charge appeared in one lump sum, which triggered a call to customer care. I had no luck dealing with customer care, so I emailed Justin directly. He responded at 10:30 at night, resolved the issue, credited my account and even gave me a free month of hosting for my trouble. Example of a CEO going the extra mile. I seldom respond to blog posts, but upon recently reading Justin's profile on Wiki, it cited that he had a recent controversey regarding customer service and the priority that he placed on pleasing the customer. The moment we fail to prouduce a product that produces value for the customer, and the moment our employees feel dis-empowered, we have comitted a dis-service to the customer. Justin's focus on 1. Employee, 2. Product is actually an effort to put the customer first. I should also note that my customer service issue came BEFORE this whole debacle. Kudos to Justin and Homestead - I have been a customer since 1999, and expect to be for many years to come.
Bill Catania

[Kris]

I have had the worst experience dealing with homestead technologies....we had a storefront we wanted to downgrade to just a web page...we were paying a monthly fee for our storefront of 24.99 a month. The web page would be around $6 dollars a month. When my husband called to cancel the storefront and just have a web page it was suppose to be a charge of around 74.00for the year for the web page. You can imagine our surprise when a total of 373.98 was debited out of our bank account!!! They ended up charging us a years fee for the storefront we CANCELLED of 299.99!! And the years fee for just the web page. We have been calling since Sunday after we discovered the money taken out of our account without our consent!! We have been getting the run around and when you ask for a manager they always have an excuse...and they keep saying its in review...I have e-mailed and left messages with customer reps saying they will have someone call me....I still have not received any acknowledgement from anyone about my problem!!! To me this is fraud taking money out of your bank account for something you CANCELLED and not being able to get any answers being an e-mail or phone call!!! Has anyone else experienced anything like this maybe a class action suite would open someones eyes....this is the worst customer service I have ever encountered!!!

[Charles Lewis]

I have been a customer of Homestead since May 2004. During the period I have experienced slow,bad,rude service on occasion but fortunately I do not need too much help so I have managed quite well.

The real trouble started with StoreFront. I signed on for a trial and then cancelled my subscription by telephone.(as you request).
This involved an international call and a considerable time waiting on line listening to your voice on recorded messages.
The cancellation was registered but the site was not closed. Although the site was not worked on,developed,published or even assigned a domain you continued to debit me $25 a month for the last six months. I wrote and it took so long to receive a reply (24 hours is a joke!!!!) I phoned, once again to wait on line until a very rude person answered who then transferred me to the billing dept.to a helpful assistant - Doug. He confirmed receipt of the cancellation and identified the problem and said I would receive a full refund. The international phone call lasted for more than 20 minutes but at least I thought the matter was sorted.
No way!!
Mr.Michael writes "We have already refunded you for the most recent charge on the account. We cant refund you for any of the other charges".
In other words Homestead are keeping $150 for a cancelled Storefront that has not been used.

I quote below a couple of items from the HOMESTEAD CREED (I only read such things I have NEVER experienced them)

''Providing exceptional and personal attention to the needs, complaints, or comments of our customers.
Making customer satisfaction the ultimate measure of success—more than money, more than our own satisfaction, and more than publicity or hype. In the long term, we will only succeed if we meet our customers’ needs with a better product and with better service.''

I see in your blog other complaints and stories of horrific service and experiences with Homestead and I respectfully suggest that you should examine your customer support service. I am totally frustrated, have no one to talk to, receive curt slow replies to my help requests and can not get to any senior executive to solve my problems. More important I am a dissatisfied customer who is now looking for an alternative solution to my website needs.

The only possible solution seems to complain everywher possible and write to the CEO's Blog !!!!!!!!

[Debra]

Hi Justin,

Homestead has been good to me and my business...as I have only had to write (Justin) once since 2006.
Here is note #2...as I can not find your email anymore?
I sent a certified letter (and fax) to Homestead attn: Julia Schloss.
TWO WEEKS AGO...no reply so far.
This was regarding a copyright infringement.
(someone copying my work)
I'd like to believe that you would not let another company steal my work~
Can you please have someone contact me?
Thank You.

[Linda Lewis]

I'm going to put myself at risk of being fired.......
The terms and conditions of a contract should be CLEAR from the very begining.I called about two months ago to ask questions about activating my web site again,
if I had known that I was going to be billed as soon as I hung up my phone I would have waited until this week to call Homestead.I needed to make some changes
before I published my site.I've paid 118.64 to date
and I can't even find my web page to finish my changes
to save and publish it. As of yesterday 5/27/09 I found out that my web page is on line, still without the nessary changes.And I still don't know how I'm on line when I didn't put it there. Someone was kind enough to remove 49.99 from my bill 3 days ago, I'm still waiting on my credit to show up at my bank. I want a full refund, so, as far as I'm concerned, Homestead still should credit to my account 68.63.
Yes I am very unhappy, but I think I have a very good reason.