What some customers do to sabotage your business, brand

Any investor will go that extra length to keep their customers and ensure they do not bolt out to the competition.

Be it giving discounts, flash sales at crazy bottom prices, free shopping vouchers after accumulating certain points, and a few giveaways with any shopping from a set price ceiling and above.

As valuable as customers are, they can also damage your brand. Have you dealt with a difficult customer, and how did you resolve their issue? What tricks are in the book to ensure customer satisfaction?

Here are some of the ways customers can hurt your brand.

Reputation damage from competition

A Nairobi-based businesswoman tells this writer how her competition almost ruined her brand.

Her business, which deals in household items such as cutlery, offers free deliveries to customers within Nairobi and parcel services to those outside the capital.

She relies on a courier to make deliveries for her Nairobi customers. Unbeknownst to her, the courier colluded with her competitors in a similar business and swapped their lower-quality items for hers, which were then delivered to her customers. Where the competition did not have similar items, her customers would be assured of receiving what they ordered, at top quality and value, and would give her brand a good rating and refer others.

Those who received swaps would call, complaining, with some ranting on social media, calling her a con or a fraud. At some point, she would refund a few or even replace the swapped items with genuine ones, wondering how low-quality items had left her shop.

When this trend persisted for some time, someone whispered to her that her rider was behind the reputational damage to her business.

This revelation shocked her, but rather than charging at her rider, she hatched a plan with the police. The police officer was to act as a customer, with his order delivered to a specific Nairobi police station.

Everything about the item, including its serial number, was captured in images sent to the officer’s WhatsApp account.

The rider, who would receive a good commission for each item swapped, passed by the competition’s premises, swapped the item, and then delivered it to the “customer”.

When the details of what was delivered failed to match what he had been shown in the pictures, he was locked up. It didn’t take long for him to begin singing like a canary and to lead the police and the investor to the place where he was swapping items as part of a bargain for his release.

How the matter was resolved at the station is unknown, but the investor did post on social media, apologising to her clients.

With the rider fired and a new one hired, the business picked up again.

Ordering and not paying

As in the example above, you rely on riders to deliver orders to your customers within specified areas and parcel services to other parts. A customer within the free-delivery region places an order and provides their area of residence and a drop-off point.

The mode of payment is cash on delivery. Not a bad business model. However, when the rider arrives at the destination and calls the customer, the call doesn’t go through.

The phone number that was ringing minutes ago is unreachable.

All you have is the name of the estate, not a specific house number, and not everyone around knows the customer by their full name. The rider returns with the order, distraught.

Others will pick up calls from the rider, inspect the order, and call you to say they are cancelling it because it’s not what they asked for. 

The queer ‘customers’

Have you ever been on seemingly busy business premises only to discover that the people milling around are not real customers?

Such people add no value to your business, but telling them off is where it gets complicated. They’re the kind of customer who appears once in a blue moon, but because the customer is king, you can’t simply chase them away. How do you deal with them diplomatically so they leave?

Customers from hell

A lady investor in the liquor business reached out to this writer and shared a sad story. Last year, she decided to sell her business as operational costs were becoming unsustainable.

The buyer decided to retain her for a while, as she had the know-your-customer advantage, given that the buyer was a greenhorn in the locality where the premises were located.

One evening, two men and a lady showed up at the business. She couldn’t help but notice how generous they were with other customers.

They patronised the business several times after that, earning her trust, including by leaving fat tips.

A few days later, they showed up, told her about an upcoming birthday party for one of their friends, and showed her where she lived.

When the weekend of celebrations came, the three fellows showed up early in the morning, took stock worth Sh8,000 in beers and spirits, and promised to pay in the evening once the guests delivered their cash gifts.

When the given hour for payments to be remitted lapsed, she called the numbers they had left behind. Calls never went through.

After reporting the matter at her local police station and going with police officers to the address they showed her, they were greeted with shock that nobody meeting the description of those customers resided there. She was left counting losses.