Hey guys, first post here and I’m seeking advice regarding my small business that has a customer that I am having issues with.
For context, the business is owned by 3 individuals (myself included) and while the other 2 are more in an investor/owner role, I am in an owner/operator role. If the shop is open, I’m usually there. We work in an industry with small margins (usually 10% or less) but are typically in the $200+ range. So the items are pricey, but we usually make not much on them.
Our real bread and butter is our “service” related industry where obviously make more. He has partaken in the service side of things before, but rarely.
Anyways, he always comes in, and usually wants a deal on something, or wants to sell us an item and wants retail or slightly below retail, which obviously leaves us with no margin so we usually always decline.
He’s recently complained to the other owners about it and I explained the situation and they obviously understand my side and have left it in my hands to decide what to do. Frankly, I’d rather not deal with him as it takes valuable time away from other customers who are either new clients or more likely to do business with us.
The problem is, the town we operate out of is 3,000 people at best. So, I’m worried that saying something to him will cause him to foul mouth us to others in the area. Obviously we get traffic from other towns too, but our local customers are very important.
What’s the best thing to do here? Tolerate it? Say something? If so, what do I say to soften the blow as much as possible?
TL;DR - Customer comes in and always wants a deal on slim margin items. Recently he has started making more of a fuss. How do I defuse it or inform him we no longer want to serve him?
As others have said fire him as a customer. Guaranteed he does this to everybody he deals with.
There will be more people rolling their eyes than agreeing with him when he inevitably starts carrying on about how you and the business is xyz bad blah blah blah etc.
This post is an automated archive from a submission made on /r/smallbusiness, powered by Fediverser software running on alien.top. Responses to this submission will not be seen by the original author until they claim ownership of their alien.top account. Please consider reaching out to them let them know about this post and help them migrate to Lemmy.
Lemmy users: you are still very much encouraged to participate in the discussion. There are still many other subscribers on !smallbusiness@indiehackers.space that can benefit from your contribution and join in the conversation.
Reddit users: you can also join the fediverse right away by getting by visiting https://portal.alien.top. If you are looking for a Reddit alternative made for and by an independent community, check out Fediverser.
My response to “can you do any better” is always to say “sure” and tack on $10, $100, $10%, whatever flows better with the numbers we’re dealing with at the moment. When the reaction is “what?” I’ll do it again.
List price starts to look like a bargain real fast.