Soul Proprietor - When easy is too hard

A few weeks ago, I wrote about making your business easy for the clients to do business with you.

So let’s say you do just that. You have a simple site with clear directions and policies. Your business is easy, foolproof even – but then you encounter a client who can’t (or won’t) follow the directions. What should be a simple transaction turns into a hair-pulling teeth-gritting ordeal. What then?

It may not be worth your time, my friend.

Let me illustrate with an example of how I went down the rabbit hole of aggravation.

A woman purchases a gift certificate – but puts her name as the recipient. Was she buying herself a gift? Or was this a mistake? I shot her an email and asked for clarification. No reply. I sent a follow up email. Nothing.

So I dutifully created the gift certificate and sent it to her. About two weeks later, she purchases a fifteen minute reading. Once again, I send an email. Nothing.

After a few more follow up emails, I sent her a handwritten note asking her to please contact me. (Yes, I go above and beyond to serve.) Still nothing.

Two weeks go by and she purchases an email reading. Once again, I try to reach out but get radio silence. Now I’m concerned. Is someone using her PayPal account without her permission? What gives?

Finally, I get an email from her and notice that the address is slightly different on her PayPal account. Which means: she entered the wrong address on PayPal. So she’s not receiving emails from me or PayPal.

The email she sent me was bizarre to say the least. It made very little sense and it appeared as if she just assumed I would “send her a reading.” I explained how I worked and got more garbled stuff back. Finally, I wrote: please read the instructions so we can set up a time.

All this nonsense was a red flag but determined to serve, I did my best to keep my composure, going back and forth and back and forth until we got a date on the calendar. I sent her clear instructions for our appointment and then left it at that. (I also refunded the two options she didn’t want.)

The day of our appointment…you guessed it: she doesn’t call. I sent her an email reminding her of the appointment along with instructions on how to call me.

She sent a note – finally – saying that she couldn’t get through. This was bananas because my line was wide open. I always test it. And I’m on a landline – it’s as stable as it gets.

A flurry of emails ensue until I’ve had enough. My time is being wasted with the utterly clueless. I’m officially done with this madness.

I refunded her and fired her. This is not how I work and this is not the client for me. It’s not that hard to work with me. Apparently it was for her.

In your business, you will come across clients like this.

Clients who:

don’t read instructions
cannot understand how to do simple tasks such as click a “confirm your subscription button” or dial a phone
ignore your emails
are poor communicators
pay for a service and then cannot seem to nail down a date
pull a no-show (often with excuses about emergencies)
are clueless
are rude or unreasonable in their demands
make you angry
and so on…

Trust me when I say this: if your easy is too hard, it’s not worth it.

Your business needs to be set up to be easy for the client but if the client is too hard to work with, if they don’t get it, if it takes a Herculean effort just to book with you, then you need to say goodbye.

Ease goes both ways.

Blessings,

Theresa