Saying "No" to your customer

May 7, 2009

Continuing the "tech support bits": Don't be afraid to say "no" to a customer.

Case A: a customer has asked you for a free upgrade. You don't know what to say. Saying "no" is scary. Providing a free upgrade seems unfair. So you just leave it right there, hoping to answer later. Finally you end up with no answer at all.

Case B: a customer wants a new feature. You think to yourself "maybe we'll add this to the next version. But we have no time to do this right now, so I'll leave this for the weekend..." Sounds familiar? A day passes, a week, and you still have no time to implement the new feature. The customer question remains unanswered. And it's getting more and more awkward each day, further keeping this question from being answered.

Learn to say "No". Don't be a chicken.

"No, but we'll consider adding it".
"No, I'm denying this request sorry".
"No, you can't have a free upgrade but I can provide you with a discount".

Those are better than no answer at all.

PS. Inspired by a question from our customer: "can your web-based helpdesk software do billing for our technicians?"

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