When does helping customers stop being worth it?

[dpd1]

I'm not sure why, but it seems like the customer questions triple during the summer. As I was trying to help somebody today, I was asking myself... When does the time it takes to help people, start to exceed the benefits?

This guy from Argentina is trying to get something to work. He speaks poor English. I'm on about the 4th exchange now, trying to understand what he wants to do. My explanations seem to be received with about 50% success rate. Yesterday I was on about the 6th email, with a guy that is basically trying to take one of our products apart and modify it. I told him the first time he brought it up that it basically won't work that well, but he's ignoring that.

I know that helping people like this gets rewarded a little. They're pacified and they may also refer us to other people. But the devil sitting on my other shoulder sometimes makes me want to just tell these people... 'I have no freakn' clue, just leave me alone.'

It's hard knowing when enough is enough.

[Marshall]

You might find this thread helpful: Minimize Customer Service Support Emails? [webmasterworld.com]

Marshall

[oliondor]

I have the same feeling...

And the main reason is that people who keep asking usually do not buy !

The best customers are the ones who never ask anything and just order.

[wolfadeus]

Have you thought about setting yourself a time limit? E.g. spend no more than 30 minutes on a customer unless he spent X amount of money.

[dpd1]

Every situation is different, but the only thing I've found to sort of work... is that I just start making my responses progressively shorter each time. Some people seem to take a hint, but some don't.

[jecasc]

Dear customer. Thank you very much for your email and your interest in our product. We hope you are happy with your purchase. You have however exceeded the number of free support questions. Please use the following link to make your Paypal payment of $xx. We will answer your question as soon as we have received your payment. Best regards...

[Leosghost]

;)))

[wolfadeus]

Well, that's more or less tech support does it usually.

[RhinoFish]

For the worst ones, refund them, block them from buying again. Okay, this only works in niche circumstances. But, I have done it. :-)

[HRoth]

When I am talking to a customer who is taking up an excess of time or just getting on my nerves real bad, I always have to put them on hold to "take another call." Then I come back on and say I have to take that other call right away. It seems to work pretty well.

[oliondor]

It's good not to reply them too fast the second time and other times...

The more they ask the more I'm slow to reply, and I tell them that we have too many messages to reply...