Are you a jerk? Well it just might land you a job, or better yet, you can start your own company with offensive customer service as a central tenet. Sure sounds like a fast track to bankruptcy, but that’s where you’re wrong. Not only can it be a positive for your company, it can be your entire marketing department!
The first business that comes to mind for intentionally poor customer service is Dick’s Last Resort – a small chain of restaurants with rude, vulgar, and downright offensive waiters. Apparently people like being treated like shit – the owners initially opened a standard fine-dining restaurant that quickly went bankrupt. But with the strategy of setting themselves apart by being the sloppiest (hopefully not in the kitchen though) and with the worst servers you can imagine (in rudeness, not wait time) they have turned into a successful business.
That example was obvious. Everyone that goes to Dick’s knows their intentionally offensive customer service and goes for a good laugh. This next example masquerades as a regular old eyeglasses company, but you sure don’t want to talk with them on the phone. They take “any publicity is good publicity” literally – if they offend you enough to tell others, that’s a job well done!
A highly entertaining New York Times article explains the business strategy of DecorMyEyes: if a customer calls to dispute a transaction, give them hell! They are trying to cheat you out of your hard earned money! Exactly the opposite of “the customer is always right.” And apparently disputes happen all the time when your business is taking orders of high-end glasses and then ordering them on eBay or directly from France.
So how is this strategy a success? By generating word of mouth online. You see, every link to the DecorMyEyes website will pull the website higher up in search results, even if the links are from scathing reviews. With a basic understanding of how Google ranks their search results this makes sense. Google calculates the PageRank for each website – the exact algorithm is highly secretive, but the basics are that it looks at both the number of links to your website as well as the PageRank for the website that links to you. So any link is good, and a link from highly popular customer venting website Get Satisfaction is worth even more.
“When they grumble about reporting him to the Better Business Bureau — nearly 300 have done so in the last three years — he urges them to grumble to Get Satisfaction as well.”
Most people that order eyeglasses online are going to search for the particular brand that they are looking for. If DecorMyEyes is high up on the search results, they will get business. The customer won’t bother to research customer satisfaction before buying … but maybe they should.
Can this be applied to other internet businesses as well? You bet! Don’t have a marketing budget? No problem, let your disgruntled customers do it for you!
I believe most people would have a very hard time executing on this business strategy. They are simply too nice and want their customers to be happy. Soooo, if this business model catches on, maybe there is an opportunity in outsourcing your customer service to a company that will treat your customers like dirt for you. They have no authority to make any decisions (which is frustrating enough alone AT&T), and they really don’t even have to know what your business sells. Working on this “Jerk Squad” team would be a great side job – the perfect way to blow off steam after a long day at the office!
Photo: Liz West