Onion Slices

One of the things that I've noticed in my job is that there are quite a few businesses out there that want to treat everything like a large game. When working with one client, he would constantly tell me how he was on the cusp of leaving. Since I have several other customers, I called his bluff and let him know that I was sorry to see his company leave, but he wouldn't be getting any more concessions out of us. After that conversation, I sent an e-mail up my management chain about how they had decided to leave, and even though we were willing to work with them (after two months of back-and-forth), they didn't think our service would fit their business needs.

The responses to my e-mail were typical. Most on the thread ignored it. No one was willing to invest more time and money in a customer who's complaints ranged from "We don't like the size of the password expiry notification bubble" to "We don't like how long it takes for support to call us back" to a general lack of understanding of the way Exchange and e-mail works. Since they had expressed a committed desire to leave, the sales organization decided to help pay for them to leave!

I handed off the customer to a co-worker who was designated as a resource to help them off-board, and thought no more on them. Now, a month later, he's on the phone helping them troubleshoot a Tier 1 issue. It turns out that their committment to leaving was just a bluff, and they just wanted a bunch of free service and funcionality that we don't offer.

Well, bub, I have news for you. E-mail isn't a game to most of us. We don't want to play around about what we can and can't do for you. We're not making this up, or playing our cards close to our chest. This is the world of data, and not a poker game!