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High Maintenance Clients and ROI

Harry: Ingrid Bergman, now she’s low maintenance Sally: Low maintenance? Harry: There are two kinds of women:  High maintenance and low maintenance. Sally: And Ingrid Bergman is low maintenance? Harry: In LM, definitely. Sally: Which one am I? Harry: You’re the worst kind.  You’re high maintenance but you think you’re low maintenance – Harry Burns and Sally Allbright from When Harry Met Sally This was the first time I had ever heard “high maintenance” used to describe someone. Today it seems common place: Employees Spouses Vendors Customers Relatives Clients All can be high maintenance – meaning it takes more effort to continue the relationship, but we are getting some sort of value from it … correct?  Or we’d dump, fire or disown them – right? What about high maintenance clients? The ones who spend enough to be important …  but use up more than their fair share of your resources (time, incentives, talent, etc.). Most high maintenance clients are self aware.  Many operate under the adage “squeaky wheel gets the grease.” Not in the 140 Character World. The squeaky wheel gets replaced with a newer more efficient wheel that comes with a lifetime guarantee (unless you grew up during the depression and are swiping sugar packets from Denny’s). As a manager, my tolerance for the high maintenance employee is much lower than it used to be. As a marketing consultant, I recommend that my clients DO NOT reward their high maintenance customers/clients. It is a terrible ROI. I learned this years ago from a smart boss. He had 2 pairs of tickets to an important football game and three clients that spent enough money to deserve them.  Nobody knew we had them, so it would be a surprise to the client. To my surprise, my boss offered a pair each to the low maintenance clients.  I thought this would be a good time to earn some points with the high maintenance client.  Give ‘em something before they can ask! “They are takers,” he told me, “Giving them tickets won’t elevate us in their eyes.  They rank vendors by whoever can give them whatever they want that week.” One of the low maintenance clients could not go to the game, so my boss did offer them to the high maintenance client (only fair as they were a top spender with us). He was absolutely correct. 4 days later:  they were on the phone asking us pull strings to get them something else. The other client who went to the game sent our boss a thank you card … even the client who could not go sent him an e-mail of thanks.  We built more equity with the client who was simply offered the tickets … than the “taker” who sat on the 40 yard line. To my marketing clients:  Never give your “taker” client anything they didn’t ask for.  The ROI is zero. To my business clients:  Don’t be a taker.  It’s an easy reputation to get … and nearly impossible to lose.  You won’t always be calling the shots … and you’ll find it mighty lonely when your spending goes down.

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The Public Trap

Posted by Bob | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 02-06-2010

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Ask the public …

  • They are tired of partisan politics … yet vote out moderates
  • They want Coke to be sweeter … yet revolt when they change the formula
  • They ask for more variety on the radio … yet tune out when stations add more songs

Think it’s hard to ask the public what they want now … ask them to project what they would want in the future …

  • An all news channel … no thanks (in 1980)
  • Nationwide coffee bar chain… nope (1984)
  • Nationwide singing competition … yawn (2000)

This is the danger in asking the public to devise your strategy.  The public (or critical mass as we marketers call them) does not really exist.  

That entity that marketers covet is a statistic:  a baited marketing trap.

I once sat through a research presentation which concluded that a trendy new radio format would be no threat to our heritage brand if a competitor decided to go there.

They did … and debuted at #1 in the market with the format.  It took us a year to claw our way back into the race.

I had a colleague who encountered a similar situation except his research told him the new format would clean his clock.  They struck first – moved into the new format, and watched the station fade from the top to the bottom of the ratings.

In BOTH situations:

  • The conclusion was indisputable
  • The research firms were reputable
  • It would be hard for anyone to ignore such obvious results.

The challenge of heritage media and marketing … is the opportunity for the 140 Character World.

We’re less about critical mass, and more about passionate fans.

While traditional research builds a core by eliminating negatives, we having a on-going conversation with like-minded consumers of our brands.

We learn what they like about us … then PLAY TO OUR STRENGTHS.

The trap is catering to the MASSES … and letting them water down what we do.

The escape is letting the consumers that count be part of the conversation and spice up what we do.

Lando Calrissian would be proud.

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