The Ultimate Customer Threat

After nearly 30 years in the repair business, you hear some interesting things. Most make perfect sense. Some make you scratch your head. And every once in a while, someone says something so magnificent that you have to stop what you’re doing and wonder whether you actually heard the words correctly.

Earlier this year, we had a customer who didn’t want to pay their bill.

It wasn’t an enormous bill. Nobody was going to have to sell a kidney. There was no need to establish a GoFundMe page. The family dog wouldn’t have to take on a second job.

They simply owed us money for work we had performed.

And then came the threat:

“If you don’t drop this bill, you won’t get any more work from us.”

Well, smack me in the face and call me stupid.

I had apparently misunderstood the entire concept of running a business.

All these years, I thought the general arrangement worked something like this: You call us. You ask us to fix something. We fix it. You pay us.

Apparently, there’s an optional fifth step:

You refuse to pay us and then threaten to never give us another opportunity to not get paid again.

That’ll teach us.

An Offer We Apparently Couldn’t Refuse

When you think about it, that’s a pretty interesting negotiating position.

“Forget about the money I owe you now, and I’ll reward you by continuing to be your customer.”

Well, when you put it that way…

How could any businessman resist?

Maybe we’ve been looking at this all wrong. Maybe instead of sending invoices, we need a customer loyalty program.

The Maintenance Shop Preferred Non-Payer Rewards Program

Don’t pay for five service calls and receive your sixth unpaid service call absolutely FREE!

Accumulate points every time you ignore an invoice!

Refer three friends who don’t pay their bills, and we’ll come over and fix something else for nobody!

Reach Platinum Status and receive complimentary labor, materials, fuel, use of our tools, and the opportunity to threaten us with the loss of even more nonexistent revenue.

Some restrictions apply. Mainly reality.

Unfortunately, the program has one tiny problem: Everybody we deal with stubbornly insists on being paid. Our employees expect paychecks. Parts suppliers want money for parts. Insurance companies refuse to accept “future customer loyalty” as payment. Even the people who sell us tools apparently have mortgages of their own.

So, unfortunately, we have to keep sending invoices.

We Actually Like Repeat Customers

Here’s the funny part: Repeat customers really are important to us.

We have customers we’ve worked for over many years. We know their homes. We know their sprinkler systems. We know which gate sticks, where the backflow assembly is hiding, which faucet has been repaired before, and which dog is going to greet us like a long-lost friend.

Those relationships matter, and a large part of our business has always come from people who call us again and again because they know us, trust us, and know we’ll take care of whatever needs to be done.

But there’s one tiny component necessary for a successful long-term business relationship:

At some point, money has to change hands. Preferably in our direction.

Otherwise, you’re not really a repeat customer. You’re more of a recurring expense.

There’s Nothing Wrong With Questioning a Bill

Customers sometimes have legitimate questions about a bill. Maybe something doesn’t look right. Maybe there was a misunderstanding. Maybe a charge needs an explanation. Maybe we made a mistake. Despite nearly 30 years in business, we have not yet achieved perfection.

Call us. Ask us. We’ll look at it. A reasonable disagreement between reasonable people can usually be resolved.

But “Erase my bill or I’ll never let you work for me again” isn’t quite the devastating business threat someone might imagine.

There’s an important distinction between losing a customer and losing someone who doesn’t pay you.

One costs you money. The other may actually improve cash flow.

Somehow, We Survived

I’m happy to report that we somehow carried on. The lights stayed on. The trucks kept running. Employees continued receiving paychecks. The Earth continued rotating. Civilization did not collapse.

Most importantly, we eventually came to terms with the devastating possibility that we might never again have the privilege of working for someone who wouldn’t pay us. It was difficult, but we found the strength to continue.

So if you’re ever negotiating a bill with a business, here’s a little free advice from someone who’s been doing this for nearly 30 years: Threatening a business with the loss of future paying business might get their attention. Threatening them with the loss of future unpaid business probably won’t have quite the same effect.

Oh, and they finally did pay us, but we dropped them from any future business anyway.