How to Make Customers Happy (Avoid Petty MBA Practices)

I needed to get a new pair of sunglasses because I was heading out to a snowy trek shortly (the wife used my old trek glasses when she had an eye infection and I don’t want to use them anymore).

I went to the store and found one I liked from a brand called Oakley and I came back home. I wore them that day and when I put them back, I noticed that the shop forgot to give me the hard case to keep them in. I only got a cloth bag.

I called the shop up and asked them to send me a case.

Me: “I think you guys forgot to give me a case with my sunglasses”

“Oakley sunglasses don’t come with a case”

“Why?”

“The brand doesn’t send them. You should buy a case though to keep the sunglasses safe.”

Instantly, instead of feeling good about the fact that I bought these sunglasses, I started thinking why did I even buy these? Now I have to go through the hassle of buying a case for them.

The brand could have easily supplied the case with the sunglasses. The box the sunglasses came in was big enough to have the sunglasses and the cloth bag in it.

How much did they save by not sending me a case?

When I look on Alibaba, I see that most cases sell for something between 10 cents to a dollar. The high end leather cases sell for about $1.70 if you buy more than 100 pieces (Oakley would be buying in much larger quantities so it’d be closer to $1.50 for them).

How much money did Oakley save by not including a case with their sunglasses? About $1.

Some people are going to think that this is done to get you to buy a case from Oakley separately but nobody does that. I’m just going to use the case from an old pair of sunglasses or get one from Amazon.

Basically, all this company accomplished was making me think that buying their products means having to hunt for a case which is a hassle. So next time I am likely to buy a different brand.

Don’t Try to Take Every Last Rupee

When I was growing my tax/law firm, my dad taught me a very important business lesson: Don’t try to take every last Rupee from the client.

When you try to bill for every little thing, it makes clients feel sour when they call you. They start to associate negative emotions with you and your company.

You want your clients and customers to pay a fair/market price for your products but you don’t want to nickel and dime them for little things.

If a client drinks a diet coke from your office fridge, you don’t need to add it to their bill.

The main thing that matters in a business is that more money comes in than goes out. In the long run, if you can earn a high enough ROI from your investment, you are doing fine.

What these MBA retards have done all over the business space is to try to make money off of things that shouldn’t actually be monetized.

When you go to a McDonald’s, they used to try to charge you an extra 1 Rupee for a packet of ketchup. If I’m eating McDonald’s, I’m obviously also going to need ketchup.

If they want to make some extra money, they should increase the prices of their burgers not make me get a new bill when I need an extra packet of ketchup. (From what I can tell, they’ve discontinued charging for ketchup. Good job.)

Charging for these little things adds very little to your bottom line but makes customers dislike you a lot. If I spent $150 on a pair of your sunglasses, how much did you add to your profit by saving $1.50 on the case? Not that much.

How many customers are you pissing off when they go home and realize they have no case to keep the glasses in? Quite a bit.

Is it worth it? No.

You destroyed the customer’s experience with you.

Even when people pay for these little things, it costs you and your business in ways you don’t see.

The Cost of the Extra 1% in Revenue

For example, last year I stayed at this 5 star hotel. I never stay at expensive hotels simply because I tend to leave early in the morning and come back very late at night after touring i.e. I just need a place to sleep.

But last year was an exception because my wife was pregnant. So we found a nice hotel where she could be comfortable.

There were two small bottles of water in the room. The wife wanted water at night.

I called up reception to have them send us some water.

“Sir, water is chargeable”

Now if someone is thirsty at 3am in the night, they have no option but to purchase water from the hotel. I was charged ₹354 (~$4) for water. This is more expensive than petrol.

I know this is unique to this particular hotel because I’ve stayed at higher end hotels like Marriott, Ramada, and Trident before and I was never charged for water.

I paid $400 a night to stay at this hotel, so by charging me for water in the middle of the night, they added 1% to their revenue but they pissed my wife off to no end (she is far more frugal than me).

To increase their revenue by $1, they lost a good review from me (I was going to leave a 5 star review, but I ended up not leaving a review at all), and they earned a 3 star review from the wife (because she found the entire thing annoying).

Everyone’s going to drink water at night. If the hotel wants to make more money, they should increase their room rent by 1% instead of adding microtransactions for little things. Whatever MBA idiot took over their management simply has no idea what he’s doing to his brand.

Do The Opposite: Be Generous

Now this does not apply to you if you run a low margin operation (like cheap hotels and cheap restaurants), but if you are running anything “premium”, it always helps to be a bit generous.

Give the client a bit more than they are expecting. It makes them feel really good about your brand and your products.

For example, with LMM, many of my products come with additional secret bonuses and things that are not mentioned on the sales pages.

I offer long money back guarantees (I usually offer the longest term Gumroad lets me offer – 6 month long money back guarantees).

How often do you see that with any digital product you purchase? Nowadays many people don’t even offer a money back guarantee.

Yes, 1% of people are thieves and will try to exploit the system to try to get the product for free, but why would I make 99% of honest customers suffer because of the 1% of the thieves and dregs of the world?

When people buy an LMM product, I want them to feel delighted by what they get. I want them to know that finding my brand was the best thing that happened to them.

What happens when someone gets Live Intentionally: 90 Day Self-Improvement Program and finally starts losing weight, getting their shit together, and waking up on time? He is delighted.

What happens when someone gets The Art of X and makes his first $1 online? He is delighted.

But moreover, even before that, they see all the bonuses and extra things they got with their purchase and it makes them feel good about their purchase immediately.

And they know they have a long time to try the product out and know that it works for them or they can get every cent back.

How often do they get to engage in a transaction like that? A little generosity and I have a customer for life.

So many people purchase everything I put out because they know they will get results or they will get their money back.

These little things are why I have hundreds of 5 star reviews on my products while there are people who sell more than me but have fewer reviews and fewer repeat customers.

On the other hand, how many reviews and happy customers would I have if I charged an extra $5 for every bonus file and removed the money back guarantee? Not nearly as many.

Even if I didn’t accumulate negative reviews (because the products still deliver), people wouldn’t go out of their way to leave me long text reviews after their checkout experience.

It is far better to earn 1% less and give customers a better experience than to make 1% more and make customers feel bad about buying from you.

Keep that in mind and you will do well in business.

Until next time.

Your man,

Harsh Strongman