One of the little-known side paths of great customer service is figuring out who’s a customer, and who isn’t. I just picked up a fascinating report about Sprint dropping customers who call customer service too often. Here’s the link:

Sprint breaks up with high-maintenance customers | Tech news blog – CNET News.com

Is this crazy? I’m not sure. Would it be better to explore further, proactively talk to those customers, one by one? That sounds good, as I write it, makes me feel like I’m saying the right thing.

Still, I have two nagging doubts. One was a lecture I attended from a customer service expert who’d been very successful with auto mechanic businesses. He was extreme about giving the customers everything they wanted, but added, at one point:

"But remember, not everybody is a customer. Some people take advantage so much that you can’t afford them. Bending over backwards once or twice is great business, but with some extreme cases, you have to ask them not to come back."

This is a set of interesting questions for me, questions that I’m not prepared to answer.

— Tim