🚫Using your right to refuse service to bad customers?

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Morning, folks. While the new year’s still fresh, a good way to keep from wasting precious days is to note the day of the year in your journal or daily to-do list — “Today is Day 3 of 2025.” It reminds us how quick the days slip away and to take action now… instead of someday.

On tap today, my thoughts on the best sign any entrepreneur could ever post on their front door. Then, we’ll head into the weekend with This Week’s Marketing Wrap-Up.

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“We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service”

I saw that sign (right to refuse service) on the front door of a local salon last Wednesday on my turtle-like jog. It brought a smile to my face. Almost went inside to hug the owner.

You just don’t see those signs now like in the old days. Store owners used to love banning jerks and morons from their business. Act a fool, and you got kicked off the private property, never to return.

Something changed. Business owners started to feel like they needed all the customers… even the awful ones who:

• Complained non-stop

• Asked for refunds constantly

• Broke in line

• Were generally loud and obnoxious 

• Talked about how they could buy Item X cheaper elsewhere

Hellfire, business owners won’t even refuse service to shoplifters in some parts of the country!

This is madness. And I think it started back in the 60s when marketers launched into “The customer is always right” mentality. It began when malls were being built, if I recall correctly. Probably some bow-tied Macy’s executive concocted the mindset.

It gets worse…

Bad Customers Run Off Good Customers

Allowing awful people to keep coming back to your business isn’t just bad for a business and annoying to the owner and staff. 

What about all the good customers who have to put up with idiots holding up the check-out line? Or blocking the aisle with their shopping cart sideways with three unruly youngins hanging off the cart!

It’s not just offline, either. I saw an article yesterday about porch pirates causing prices to rise at check-out for honest shoppers. 

And giant retailers letting fraudsters get away with returning bricks in a box instead of the 60-inch TV and getting a full refund is hurting small businesses. How?

Their customers see all this nonsense, then expect every business to offer ludicrous return policies. And if they don’t, they can always just do a chargeback because credit card companies are typically on the side of the consumer (customer’s always right, remember?).

What Happened to the Ideal Customer or Avatar? 

I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve read over the years with advice about targeting your ideal customer. 

It’s sound advice because it makes marketing to a specific group easier. 

However, now that I think about it, none of those articles mention “refusing service.” 

Sure, they advise marketers and business owners to make it clear who the product or service is for. 

But they don’t tell you to make it painfully obvious who the product or service is not for. 

Never once have I read anything about honing in on the ideal customer or customer avatar that had the words “right to refuse service” in the article. 

If you don’t make it clear your offers are not for every Tom, Dick, and Harry, why should your ideal customer buy from you? 

If we don’t refuse service to mid-wits and miscreants, why should our ideal customers put up with aggravations that interrupt their shopping experience or increase their prices?

Don’t forget this, either. Putting up with bad customers makes it hard to keep good employees.

These days, with good help hard to find, I say it’s better to assume your staff is always right instead of the bozos who make their job harder and don’t really help your business’s bottom line anyway.

Thanks for reading. Please share Inbox Hacking with your people. See ya Monday.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin of Inbox Hacking

Bonus: ICYMI - one of our more popular posts of 2024 (email branding).

P.S. Cute lil coupon app, Honey, caught in diabolical scam - allegedly. And see below how suits answer allegations (weak press releases don’t work anymore, fellas).