At what point do you tell a potential customer to go elsewhere?
 

1 hour? 5 hours? 10 hours? More?

Gimme a fer'instance.

guess it depends on the contract.. if they r a pain in the ass from the get go.. i would know after about 20 minutes.. most the time ;)

I would never say that :)

only at the point where you realize that your product or service will not suit their needs.

When the potential to make money is lost, or the time required to make the money is worth less than the time it takes to make it.

Especially good strategy if you have a friend or related company you can pass them off to, and they do the same for you when they hit a wall.

Largely depends on the circumstances.

Xpays and Alex both sum it up well.

I've yet to tell a customer to go elsewhere due to anger or frustration on my part. But I've directed customers to friends and affiliates where I knew they could find something specific they were looking for that we couldn't provide.

Sometimes a good recommendation (even if you lose the initial sale) can result in customer loyalty if they return.

Dealing with tire-kickers 101 --

Problem: you have a potential customer who is constantly contacting you and asking you questions over and over but never buying anything. At some point your time must be considered a factor.

Solution -- Set up a quick webpage that answers all of those questions point by point, then whenever other tire-kicker come around wasting time, you shoot him the url to the answer pages and tell him to let you know when he's ready to buy.

The good news is that you can use the tire-kicker's questions to put together a really tight FAQ page, so that when the next idiot comes along (and you know there will be one) you can just refer them to the answer page and be done with it.. maybe answer 1 or 2 followup questions and then it's shit or get off the pot time.

CD's valuable customer service tip #47.

This one's free, for the next one I'll bill you (all of you) at regular price.

Cheers. :D

never...

Exactly. If you have spent more time than your hourly time is worth for their revenue potential... drop them. Most customers who are that problematic stay problematic and will leave your service anyway.

never man , i would nicely just say "adios" and such...

ya never know when he might come crawling back n such