I think "some customers are more trouble than it's worth" is a bit strong, but certainly some customers have an unrealistically high expectation of the level of service they should receive based on their dealings with a company, and consequently the relationship between the company and that customer can easily end up becoming unprofitable.
Everyone's free to look for the best deals, but not everyone is motivated by price alone - loyalty does count for a lot in the modern marketplace and a lot of people are willing to pay more for a product or service based on either loyalty to a brand, or based on perceived "higher quality" compared to the same service received from elsewhere. It's a very personal and subjective decision.
And for a second I read Rimmed....
In fact, that's what I used to do for a living. Figure out which were the good customers and how to keep them. And which were the bad customers and how to not encourage them to stick around. Some customers cost more than the are worth and need to be dumped or at the very least ignored until they are better customers.
If I'm buying one-off stuff (washer/dryer for example), then price is king.
But, if I need a good supplier of motorcycle parts (and with 7 in our household, I DO), then I go for reliability (as well as price). Same with tires, most of my bikes have magnesium or carbon rims, not something I want some apprentice practicing on! (yes, I understand that apprentices need to learn, but please, NOT on MY rims!)
Tom
and so it is their wanting your money or whether you want to keep YOUR money
A customer like her really was not worth it- she was costing the company far more with her complaints than what she had paid in in product. Also, I suppose it's a gut feeling you get after years of experience- you know who will be a repeat customer and who to bend over backward for... which is quite the opposite of getting reamed.
In your case, it was quite simply "why reduce the price in a peak period?". Frequently when I worked for airlines, I would tell people the same thing as you were told "take the other price, I can't match it", because it was the truth.
The fatty got it right. There are many posts/threads about people complaining and when you step back and think about it... some of them were plain wrong.
The system is in the shop that you take a ticket and wait until one of the members of staff becomes free. This was obviously not good enough for one female customer who just waltzed in and crashed a consultation demanding in English that she be shown some cases for her mobile.
The sales assistant answered her in English and quickly pointed out the relevant covers on the display and went back to the original customer.
Pushy lady starts then calling over from the stand asking all sorts of questions, distracting the assistant who did her best to answer her without p*ssing off the original customer. I was beginning to feel a red mist descending because I had been sat there like a lemon for a good 10 minutes waiting with a ticket for the next available assistant.
It is possible that her lack of German made her fail to notice the large machine at the door which had "ticket" written on it but I have to applaud the Swisscom assistant who dealt with her professionally and managed to keep face with her original customer.
I was within a whisker of marching over there and giving her a piece of my mind but another assistant came free and pushy lady lived to see another day.
*client being overdemanding*: "Mais monsieur, le client est roi" (client is king)
*salesman with a bright smile*: "Enchanté, mon nom est Guillotin" (my name is Guillotin)
The end.