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Ten Ways to Lose Your Customers

1. Be arrogant, cuss at the people who call you, and make it difficult for customers to get through to your reps.

2. Have it your way; sell products that save you time and money, but cost your customers plenty of both.

3. Make it hard for customers to cancel or change their service.

4. Offer dissatisfied customers more of the same behavior that made them angry in the first place.

5. Force your reps to follow scripts that require them to up-sell or cross-sell people whose problems have not been resolved.

6. Cross-sell and up-sell while people are on hold.

7. If a customer's equipment breaks during normal use, blame it on the customer.

8. Keep calling people who have asked to be removed from your telemarketing list (this one is also illegal).

9. Keep emailing people who have asked to be removed from your email list (ditto).

10. Charge lots of hidden fees.

11. BONUS: If a customer calls with a problem, tell them it's not your job to solve it.

About the Author

Jodi Kaplan, founder of KaplanCopy, fixes "broken" marketing. If your marketing is costing more money than it's making and people leave your Web site without buying, your marketing is broken. For more tips, and a free 25-page marketing guide, go to KaplanCopy Free Marketing Guide.

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