Why do so many successful online marketers have bad customer service?

Simple, because they are experts in marketing and their interest lies in marketing and selling. Actually delivering content is the boring laborious part. So it doesnt get much attention.

Hi rmx,

I guess you're talking about the IM/biz opps market?

Some people in this thread have sussed it, some haven't.

The OP said -

Well I don't currently operate in this market, but I study it intensely.

If you look at who is making the money and who is not, you will come to these conclusions -

The biggest expense is trying to retain *happy* customers in the long term. Mainly because most people will fail to make money regardless of what methods they study.

The best customers are the ones who jump from product to product, buying everything in sight.

There is a percentage of the market who will give anything a fair shot, fail to refund or fail to give the seller a hard time. If you gravitate to high-ticket items, and spend your time purely on pushing people past the point where they are able to either -

a) refund

b) refund the total cost

that percentage becomes lucrative.

Anonymity and mutliple personalities rule. Many of the top earners have multiple personas and repackage their work using these personas. They also promote these personas using their other personas - giving themsleves recommendations and testimonials.

If you have a conscience in this market, you will most likely fail or only ever achieve mediocrity.

You must be able to target the desperate, vulnerable, weak-minded, naive and uninformed. And you must be prepared to bleed them dry, frustrate the life out of them and leave them needing a little more, every time.

Most people who don't achieve IM greatness but do OK, and have a conscience, overcome this conscience barrier by promoting others via simple adverts.

If they don't see the evil, then in their mind they are not perpetuating it. For example, someone said something like this on this forum not long ago -

'I don't like all of these rip off products, so I keep my conscience clean by just making my money off adsense.'

Duh. Anyone see the irony?

You're better off discarding your conscience completely than accepting crumbs and fooling yourself that you're a saint.

How can long term customers possibly pay off in this market?

Generally, they have two paths to take -

a) fail - in which case they are not around in the long term

b) succeed - in which case they're not going to be buying your average IM product in the long term

Yet still, many people talk about 'keeping customers in the long term' as the holy grail. They don't realise that they are not talking about how to be successful as an IMer. They are talking about how they wish that sellers would treat them as a customer.

And they can talk about it all they like, but the people making the coin are going to respond to what works for them and what doesn't.

Here's a simple experiment that anyone can do.

Go to the review forum. Read the long posts about the major IM product launches. Ignore the obviously false posts with glowing recommendations from affiliates, partners, circle jerk friends and so on.

You will probably see a recurring theme in there, as you try and establish what the successful sellers are doing in this marketplace.

There's the answer to the million dollar question. There's the secret to making money in the biz opps market that you have been desperately seeking.

It aint pretty and it aint wholesome. Much of life isn't. It's dog eat dog - survival of the fittest.

Make your own choices and do things in a way that sits comfortably with you. It's you who has to live with yourself. Think about how much money you really need to achieve your goals in life. Go and get that money in the best way possible for you, and you are then a success.

Just don't be fooled - not only by others, but also by yourself.

Hi EndGame,

I'm saying that enough of them appear to use this approach that it's a statistically relevant amount - enough for me to generalise and suggest that it's the majority of the ones who are currently cleaning up.

Of course, there are many different shades. And it would be mainly pointless of me (or anyone) to try and classify them into some kind of good/evil bracket.

The main focus of this forum is to discuss online marketing and to hopefully home in on the good stuff that works. Ideally, in most cases, we take that knowledge away with us, consider it against our own personal values and do with it as we choose.

My main point for posting was to emphasize that so many are starting out with the assumption that 'the only good marketing is fundamentally based upon building long term relationships.'

In general, it may well be. And in general, the cost of aquiring new customers may be the most important consideration.

BUT, as we are talking specifically about the biz opps market online, then all of the evidence that I have seen suggests that this market is the exception to the rule. And when I consider the reasons why, it makes more sense.

So those who start out with that assumption (that long term customers rule) are going to miss a whole boatload of tricks that appear to be working well, currently.

I would add that unless I'm mistaken, Mr. Filsaime was one of those who truly graduated through the warrior school (apologies if I'm incorrect M.F.) - unlike many others who have posted here occasionally, but mainly when they have a launch - so kudos to him for that.

An open, hypothetical question for you, that is asked purely to stimulate thought, rather than in relation to anyone named above -

Hypothetically, if I were to be the most cut-throat marketer in IM (in terms of how I focus totally on profit, don't get too caught up on fantastic customer service, appear to sell anything I can lay my hands on and partner with anyone who will entertain the partnership and also utilise every single customer annoying but ROI increasing gadget I can find) BUT I also 'did a lot of public work for charity'....does that last part change anything, in terms of my business ethics or how the customer feels about doing business with me? How about if I 'paid' for the charitable acts purely through exploiting my customers?

It's well known that people in the public eye have PR departments, agents and even spin doctors who are employed purely to plan public events and PR stunts that will engraciate the person with the public as an ethical, caring, sensitive, conscience driven individual - this is a common and perfectly acceptable set up.

This is not-so-far-removed from some of the points I was trying to make above - those who sacrifice the time it can take to administer prolific customer service, tend to compensate by putting the time into their own PR. Not only does this lessen the impact of any public customer rants, it also ensures that there is plenty of good PR out there to introduce the swarms of new prospects to their brand.

Perhaps they have deduced that the time spent on this activity is more productive than time spent 'holding the hands' of existing customers, in the hope that those satisfied customers will write positive PR for them?

Perhaps, overall, buyers see a fickle bunch of sellers and are therefore fickle themselves? Or vice versa (chicken/egg), which (either way) leads to less unsolicited positive reviews. Perhaps it's better to write your own?

It may also be true to say that if some of the least ethical sellers are selling training for systems that they have never employed themselves, it makes more sense to quickly move on to the next project than it does to spend time trying to get people to understand something that they don't really understand themselves.

Some interesting points made in this thread, particularly on the value of new vs previous buyers.

While it's a general commercial truth that it's cheaper to sell to an existing customer than to acquire a new one, that assumes there's a constant flow of new products or services that can be offered.

The larger manufacturing companies may approach this issue by incorporating some built-in obsolescence in their products - making it necessary for existing customers to upgrade at regular intervals.

Big pharmaceutical firms have often been accused of shunning cures for diseases in favour of an endless supply of "new" drugs intended merely to relieve the symptoms.

Those involved in the MMO/BizOpp market have a potential problem in this respect. Once the end of the traditional funnel has been reached (usually a top-end coaching/mentoring program) there isn't much scope for diversification.

Yes, you could jump on everyone else's big launch and blitz your list with affiliate offers.

But, knowing that there's an almost endless stream of hungry, eager and naive buyers entering the MMO market all the time, many successful marketers find it easier to keep targeting these ripe, newbie pickings, either by continually revamping their old products or by adopting different personas and effectively being their own competition. After all, they've done this before and they now have the process down to a fine art.

In this context, it's not too hard to see how the concept of keeping existing customers happy may not have quite the same appeal as in other businesses.


Frank