Clean Up on Aisle Sales: Segmenting Customers and Attitudes
By Desiree Grace
A funny thing happened on a customer segmentation journey:
trash talk, bad behavior, and customer attitudes were exposed. Say what? Yep, when
you start dissecting your customers and how you should be treating them,
internal dysfunction often slides into the spotlight too.
Here’s what happened: I was working with a client, whom we’ll call Zac, who had no customer segmentation in place. That meant every
customer was treated the same way. There was no distinction between great,
good, or frankly, terrible customers. They all received the same terms,
attention, responsiveness... you name it. As you might guess, this was not
sustainable.
So, Zac and I collaborated on building a customer rubric—a
list of qualities to evaluate and score his customers. This helped segment them
into tiers, which in turn dictated how they would be managed. Would they be
contacted monthly, semi-monthly, or quarterly? Would they earn a generous
credit line or a short leash? You get the picture.
Now here’s where things got interesting.
As we involved more team members in the process, emotions
ran high. Without the data, folks had formed opinions, often negative ones, about
customers. And worse, those internal attitudes spread like a virus.
Trash-talking customers behind closed doors was not only demoralizing, it was impacting
their work.
The good news? Once segmentation was complete and customers
were categorized using actual data, the team realized that many of their
judgments were…wrong. Dead wrong, in some cases.
This wasn’t just a customer-facing problem. Zac saw the
deeper issue—a culture problem—and a huge opportunity to reset how both
customers and coworkers were treated.
And he took it.
Like a good surgeon, Zac removed the cultural “cancer.” He
had crucial conversations with those spearheading the trash talk, laid out the
data, and clearly explained the “why” behind the segmentation. The path forward
included new standards for both customer interaction and internal
communication. Sure, some customers earned better terms, larger credit
lines, and faster response times, but none would be met with disdain ever
again.
The unexpected benefit? The workplace got better.
People were happier, more collaborative, and more respectful, not just toward
customers, but toward each other.
And here’s another key lesson: if a customer is truly toxic,
fire them. Send them to your competitor with a smile and focus your time and energy on the others. Letting go of one or two bad fits sends a powerful internal
message. Trash talk won’t be tolerated, and neither will truly trashy
customers.
Need help analyzing and segmenting your customer base? We can help. Here at River Heights Consulting, we don’t collect garbage, but we do help recycle!
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doesn’t just talk strategy—she lives it. With a sharp eye for cultural transformation and a passion for performance, she helps businesses align customer value with internal values. When she’s not fixing sales funnels or leadership blind spots, she’s likely elbows-deep in a new DIY project or mentoring the next generation of rock stars.
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