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Off Brand
In Praise of Supremely Annoying Customers
Technology might enable you to swat away ‘Karens’ — but new research reveals that you probably don’t want to
Some customers are better than others. And some, perhaps, are so bad you might rue the day you ever sold them anything in the first place: They complain, they want their money back, and if you don’t cave they will slam your company online. We all know the type.
A new paper published in the Vanderbilt Law Review calls such customers “nudniks,” and argues that, thanks to Big Data and increasingly sophisticated predictive algorithms, businesses may be able to identify potential nudniks and head off trouble — perhaps by avoiding having them as customers in the first place.
But don’t get too excited about the prospect of putting an end to “Karen” demanding to see the manager once and for all. “The Theory of the Nudnik: The Future of Consumer Activism and What We Can Do To Stop It” actually makes a compelling case for the value of nudniks. They’re a crucial voice in the market conversation, important to more passive consumers and to the optimum functioning of the marketplace in general. Figuring out ways to freeze out or avoid this category of consumers would amount to businesses “shielding themselves from…
