What to Do When Your Competitor Gets Ugly

It will likely happen someday to all of us and this will be especially true when your product or service becomes popular. One day you will find that a competitor is making fraudulent statements about your product, service or company. So what do you do when this happens?   Above all, don't panic or retaliate. 

Play fair and honestly even though your competitor is not. The fraudulent ugliness you may be encountering from your competitor will certainly create a backlash that will cause them to loose even more business (or customers). Common sense will tell everyone who might read their untruths, that they are in trouble and resorting to using desperate measures to counteract their desperate situation.   

The #1 reason a company loses customers is due to dishonesty. For this very reason you should always be honest with your customers. Never use dishonest or inaccurate marketing materials to promote your business and do not allow anyone else to do so either. If you do, sooner or later your once valued customers will find out they had been deceived. Never overcharge your customers for a product or service, as they will discover this too once they become more familiar with the product/service's concept, and you will lose their business permanently and cause irreversible resentment. 

It costs a business 6X (six times) more to find a new customer than it does to make a sale to an existing customer provided your sales tactics are honest.  

The #2 reason a company may lose business is due to mismanagement. Mismanagement can be in the form of over-spending on expenses, adding too many salaries to the payroll, excess advertising without a good return on investment, over-populating distributors within a region, careless merchant practices, developing too many products or services and spreading your company's objective too thin, growing your business so quickly it becomes out-of-control and obviously disorganized, and not having your company's own objective or future goals but instead "following" your competitors practices, concepts and ideas.   

The #3 reason a company may lose business is lack of knowledgeable, caring support after the sale. Many companies are now outsourcing their tech support to foreign countries and your tech support inquiry may be answered by an individual who has never used the product or service you purchased. 

Yes, it's true! This is a popular technique being used by larger corporations. It may work for a short time for these corporations, but it is becoming a widespread problem. As a small business owner, it could do your business great harm to outsource your tech support or customer service. Always treat your customers with respect and with timely/knowledgeable support from the very people who produced or actively use your product or service.  So in answer to the first question, "What do you do when your competitors get ugly?" Emotional intelligence and good business practices will tell you that the answer is ... "Nothing". 

Sooner or later your competitor(s) will fall over their own feet and their unfair business tactics or unethical marketing techniques will be their own demise. We have seen it countless times in many types of business industries (not just web design). That old silly cliché is true and worthwhile advice even in your business operations: 

"What goes around, comes around."  Common sense generally tells you to be suspicious of an article or review that might proclaim great things about any "one" company. 

This is particularly true when you have seen other companies who offer services that might be better for your needs. After all, there is no "one fit or one answer" for every individual or company's needs. 

What works for you may not work for me or our neighbors. The same common sense should come into play when you read something that discredits an entire industry and labels the products/services of all these companies as "bad".