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The 5% Rule

jonpauluritis.com

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Re: The 5% Rule

#111

Post by gist »

My experience confirms the general concept here (the number at 5% is arbitrary I'd place it higher than that). The point is (and I have found this to be true) if you deal with enough people you will hit on people who have let's say issues and do not think clearly or even close to rationally and there is simply no pleasing them. So for business the idea that you need all of your customers to be happy is simply not going to work. That is what I have found in actual practice over many many years.

Separate point when you are starting out in some business the easiest and first customers you get are the ones that nobody else wants or gives bad service to because they are irrational and unreasonable. (Keep that point in mind..)

There is an example with Zappos of someone being able to spend an entire day pleasing one customer. That is entirely unreasonable and except for the story and publicity value of that event makes no sense at all since anyone who wants to spend that much of your time is not going to be a customer that you (probably) want long term. At a certain point you simply have to (in business or life) walk away.

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2016/07/118020/zappos-custo...

Re: The 5% Rule

#112

Post by owenpalmer »

tobinfekkes wrote: post #72
thewebcount wrote: post #48

While I’m sure this is a real problem, I’ve been on the other side of this equation where you’ve tried your level best to get a problem resolved, and not only haven’t had it resolved, but have been repeatedly screwed even more. For example, many years ago, I signed up for a landline phone (when that’s all there was), and signed up for a particular special service that Ameritech was offering that would allow me to hav…

You mentioned Ameritech, which reminded me of Amerispec: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xtgH74hh6pQ

Haha! Always a classic!

Re: The 5% Rule

#113

Post by jppope »

KerryJones wrote: post #86

I wish I had more data on it, but I've seen many different sources saying the same thing, but the number has more closely approximated 2.5% here, and so I'm wondering if there is discrepancy, or this is within the range of statistical accuracy of one or both.

(OP) its hard to have an exact percentage because it's (crude) observation - I could totally go with 2.5%. The number is in the low single digits for sure, but definitely higher than a rounding error (or a null-hypothesis). Whatever the number is, it's high enough to impact the people that have to interact with lots of other people - they feel it, which is really what I was getting at.

Re: The 5% Rule

#114

Post by killthebuddha »

msrenee wrote: post #102
killthebuddha wrote: post #69

In my experience people who express this kind of view (a slightly-sweeping, slightly-cynical take on the prevalence of shitty people) also tend to be epistemically overconfident of their grasp on social situations. For example, my opinion of the following quote is that it sounds contrived (Not contrived for the blog post, but contrived in the sense that the "brought the hair with her" hypothesis is itself contrived).…

So if I found a hair in my meal, I'd let my server know. It's gross, but it happens This woman found a hair in her meal and threw a fit. Whether she planted it or not (which is definitely a thing people do), she was not being reasonable in that situation.

I agree she was being unreasonable. The article claims that 3%-5% of people are "terrible" and "just wanted to be mean, nasty, selfish brutes" and the quote I used was used by the author as evidence for that claim. The author takes a situation where someone was being unreasonable and then throws in a hypothesis based on tenuous reasoning.

Re: The 5% Rule

#115

Post by rootusrootus »

gizmo wrote: post #94

In 20 years of dealing with customers I've had to deal with maybe 3 people who were real jerks. Maybe my experience is unusual, but my customers come from all over the world. Rich countries, poor countries, non-profits, startups to fortune 500. Practically everybody is friendly and respectful. Occasionally people are irritable or upset, but I don't take it at all personally. I just assume they're having a bad day or…

> Verizon treats their customers with contempt as a business practice

I agree, but with actual support technicians at Verizon I've actually had pretty decent, even above average interactions. The company itself does things I detest, but I try not to take it out on the people answering the phone.

Re: The 5% Rule

#116

Post by metadat »

jiggawatts wrote: post #62

Personality traits like this are on a Bell curve, so he's just talking about the "left hand corner" of that curve. The percentage just depends on your threshold for tolerance. I know people who are convinced that 50% of people are horrible people, their tolerance stops at "anything left of the median". My tolerance is the opposite, and I can work with even quite problematic people successfully, so I would estimate th…

Hey jiggawatts,

I agree, and want to also add: If you're in software / tech (if this is an incorrect assumption on my part please say so and I apologize in advance; I've become used to seeing your posts and my sense is this might be your domain), on average you're working with people who are significantly more intelligent than the average adult human being.

In my experience, the rate of nasty / miserable / mentally unstable / "want the world to burn" chaotic people amongst the general public in the United States is pretty close to 1 in 20 (5%).

At my swe jobs it's been more like what you say~ 1% or less who are serious struggles to try and work with.

Re: The 5% Rule

#117

Post by dejj »

10-80-10 are the numbers I assume: 10% are terrible, 80% regular, and 10% excellent. I have no empirical data to back it up. Does anyone have?

Re: The 5% Rule

#118

Post by roflyear »

semireg wrote: post #95

I handle 100% of my indie app's email and telephone (yes, telephone!) support. My app is designing/printing labels. Printers in general, and label printers specifically are awful and inconsiderate robots, unable to perform the simplest printing job when you need it most. Sure, 2-5% of my users are nasty/mean, but let me tell you a little secret: They are immensely frustrated with their life situation and they know ho…

I did tech support for a few years and probably answered 100k calls or so. I would estimate that less than 1% of people were unreasonable. 2-3% were mean people. 80% were kind. It's a hard job and you have to focus on the good.

Re: The 5% Rule

#119

Post by msrenee »

killthebuddha wrote: post #114
msrenee wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I found a hair in my meal, I'd let my server know. It's gross, but it happens This woman found a hair in her meal and threw a fit. Whether she planted it or not (which is definitely a thing people do), she was not being reasonable in that situation.

I agree she was being unreasonable. The article claims that 3%-5% of people are "terrible" and "just wanted to be mean, nasty, selfish brutes" and the quote I used was used by the author as evidence for that claim. The author takes a situation where someone was being unreasonable and then throws in a hypothesis based on tenuous reasoning.

I mentioned it in a comment elsewhere in the discussion, but I've got one coworker who is just a terrible person, another that treats others terribly when he isn't getting his way, and used to have a third who would treat his reports like crap if they didn't worship the ground he walked on. I've got a couple family members who are just unabashedly nasty to everyone. There's a couple more who are just awful to service workers because they think they're lesser for the work they do. Those are just the people I have to directly deal with on a regular basis.

The author apparently logged the number of people who were jerks over the course of a given time and and that's how they came up with the numbers they used. Whether those people are awful all of the time, who knows. I know there's a number of people in my life who are just terrible people all of the time. Of course, they think they're the nicest people in the world and are the victims in every situation.

The lesson in the article is to be decent to everyone and if someone's nasty in return, ignore it and focus on the people you can help. The numbers aren't necessarily the point, but from my experience, it's a reasonable estimate.

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