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A customer was so annoying that Tesla decided not to sell him a car

A customer was so annoying that Tesla decided not to sell him a car

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A reminder about the possible downsides to complaining about customer service on the internet: you know how a customer can decide not to buy something from a company with terrible service? That works the other way, too. A company can decide not to sell its product to an annoying customer.

In particular, companies with a hot, in-demand product can decide that a customer simply isn't worth the trouble. At least that's what we're getting from this piece on Medium by venture capitalist Stewart Alsop. In it, Alsop claims that Tesla canceled his order for a Model X SUV, asserting that it was because of an earlier post where Alsop criticized Tesla CEO Elon Musk for starting its September Model X launch event nearly two hours late (and for not providing food).

Alsop's Medium stream is full of articles criticizing companies and their products and customer service. It's likely that many of those companies deserved the criticism. But if a company is so terrible and you have reasonable alternatives, why keep buying stuff from them? It seems that Tesla embraced that same mantra, and decided that Mr. Alsop simply wasn't worth the trouble.

And with production of the Model X appearing to already be behind schedule, dropping one order means everyone else will get their Model X a little bit sooner.

Verge Video: Model X hands-on