8 Ways You Can Stop Annoying Your Customers

Friction Is Annoying Your Customers and Can Cost You Trust, Loyalty, and Sales

TL; DR

Listing how we annoy customers may seem tongue-in-cheek. Still, it’s actually a reality check and one of the components we look at for our clients. In short, the list below will help you recognize and mitigate how often you annoy your customers.

8 Way You Can Stop Annoying Your Customers

1. Target market/audience
2. Echo chamber
3. Website
4. Social media
5. Email
6. Norm violations
7. Language
8. Feedback

Critical Questions to Ask Yourself:

1. Do you know if you are annoying your customers?
2. Do you ask your customers for feedback?
3. What are you doing to address customer issues?

End State:

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” – John Lydgate

The Deep Dive

What is Annoying?

Do not answer that; it is a trick question. Anything that gives your customer a reason to disengage or not return is a potential annoyance. Some issues are correctable through customer engagement or education, while others are unavoidable. And, of course, you can’t please everyone.

As a business owner, you have to recognize customer friction points and address them before they do or as close to real-time as possible. Let’s take a look at a few issues you can fix right now to stop annoying your customers.

Stop Annoying Customers With Poor Targeting: Know Who You Serve Before You Start Marketing

One of the fastest ways to annoy customers is to market to the wrong people, or speak to the right people with the wrong message.

Your target market is the broader group of people most likely to need or buy what you offer. Your target audience is the specific group you are trying to reach with a particular campaign, product, service, or message (Monash University).

When your marketing does not reflect a customer’s needs, interests, location, budget, or stage in the buying process, it can feel irrelevant or intrusive. That often leads to ignored ads, unsubscribes, low engagement, and fewer conversions.

Improve your targeting strategy

• Define the problems your product or service solves.
• Review who currently buys from you and why.
• Segment customers by needs, behavior, location, or purchase history.
• Create messaging for each audience instead of using one generic message.
• Review campaign performance regularly and adjust when engagement is low.

A clear customer strategy begins with knowing who your customers are and what they expect from you.

2. Avoid the Echo Chamber: Listen Beyond the People Who Always Agree With You

An echo chamber happens when a business only listens to people who confirm what it already believes. Friends, employees, loyal customers, and internal teams may all mean well, but they may not identify the problems that are pushing other customers away.

Positive feedback is useful. Critical feedback is often more useful.

If customers repeatedly mention the same problem, such as poor communication, a difficult checkout process, long response times, or confusing pricing; it deserves attention. Dismissing those comments can make customers feel unheard and can turn a small frustration into a larger reputation issue.

Improve your customer feedback strategy

• Ask for feedback after purchases, appointments, support requests, and abandoned carts.
• Read reviews, comments, direct messages, and support tickets.
• Look for repeated complaints rather than focusing on one isolated comment.
• Share customer feedback with the people responsible for fixing the issue.
• Let customers know when you have made a change based on their input.

Do not only seek validation. Seek information that helps you improve the customer experience.

3. Fix a Website That Annoys Customers: Your Website Makes Things Easier, Not Harder

Your website is often a customer’s first real interaction with your business. If it is hard to read, slow to load, difficult to navigate, or missing important information, visitors may leave before they ever contact you or make a purchase.

A frustrating website creates doubt. Customers may wonder whether your business is credible, whether their payment information is safe, or whether they will receive support after buying.

Common Website Problems That Frustrate Visitors

1. Fonts: too small, or companies use too many.
2. Colors: there are too many colors or similar hues that decrease legibility.
3. Pop-ups. Lots of pop-ups.
4. Privacy: there is no privacy message, terms and conditions, or GDPR/CCPA compliance.
5. Information: it is old, unrelated, misleading, or non-existent.
6. Links: links do not work (dead) or point to the wrong page.

Seriously, my friends, that list is a drop in the ocean. In short, there more websites that fall into the “what the heck?” category than the winning category. Why is this? Well, according to the website Clutch.co:

When DIY Website Management Creates More Problems

“In-house help is the most common digital marketing resource (43%), but industry leaders say that small businesses that try to handle everything in-house may overextend themselves (Ballou, 2018).”

That means 43% of small business websites are DIY. We are willing to wager that the driver behind 80-90% of those sites is not an expert. If an owner invests more time on their website than in sales, inventory, and other necessary factors, their priorities need reassessment. Furthermore, it is not that you cannot make and maintain your website; it’s a matter of should you. Besides, that’s precisely why BRKLYN Creative is here to help you avoid turbulent waters.

Website strategy: prioritize clarity and trust

Start with the pages customers use most: your homepage, service pages, product pages, contact page, checkout, and frequently asked questions.

Ask a person unfamiliar with your business to complete a simple task, such as finding a price, booking a service, or locating your return policy. If they struggle, your customers probably do too.

A strong website strategy should help customers get answers quickly and take the next step with confidence.

4. Social Media: Treat Social Media Like a Customer-Service Channel

Social media is not only a promotional channel, it is the global public square, and you need to ensure that your business has a presence. Moreover, you have to take the necessary steps to ensure your brand shows consistency, speaks with one voice and provides a positive experience. For many customers, it is also a place to ask questions, report issues, read reviews, and judge how your business treats people.

If a customer sends a message and receives no response, sees inconsistent information, or watches the business argue with complaints publicly, trust can disappear quickly.

Social media habits that annoy customers

• Posting only sales messages
• Repeating the same promotion too often
• Creating false urgency
• Ignoring questions and direct messages
• Deleting reasonable criticism instead of responding professionally
• Blaming customers for problems
• Going inactive for long periods without notice
• Giving different answers across platforms

Improve your social media strategy

• Set response-time expectations and meet them whenever possible.
• Create a simple process for handling questions, complaints, and refunds.
• Use a consistent brand voice across every channel.
• Respond calmly, even when customers are upset.
• Take complex or private issues to direct messages, email, or phone support.
• Use social media to share useful information, not only promotions.

Customers notice how you respond when something goes wrong. That response can either build loyalty or send them to a competitor.

5. Email: Send Helpful Emails, Not Inbox Clutter

Make Every Email Worth Opening

Email can be one of the most effective ways to communicate with customers. It can also be one of the quickest ways to lose attention.

Customers are busy. If your emails are frequent, vague, irrelevant, or overly promotional, they may unsubscribe—or worse, mark your messages as spam.

A good email strategy respects the customer’s time and gives them a clear reason to open, read, and act.

Email practices that frustrate customers

• Minor product updates – use social media channels.
• Sales – if everything is on sale all the time, nothing is on sale.
• Newsletters – if you are using social media correctly, you can opt to use a drip campaign and get visitors back to your site. Irrelevant – emails that have no consideration for the customer.
• Intrusive – unsolicited emails that occur without customer action.
• Misleading subject lines: Subject lines that overpromise, create false urgency, or do not match the email content can damage trust.
• Too many emails: Frequent messages can overwhelm customers and lead to unsubscribes or spam complaints.
• Irrelevant content: Sending the same message to every customer, regardless of their interests or purchase history, makes emails easy to ignore.
• Constant sales: If every email promotes a discount or limited-time offer, customers may stop seeing your promotions as valuable.
• Minor updates: Small product changes or routine company news may be better suited for social media, a website update, or an in-app notification.
• Unsolicited messages: Emails sent without clear customer permission can feel intrusive and may violate email marketing rules.
• Difficult unsubscribe process: Hiding or complicating the unsubscribe option frustrates customers and can create compliance issues.

Improve Your Email Marketing Strategy

A strong email marketing strategy gives customers useful, timely information without overwhelming their inboxes. Focus on sending emails that are relevant, easy to understand, and connected to what your customers actually need.

• Write clear subject lines: Tell customers exactly what the email is about. Avoid misleading language or unnecessary urgency.
• Segment your audience: Group customers by interests, location, purchase history, or stage in the customer journey so they receive more relevant messages.
• Set a reasonable schedule: Avoid emailing simply to fill a calendar. Send messages when you have something useful to share.
• Create helpful content: Balance promotions with product guidance, educational content, reminders, updates, and information that helps customers make decisions.
• Make preferences easy to manage: Give subscribers a simple way to choose the types of emails they receive or unsubscribe when they no longer want messages.
• Measure performance: Review open rates, clicks, unsubscribes, conversions, and spam complaints to identify what is working and what may be annoying customers.

Email should strengthen customer relationships—not create inbox clutter. BRKLYN Creative can help you develop an email marketing strategy that reaches the right customers with better messaging, smarter timing, and measurable results. Contact BRKLYN Creative to discuss your email marketing needs.

6. Norm Violations: Avoid Customer-Service Behaviors That Break Trust

Norm violations are behaviors socially accepted and expected. Customers have basic expectations about how businesses should behave. When those expectations are ignored, customers often feel misled, disrespected, or trapped.

These are not minor issues. They can hurt reviews, referrals, repeat purchases, and long-term trust.

Examples of norm violations

• Advertising one price and charging another
• Promising a product or service that is unavailable
• Failing to notify customers about delays or out-of-stock items
• Ignoring support requests
• Making returns or cancellations unnecessarily difficult
• Blocking customers for reasonable questions or criticism
• Hiding fees until the last step of checkout
• Using bait-and-switch tactics

Create a customer-first strategy

Be direct about pricing, availability, timelines, policies, and limitations. If there is a problem, tell customers promptly, explain what happened, and offer a reasonable next step.

Customers may forgive mistakes. They are less likely to forgive being misled or ignored.

7. Speak the Customer’s Language: Clear Communication Prevents Customer Frustration

Industry terms, internal acronyms, and technical language may make sense to your team, but they can confuse customers. When customers do not understand what you are saying, they may feel excluded, embarrassed, or unsure about buying.

Clear language is not about oversimplifying your expertise. It is about helping customers make informed decisions.

Improve the way you communicate

• Define industry terms when they are necessary.
• Replace internal jargon with plain language.
• Explain processes step by step.
• Use examples to clarify options.
• Write product and service descriptions around customer benefits.
• Answer common questions before customers have to ask them.
• Train customer-facing staff to communicate clearly and consistently.

Your customers should never have to work hard to understand what you offer, how much it costs, or what happens next.

8. Feedback: Collect Feedback, Act on It, and Close the Loop

You cannot fix customer frustrations if you do not know they exist. Customer feedback shows you what is working, what is confusing, and where customers feel disappointed.

The bigger problem is not receiving negative feedback. The bigger problem is collecting feedback and doing nothing with it.

Build a feedback process that works

• Ask customers for feedback at relevant moments.
• Use short surveys to keep participation easy.
• Monitor reviews and respond professionally.
• Categorize feedback by topic, such as service, pricing, website, delivery, or product quality.
• Identify repeat problems and assign ownership for resolving them.
• Share changes with customers when appropriate.
• Track whether the changes reduce complaints or improve satisfaction.

Feedback should lead to action. When customers see that you listen and improve, they are more likely to trust your business.

Let’s Do This: Small Changes Can Create a Better Customer Experience

As you can see, marketing has an immense and immediate effect on improving your customer engagement and recognizing how to mitigate customer annoyance. BRKLYN Creative can make sure you understand the tools available to you to ensure your most significant investment, the customer, trust your brand. Contact us, and let’s make a plan.

FAQs

Works Cited

1. Ballou, E. (2018, March 29). How small businesses invest in digital marketing in 2018 – Clutch.co. Clutch.co. Retrieved January 20, 2019, from https://clutch.co/agencies/digital/resources/small-business-digital-marketing-survey-2018
2. Monash University. Target Market. 15 Aug. 2017, https://www.monash.edu/business/marketing/marketing-dictionary/t/target-market.
3. Monash University. Target Audience. 8 Feb. 2018, https://www.monash.edu/business/marketing/marketing-dictionary/t/target-audience.

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