PRIORITY

In my team, we have tons of works like everyone else. And like everyone else, we prioritize the work. Important work is being done first. But I notice that when important keeps piling in, the lower priority task is never done. 

For example, we service customers who have high potential sales for us (example >100 units). Customers who is buying 1-2 units are always in the lower of the priority list. Well, it sound logical, right? We keep delay these low priority customer till the day they make complaints, angry.

What the problem?

I see two possible cause & solutions:

1. The problem lies on the priority rules. Our rules are not correct. We should set deadline to service the low priority customer as well. If the deadline is near, automatically, they should be in higher priority.
2. Since the lower priority customer provide lower sales, attention should not be given as much. Sorry, but provide more inflexible solution. Yes, I did say inflexible. For example, customer ask can we do “this”, we know it can be done with extra amount of effort and time. But as they are low priority customer, we should say “NO”. 

For solution (2), it sounded we are providing poor service but it business. A business is about making money, if sales potential and ROI is not justify, we should reject the customer politely.