Will they abuse your “unlimited” offer?

The other day, I went to the new automatic car wash down the street to clean our car.

When I went to order the wash, the attendant said they had a special going on where for the same price as a single wash I could buy unlimited car washes for the rest of the month.

Of course I said yes. I mean, why not? What’s there to lose?

From the car wash’s perspective, that’s an incredibly risky offer. What would prevent me from abusing the deal by coming back a dozen times in a row for free car washes? Not only would that minimize any profit, but I’d probably start costing them money!

But of course I didn’t do that. I have much better things to do than to wash my car over and over again. In fact, at some point, and I’m not sure about this, but it seems like that would start being bad for the car itself!

Does the fear of an abusive customer keep you from making an unlimited offer? Worried that one or two bad customers could ruin the deal for everyone, especially you?

There are at least three ways you can prevent an abusive customer from ruining your unlimited offer. And implementing even one of them will protect you from a worst-case scenario.

Set clear expectations around your unlimited offer. If you have unlimited email support, make it clear that you reply to emails just once or twice per day or during specific hours. (But don’t put limits on how many emails a customer can send. That’s no longer an unlimited offering.)
Move the unlimited service to a higher, more expensive tier. Ask for a call to assess how much the customer might be willing to pay for the unlimited offering. If you’re happy with the amount, change the price and get the customer to agree. (What might seem like abusive behavior might actually be a business opportunity!)
Fire the customer. This is obviously a last resort, but you can always say no to an abusive customer.

It is difficult to predict how people will respond to an unlimited offer, especially if you’ve never offered one before.

But the chance of someone actually abusing your unlimited offer is incredibly remote. Most people have a sense of fairness or morality that prevents them from taking advantage of one.

But most people also have better things to do than wash their car a dozen times in a row.