Clients, though we love them, can be a real headache sometimes. Dealing with them can suck your whole day down the drain if you let it. But in those moments it’s good to remember that difficult clients can be dealt with just as easily as easy clients. This is hard to remember when actually in the middle of a challenging interaction. But once you forget about the frustration and dial in on what they actually need, things should become easier to deal with.
What kind of difficult client are you dealing with right now? We’ve been around them all, so here are some tips for specific types that should help you the next time you feel like strangling the person on the other end of the phone:
Clients With Unreasonable Demands
These clients want the world from you and they want it as cheap as they can get it. In fact, why aren’t you just giving it to them free of charge? They insist that your competitors always meet their unreasonable demands, regardless of how true that may be.
How do you handle them? Tell them that you’d love to give them what they want, but it’s just not possible. It’s also helpful to offer them an easy method of returning your product or canceling their service with you.
Clients That Are Blowing Off Steam
Why pay a therapist $145 for an hour on the couch when you can vent all of your steam to a customer service rep free of charge? For some reason, there are people who just like to deal with life’s problems by complaining to random employees at random businesses or even strangers on the street.
How do you handle them? Be kind and promptly redirect them to the business at hand. When you discuss the tactics you’re doing to help them with their business problem, it will redirect their train of thought back to why they contacted you in the first place.
Clients Who Curse Excessively
These clients aren’t afraid to let the expletives flow. Who knows why they’re doing it. They could be just trying to get a rise out of you. Maybe this is the only way they know how to communicate their anger, ineffective though it may be. Regardless of the why, the fact is that they make it difficult to care what they’re saying when they’re being so vulgar to you.
How do you handle them? Don’t respond to their foul language with even more foul language. You never fight fire with fire. If you’re talking to them on the phone, ask them if you can shoot them an email detailing a number of solutions you have that could help resolve their issue. This gets them off the phone and shows them that you’re interested in solving their problem all at the same time. It’s a win for everyone.
The most important aspect of your employees dealing with difficult customers is the conflict resolution training you need to give them before letting them loose. Here at Incentive Solutions we offer a Learn & Earn Module that allows you to present curriculum to your employees, and it rewards them for successfully learning the material and passing a quiz on it. Customer conflict resolution can easily be uploaded as its own course and can be used to help your employees defuse situations like the ones we’ve discussed today before they ever even start. Also, consider tying customer care to an employee recognition program, which we also specialize in. You can reward your employees for taking their training to the floor and doing the right thing with it. If you’d like more information about these programs and how they work, call us today at 1-866-567-7432. We’d be happy to give you a live demo and to show you exactly why our clients gave us a 95% excellent rating and would refer us on to a friend.
