What Do You Do With An Unreasonable Customer?

Its happened to me, I play along and I say ok see you in 10 minutes Ill go back to my truck, text go over my papers ect… Then I come back 10 minutes later and I introduce my self again like nothing has happened, that usually does the trick and they calm down! Thats strike 1 for me, if she pisses me off again I leave politely.

Find out what makes them reasonable

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[MENTION=2009]jonnyald[/MENTION]

The closest I’ve gotten to going JonnyAld on someone was when I had trouble finding a customers house. I had to call her and re-clarify directions, and she ended up having to meet me at a marina 5 minutes from her house. At the time we arrived at her house we were still 5 minutes early. When I got out of my van she was yelling at me about not listening to her earlier directions properly (I admit I am terrible with directions which is why I have a GPS, however there were 3 streets with the same name in close proximity to hers)

After 30 seconds of listening to her tirade, I shushed her. Sticking my index finger out 1 inch from her face, I made a loud shuushing sound. It worked, she stopped yelling. I then said, “Are we ready to do the job?” She said OK, and the rest of the job went fine. I felt kind of bad that I had to shuush a grown adult and in hindsight there was probably some other more professional way to handle the situation.

I resolved not to abuse my shush power, however. I have resolved to only use it it in the most severe situations. I have to ask myself, “would I want my Grandmother to be shushed?” And in all honesty, if she was screaming at a plumber who couldn’t find her house, I would have to say, “Sorry, Grams you kind of deserved it.”

@DustOffTherapy

Good points. Looking at things from different sides expands our context and helps us make better decisions. Seeing things from other people’s perspectives is essential to handling situations optimally. Framing options is the key to gently nudging customers into making a better choice.

[COLOR=#ff0000] “We started off by apologizing to them. They had no idea why we were apologizing, but it put them in an unthreatened state of mind.”

[/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]As in “I’m terribly sorry that I didn’t point out these broken screens to you, I assumed you already knew.”

A “compliment sandwich” also works great. Sandwich unpleasant news between two positive statements. This is especially handy when dealing with someone moving into a new house with some issue to their windows. First start out with what a great location the house is in and what a beautiful view they have (always with sincere compliments. I don’t have a hard time with this because every customer’s house has some positive attributes even if it’s facing a funeral home… it’s so quite here :)) Then mention that “I;m sure you are already aware, but I just wanted to point out to you that these windows have some scratches, blown seals, hard water stains etc.”

If you point out a problem, you should always have a solution even if the customer doesn’t want to take care of it right away.

After the brief, possibly uncomfortable moment where you have to tell them that their windows are defective, that you can’t clean off the scratches, and / or the job will be more expensive because you are doing restoration work (i.e. hard water stains) instead of “regular cleaning”, hit them with a positive : “Imagine how beautiful the view will be after we get everything in tip top shape, good thing you called me now. Looks like you’ll have awesomely clean windows for that baby shower / graduation / Bar Mitzvah this weekend :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :)”

There’s always a positive angle to every problem. We just have to look for it.

But like @Chesebro mentions, there are the Sharks out there too, wanting a free ride, who can’t be nudged, steered or re-framed into a congenial arrangement for both parties.

I know exactly what you mean by certain “keywords” to look out for. “Free” is one of them. As in, “If I’m not totally satisfied, I’ll get a refund, right?” Said at the beginning of the job before any problems. Me: “Sure, I’ll refund your money if you refund my labor, chuckle” Said in a playful joking tone.

The good news is that the more jobs you do, the easier it gets to handle problems. What used to baffle me a couple of years ago, I can handle easily now. You start to spot all the little things and handle them before they become bigger things. Occasionally, that entails not taking a job because you see too many red flags.

great thread.

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[MENTION=4338]CapeCodCleaner[/MENTION]

LOL classic Jesse…With Great power comes Great Responsibility!

He’s like a superhero without the utility belt… Oh wait, he does have a utility belt.

Humm:

Utility belt - check.
Vehicle to respond to calls - check
Special tools - check
Skills that mere mortals don’t have - check

So window cleaners just need to start wearing their underwear on the outside of their pants and they’d be superheros? Or get a spiderman outfit like those guys at the childrens hospital.

There is no such thing as an unreasonable customer. There are only customers that:
a.) you aren’t communicating with, or
b.) you aren’t listening to, or
c.) you aren’t charging enough, or
d.) all of the above

I don’t about that there is a type of person out there who has a problem with everyone and with everything regardless

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yeah, but you get my point. 99.9% of the time “unreasonable” really means “misunderstood” or “under-informed”. it’s usually our fault.

My personal experience “problems” have been easy to resolve and I forget about it later that day the big issues I’ve had I want to ask the person “how do you get through life?”

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Lets be honest here - we all deal with the general public all day, every day - that means even the most inept of us have had plenty of practice & are probably much better at dealing with crazy people than the general public are,… and I reckon most of us have that gut instinct when we meet people that are going to be complete messers, but we so often choose to ignore it to our own detriment!

Trust your gut feeling - do all you can to satisfy reasonable customers - but for those rare ones that are truly and completely beyond reasonable, don’t take any crap. Talk politely but honestly - say it straight - say it calmly, but don’t be a doormat for a nut job.

If all else fails, poopsenders - the ULTIMATE gag gift - SWEET revenge at its finest looks interesting!! :slight_smile:

I get your point. I think you have a very optimistic view of the public though. Or maybe I’m just jaded.

it’s not optimistic. it’s not pessimistic. but it is anecdotal. in all my time in business, working with thousands of clients, i can’t think of a single one i either wasn’t able to manage, or just simply failed to manage properly. but that’s my own experience. ymmv. the principle stands though. i believe the “unmanageable customer” is an extremely rare one.

and maybe we just have a different definition of what exactly an unmanageable client is. our tolerances differ. and that’s ok. every business owner gets to decide how far they will go to maintain a relationship.

“What Do You Do With An Unreasonable Customer?”

Perhaps kiss their a ss and never work 4 them again?

I don’t have any unreasonable customers. They either get reasonable, or I get rid of them.