08/ 01/ 2004
by Shannon Scully
Bob Stern had reached his limit. Everyone around him was miserable – his employees, his subcontractors, even his impossible customer, who was the source of all the negative energy. One afternoon, the customer issued his last threat. For only the third time in his 40 years of owning a residential remodeling company in the suburbs of Detroit, Stern walked off the job before it was done.
Always the honest businessman, he didn’t leave his client with a half-gutted home, even though the man was dishonest and abusive. Instead, Stern wrote him a check for $16,000 – more than enough money for someone else to finish the job.
“Toward the end, it wasn’t about money anymore,” he says. “The peace of mind was worth it.” In the months that followed the firing, Stern could have second-guessed his decision, especially since the customer took the money left behind and hired the best attorney in town to sue Bob Stern Building Company. But rude people are usually rude to everyone. And Stern’s excellent reputation was left untarnished by the incident.
“He treated the lawyer so bad that he quit, too,” Stern says.
Difficult customers cannot be avoided. Regardless of your industry, your location or your zodiac sign, if you deal with people, you will eventually run into trouble. The key is not avoiding customers from hell – it’s learning how to deal with them. It’s teaching your employees how to smile when they want to spit. And it’s putting a price tag on your mental health (and your employees’) to decide if profits that come with heavy emotional stress are really worth it.
Lynda Stone knows the best way to avoid clashes with customers is to create an environment so customer-friendly that even Scrooge would smile. As owner of the Puffy Muffin, a 225-seat restaurant and bakery in Brentwood, Tenn., Stone trains her 48 employees to connect with individual customers. Her theory is that everyone who walks in the door should feel important.
“We do the same thing over and over every day,” says Stone, who started baking bread for local restaurants in her home 18 years ago. “If we don’t connect with the customer, it can become routine, and they won’t feel like they’re getting their questions answered.”
Instead of asking, “Can I help you?” when a customer approaches the 40-ft. bakery case, Puffy Muffin employees ask, “What can I do to help you?” It’s a little thing, but open-ended questions yield better service, says Stone.
Karen Gossler and her husband, Eric, also have to be proactive about preventing problems at their design and print shop in Highland, Ind. “Once a job is printed with a mistake, you can’t do anything but throw it away,” says Karen, who opened Imagehaus five years ago.
But on the flip side, customers aren’t happy with business cards that have a wrong phone number, even if it’s their own fault for providing the wrong information. A few years ago, the Gosslers stamped notices on customer proofs that reminded them to check vital information before their jobs were printed.
“Most people didn’t read the stamp; I guess it was too small,” says Karen. So now the reminders are full sheets of paper attached to the proofs. “And we’ve also hung signs all over the place. We hold their hands through the process to make sure everything is right.”
All the effort and supplies are an added cost, but it’s worth it, says Karen. Customers assume more responsibility and recognize that the Gosslers do everything possible to prevent mistakes. “We can’t eat all the bad jobs, or we’d go out of business.”
Win them over
Ryan George would be a savvy contestant on the reality TV show Survivor. He understands the delicate balances in human relationships, especially those with difficult customers.
“Right off the bat, we go to work to win over clients that might not be fun to work with,” says George, president and CEO of 220 Solutions, a Web development firm in Tucson, Ariz., with 11 employees. “We make them great allies, and it earns us chips in the game if things go wrong down the road.”
Recently, George and his team worked on a project for a convention and visitors bureau in a major U.S. city. It quickly became obvious their contact at the organization was underqualified for the job. “Rather than admit she had no previous Web experience, she tried to fake it or blame things on us,” he says.
But George and his employees were patient. They educated the client and took every chance to help her look good to her bosses, “even when she wasn’t making us look good to her bosses,” he says. A year and a half later, the once problematic client is flourishing in her position and bringing 220 Solutions lots of new business.
I got your back
Lynda Stone is the quintessential Southern woman – poised, polite and friendly. But beneath her polished exterior, this café and bakery owner is one tough cookie. Disrespect one of her employees and her patience quickly wears thin.
“Some people might look down on our employees as if they’re just servants,” says Stone, who constantly reminds her staff their jobs are just important as those in any other field. “But I will not allow my servers to be demeaned. Not because they’re not paid for it, but because of who they are – they’re all special people.”
Stone has implemented what she calls a “free to fail” policy at her business, which encourages employees to come to her immediately with problems. “Employees aren’t afraid they’re going to be fired if they make a mistake – and we all make them,” she says. “We talk about what happened, and then we go to the customer together to get it straightened out.”
Stone finds it’s best to train employees before they’re confronted with trouble, so they won’t have to think on their feet. She has employees memorize a specific line to use when a customer gets abusive: “I can see you’re very unhappy, I will get the owner for you right now.”
“Often the customer will either say, ‘Yes, go get her.’ Or they’ll back down a bit,” she says.
Ryan George of 220s Solutions also coaches employees on how to communicate with clients at his Web development firm. If clients understand the project, they’re less likely to get frustrated and angry.
“It’s hard for IT people to remember that not everyone speaks their language,” says George, who trains employees to speak in terms everyone is familiar with. “Any time an IT guy explains something to you that you don’t understand, odds are he doesn’t understand it either and is just trying to use big words.”
George tells employees to stay empathetic and calm, even when the customer isn’t. “We’ve trained our people to use phrases like, ‘I can understand why you might feel that way, but the reason for the problem is this ... ,’ ” he says.
Draw the line
Bob Stern still feels good about his decision to fire a customer before finishing the remodeling project on his house. But walking away from a revenue-generating job might not be so easy for others, including Stern’s son, who recently joined his father’s business. Luckily, he can rely on his father’s hard-earned wisdom to help make those difficult decisions.
“When you’re a small-business owner, you have to realize that peace of mind is more important than money,” says Stern. “If you’re General Motors, you can’t refuse to work with certain customers, but you’re talking to a small-business man. We can say that.”
Stern has learned to spot red lights during meetings with potential clients. “If you’re not getting the truth from a client upfront, you shouldn’t do the job,” he says. “If it starts out that way, it’s going to end much worse.”
While dishonesty is a good indicator to walk away, Stern doesn’t turn down jobs just because a client is hard to work with. “I can’t say no to everyone or I’d be broke,” he says. “You can’t look for a blissful business with no problems; it just doesn’t happen.”
Karen Gossler of Imagehaus recently risked losing a very valuable customer when she confronted him about his irrational behavior.
“We used to cringe every time we saw him coming,” says Karen. The last time he threw a tantrum in the store and stormed out, Karen took action. She sent him an e-mail asking him to treat her employees with the same respect they show him – or not return.
“He apologized, has been cordial ever since, and we kept the good business,” she says.
It’s not you, it’s them
Lynda Stone recognizes that she is not the center of the universe. After 18 years in business, she has learned that nine times out of 10, Puffy Muffin has little to do with why a customer is disgruntled.
“Every once and a while you get someone who comes in unhappy – and there’s nothing we can do to change that,” she says. “Our challenge is to be a part of the solution, instead of accelerating the problem.”
Chip Bell, a senior partner with Performance Research Associates, Inc., and author of 15 books on customer service, says those are the kinds of customers you want to save.
“Maybe they got up on the wrong side of the bed and you’re right along their path,” says Bell. “Their problems have little to do with you and more to do with all the other stuff going on in their lives. But given the right attitude, these customers can be saved and made into good customers.”
Bell recommends sincerely apologizing and displaying empathy for their situation. But watch for their reaction. “If you don’t see a change in their attitude, they may be a customer whose cost is much greater than the return you’ll ever get.”
You shouldn’t let complaints get to you, but separating your feelings from the situation isn’t easy.
“It’s much easier to remember the negative things people say about you than it is to remember the positive things,” says George. “It’s a matter of putting things into perspective.”
Maintaining perspective is probably the best advice for dealing with difficult customers. “With clients, it’s not about winning the argument, it’s about satisfying the need,” says George. “We could win lots of arguments, but we’d have a lot less business.”
Web Extras: Learn more about customer service online in the "Web Extras" section of Tools and Tips.
