Top 5 Tips for Dealing with Troublesome Customers

Advice for small, home and micro business owners.

1. The most important rule to abide by when dealing with awkward customers (and also potentially the hardest one to stick to) is to remain patient. Becoming impatient with customers is very unprofessional (even if they are argumentative and demanding) because they are only trying to get a resolution to their problems.

2. You must maintain a positive outlook at all times, even if the stress of the situation is getting you down. Negativity will only result in increasing the hostility of a problem customer even further.

3. Try to listen more than you actually speak to disgruntled customers. This is important to help you understand what their actual grievance is. Listening carefully increases the likelihood that you will be able to solve their problem.

4. Whatever you do, don’t argue back with a customer, regardless of what they say or the accusations they make. Dealing with a confrontation with your own hostility will only make a bad situation far worse.

5. If you find yourself spending far too much of your time on one problem customer you need to evaluate if this the best decision for the overall health of your business. The customer is not always right and as a small business with a limited amount of resources you may find life easier if you just stop dealing with this person altogether.

By: Stefan Töpfer