Tag Archives: customer service

How do you End an Unhealthy Client or Customer Relationship?

You have tried everything to please a particularly challenging customer—you have worked on your communication skills, offered refunds, given them special attention and tried to anticipate what they might want. In the end, you have determined that it is just taking more energy and resources than you can reasonably afford to give and you know that you need to “fire” your impossible client or customer. But, how do you actually go about extricating yourself from an unhealthy business relationship without causing too much damage? It is going to depend on the extent to which you are enmeshed with the other … Continue reading →

We Want Our Customers and Clients to Have Consistent Experiences

I wrote earlier today about ways to standardize our home business operations. My focus was on how it can make our own work days go smoother and keep us organized and relatively stress-free. Additionally, standardizing our home business operations can also contribute to our clients and customers experiencing consistency with us and consistency in a business operation can be a positive thing. Our customers and clients need to know what to expect from us–they have a right to expect a certain level of customer service, returned calls and e-mails in a reasonable time frame, etc. If we are all over … Continue reading →

Those Customers or Clients who just don’t Listen

We all know those people—whatever is going on in their own heads while someone is trying to explain something to them or share information is far more important than paying attention. Either they are thinking of something else, or they may interrupt and try to get the conversation onto their own agenda, or they might just forget and not be very good at retaining information. Regardless of the reason, many of us find we have at least one client or customer who we swear is just not listening to anything we might be saying. In my experience, some of these … Continue reading →

Having an Annual Meeting with Your Clients

While those of you whose businesses involve direct sales and a passel of customers will probably not find an annual “check-up” meeting helpful, those businesses who rely on a few clients or for those of you who work as consultants or freelancers, you very well might find that setting aside a time to meet with each client or at least touch base annually turns out to be a good idea… Many business owners find that meeting annually with clients in order to discuss any changes to the contract, make adjustments to service delivery, renegotiate work and payment, etc. is a … Continue reading →

When a Customer is Too Submissive

If you are dealing with a particularly challenging, pushy and aggressive client or customer you may think that having one who is submissive and gives in easily would be a treat. These types of individuals can be challenging to work with as well and the submissiveness can get in the way of a healthy professional relationship. What are some of the problems that can come up with a submissive customer or client? This individual might not be able to make choices or share with you what he or she really needs or wants, there might be issues with the customer … Continue reading →

Getting Behind and Beyond Conflict

We definitely have our smooth and easy days in our home businesses—those days where we seem to be sailing along and getting along with everyone. There are also times, however, when we have conflicts with prospects, customers, clients, colleagues, or vendors. Some of those conflicts can last a while as we attempt to work through and negotiate what is best for both parties. Getting beyond a conflict and putting it behind us can be a big challenge as well and take some care and attention in order to preserve relationships and our business reputation. I think the first step to … Continue reading →

Babysitting and Hand-holding

It might not be your favorite thing about being in business, I know for a fact that it isn’t mine—I might even go as far as to say it is one of my pet peeves. The reality is, however, that we home business owners just cannot get away with NOT having to do a little babysitting and hand-holding of our clients, customers, prospects, etc. now and then… Sending out reminder notices, having to double-check to make sure that someone follows through, walking a customer or client through a specific process—all of these can take extra time in your business operations … Continue reading →

Coping with Unusual Requests

Occasionally, there are going to be those clients, customers, colleagues, or vendors who ask us for something special. They may be asking for special treatment—or it just may be that circumstances have influenced their request. For a small home business, we can either be in a good, flexible position to adjust to unusual requests, or it might ask more of us than we are in a position to give… For many small businesses, how we cope with and handle special requests can be the cornerstone of our reputations. For others of us, it happens so seldom that it might really … Continue reading →

Tough Customer? Can You at Least be Amicable?

There can be no denying that some people are just awful to deal with. Whether it is due to chemistry between the person and ourselves, or they are just a particularly difficult person—most of us will eventually have that “customer from hell” who makes us crazy. They may set off every trigger we have and even though you may be trying to stay calm and decent, it can be tough! One of the things I have learned is that if I can at least focus on being amicable—I can generally work with just about anyone. Amicable means to be friendly, … Continue reading →

The Disney Institute

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Walt Disney World has a corner on the magic market. Not only are the Disney rides and food some of the world’s greatest, but their personnel, aka Cast Members, are some of the friendliest and most helpful in the world. This is not an accident. Disney takes great pains to train all of it’s employees to provide the very best customer service possible. Everyone from the princesses to the street sweepers, and even the cast members you never see, has been trained in the Disney manner of treating customers. This bit of Disney magic has not gone unnoticed by other … Continue reading →