Customer is king; customer is always right. These two old-age mantras are at the heart of every business success. They underline the high esteem with which people in business should hold their clients.
But sometimes, the client is no king and the client is wrong. One of such times is when the client gets unduly overbearing. In many cases, clients who are overbearing tend to be those who pay good amounts for services in full. Take this anonymous conversation between a client and a service provider:
Client: I paid you Sh. 566,000! I expect you to answer me ASAP.
Entrepreneur: Hello, you paid me to execute and complete a project for you, not to be available to you 24/7. I’ve kept in constant communication with you throughout, wouldn’t you agree?
Client: Yes but for the amount of money I paid you. You owe me your full attention.
At a time when business is hard to come by, such overbearing customers will leave many people running businesses or consultancies lost on whether to terminate the contract and lose the money, or to persevere and keep the money. Here’s what to do:
Customer validation
According to Darryl Stevens, an entrepreneur and the founder of Digitech, one of the most effective ways to diffuse a difficult client is to validate their feeling, anxiety or fear over the service they are getting.
“This will involve finding a place to agree or empathize with the client, and, or understanding how they feel, and why they feel that way,” he says.
“You will begin to defuse the situation by moving from a defensive posture to a place of connection.”
Stevens says that by using this approach, your goal will be to make the client feel that you are operating with their best interest at heart. In return, the client will begin to soften and this will make resolving the issue at hand much easier.
It is important to understand where the client is coming from.
For example, if you are handling a client’s application and you go mute on them without stating the reason or your timelines, the client may get anxious on whether their case isn’t strong enough, has failed, or isn’t of priority to you.
AT the same time, a customer could simply be having a difficult moment and as a result is full of negativity.
According to Alan Zorfas, an entrepreneur and the author of An Emotional Connection Matters More Than Customer Satisfaction, one of the most effective ways of diluting a difficult client is by establishing an emotional connection with them.
“Move beyond mere customer satisfaction and connect with customers at an emotional level,” he says. This doesn’t mean engaging in unorthodox business practices to please a client, or compromising on your personal integrity.
It entails establishing an unspoken emotional connection using simple things and words that fit into everyday natural social interactions such as thank you or please in a manner that shows you’re not just interested in their money, but rather you are committed and concerned about giving them value for their money.
The boundaries
Every service provision you give will need to have boundaries and timelines. For instance, you will need to set specific hours and days when you can address client A’s file and a different set of hours when you can address client B’s file.
This will also include your own time when you cannot handle any clients’ business unless there is an unavoidable emergency.
According to career coach Hanna Hart, even though communication and responsiveness is critical to building strong client relationships, you will need to regularly calibrate.
Start by distinguishing between client emergencies and non-emergencies. “If you work late at night, do not make the mistake of sending emails at odd hours of the night.
This will signal to the client that you are available during such hours,” says Ms. Hart. “Instead, if you work at night, queue the emails to your clients such that they will run the next morning at 6am or 7am.”
There are instances when you may need to cut a client loose. This includes clients who despite going the extra mile to respond to their demands, still expect you to be at their beck and call, round the clock.
This is what the entrepreneur in the example above did. She refunded the amount paid and terminated the contract with the client on the basis of the client being too overbearing as follows:
Client: What’s going on? Why did I get a refund?
Entrepreneur: I’ m sorry but I think you should find another team that will match the type of availability you’re expecting. I won’t be able to make those types of concessions. Best of luck!
Service personalization
If you have been doing one type of service for a couple of years, you will know what solution fits each of your clients. The downside to this is that your service could tilt and become generic. For example, at a call centre, agents are trained to follow a script.
This oftentimes takes them away from giving customers personalized service. It reduces their interactions with customers to a robotic interaction.
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Avoid being robotic in your interactions, regardless of how long you have been doing the service that is agitating your customer, or how well you know what you are doing.
“You want every customer interaction to translate into customer retention and future referrals. Master the art of rephrasing your solutions and engagements into a natural conversation. It is not what you tell your customer that always matters but how you say it,” says Daria Leschenko, a customer interactions expert and the founder of outsourced customer service company, Support Your App.
This is what has worked for Muthoni Njakwe, the founder and chief executive officer of StedComm Limited, a digital marketing and advertising agency.
“In most cases, overbearing client statements or requests have nothing to do with me as a person or my other staff; it has everything to do with the client’s state of mind. As such, I never take things personally because it is never about me or the business,” she says.
She adds that in situations where a customer is angry, complaining or throwing tantrums, the first thing she does is to try and identify what the root cause for the complaints is.
“Being in digital advertising and marketing where customer relations are critical, I have learned that little details matter a lot. Small surges are gigantic when a customer is at their lowest,” she says. Once she identifies the problem, Muthoni says that she explains the steps the business will take to provide a solution.
“I set time to follow up their concerns with them. In many cases, it could be that the customer is insecure and will keep asking for information all through. In such cases, I plan ahead so that they receive the requisite information and details in time,” she says.
