It is going to happen to everyone if it has not already. Every one of us is going to have to deal with just a terrible customer. A customer where they are so picky and demanding and are never satisfied no matter how much you do for them. There are a lot of ways to deal with this and because of this I am going to take a few weeks to go over how to deal with that annoyingly painful customer to keep the sale and maintain control of the situation.
Listening is a Virtue
This seems pretty easy. A needy customer is going to talk and talk and talk and the best thing for a seller to do is just let the customer talk themselves out. The seller needs to be calm and gentle and show the customer that you care and you are there to listen, even if they are wrong. By just listening, you are building trust, empathy and you are calming the customer down because you are not trying to force your way.
This is something that I have seen in my father as he has dealt with difficult customers. There are some picky homeowners in the world, and rightly so, we are building a $20,000+ project on their property. However the problem comes when they change their mind every other day or they think that something is going in wrong and insist that it be done another way. What I have seen is just patience on my father’s side. When dealing with people like this, he just talks from experience and how certain things just don’t work or do not go together well. As for picky people, my dad just listens. He sees what the homeowner wants and lets it happen. If something will cause problems down the road he will bring it up but otherwise he values the customer’s opinion and does not force anything on them.
That is a little back story to this article and I hope that his influence and approach can inspire and teach others who read this post. Let’s hear about your experiences with the picky sales person and how you dealt with the situation.
testacr22
definitely true, listening can be the best tactic in many situations, it helps you not to make a huge mistake in what you say but also helps to find out what the customer has as their problem.
I think certain people have a tendency to get short with these sort of fickle, non-committal, picky types. It can easily happen especially when you are in a position of experience and skill. As a contractor I’ve had similar situations to that of your father. I’ve had customers tell me stuff doesn’t look right, or suggest that maybe i’m not doing something right, even though they have little or no experience doing it. Often a customer will look at a job partially complete and think it doesn’t look right. Another difficult situation is when customers want you to change things, or add on a little something and then expect it to cost them nothing, because, “…well, your doing the work anyways…” Like you say the best thing here is patience, listening and sincerity. Though, I believe that there are times when people become so picky, and difficult to deal with that it’s not worth doing business with them. Though thankfully, I’ve never had a customer that wasn’t satisfied with the end result, I have had those that have been a bit difficult, but you get that in any business or sales situation. Great post!