Most of us have had to contemplate this kind of scenario at one time or another.

This is because “troublesome customers” drain time and money that can be devoted to other customers and opportunities that could be bringing in more money.

So if you have the prescence of mind to ask these sort of questions, you are on the right path! ...because you are looking for the best way to optimize your time, effort and attention.

Before we go straight to tackling the question, it would be nice to unwrap a number of assumptions that the question makes.

For one the question assumes that we are in a RELATIONSHIP with our customers.

Is that the case? Do we indeed enter into relationships with people we do business with?

The answer is YES because as business people and business owners we can’t get the maximum value out of a given context unless we can bank on repeat business and referrals from our customers.

To do this we have to maintain some sort of a relationship (whether formal, strictly business, or informal) with our customers.

This is what keeps us top of mind, relevant, and cordial enough to ask for repeat business, and for them to bring their friends, family members, and associates.

Even if you’re not in a relationship with a customer, a relationship is the most profitable configuration you could get when you start running a business.

So yes! When we “close the deal” we “open a relationship” with the customer.

How do we know that a customer has become “troublesome?”

Is it purely a matter of how much mutual animosity we have towards each other when we wake up in the morning?

Or is it a matter of “as the spirit leads” when we go through the day?

Actually there is some objective criteria that we can use to assess who has become a troublesome customer from who is not.

Being troublesome or quarrelsome depends on the level of time, attention, and effort that is required to service the customer and maintain the relationship... especially when compared to other customers you have.

If you’re a cattle rancher or some other kind of commodities trader, customers raise their voices at you everyday... that’s not enough reason to say they are quarrelsome.

You’d have to weigh how much time and effort that is going into servicing the customer and obtaining the business.

The troublesome customer in this case isn’t the one who raises his voice the most, but rather the one who requires too much “maintenance” to get the business relationship going, or to keep them happy and keep the business profitable for you.

Some customers might be curt and abrasive but apart from that, business with them is swift, prompt, and profitable.

Other customers might be good Christians but they act passive aggressive, pay their bills thirty days late, you only make 0.5% margin on their deals, and they always want to return something, replace another, and claim reimbursement for something else.

Which do you think is the troublesome customer?

Sometimes it could be an open customer service issue that is ongoing with no reasonable prospects of being resolved... it feels as if this isn’t going to get resolved anytime soon.

Perhaps the customer is being verbally abusive to your staff, or maybe the customer is requiring so much customization that your margins on the deal are being undercut.

These are some of the objective standards that we can use to judge when we have a difficult customer on our hands.

If we only have to rely on how good or bad they make us feel, that won’t give us any clear basis for deciding on when to cut the cord, how to do it, and the kind of policies we come up with in the business to prevent from this from recurring.

Now that we know WHO a difficult customer is, the next question should be WHY or HOW a difficult customer is created.

Difficult customers are created sometimes because people can be nasty and narcissistic.

There is no point in dealing with those kinds of people here because we can do nothing about how people were born or parented.

But there is a second category of difficult customers that we can do something about, and it’s more likely that this is the kind of difficult customers most of us would face.

Most difficult customers are created because there was a difference or shortcoming in expectations.

Customers get difficult when they thought they were promised one thing and they are getting another, or friction enters the relationship because the vendor thought he was clear on what he promised, but is being forced to go over and beyond the agreement.

In other words, most of us will have difficult customers because expectations were not clearly set.

If you get better at setting expectations, then the incidences of difficult customers you have will drastically reduce.

How do you set expectations the right way, first of all you have to be sure that you understood the clients needs in the first place.

It’s not just enough to draw up a list of everything they need, you want to get feedback from them that you had the right understanding from the start.

Also it’d be nice to run through all the implications of their decisions to be sure that they’re okay with the possible outcomes.

Sometimes a customer insists on something and you the professional can see that it’s not workable, or that it has significant pitfalls.

How do you figure out their needs?

Ask them using open ended questions!

“How can I help you today?”
“Why have you decided to explore XYZ now?”
“What kind of results are you looking for by using XYZ?”

Open questions like these get the customers talking with excess information so that you have more data to drill down on what the customer is aiming for.

If the customer answers your questions by saying he wants to buy a camera because he is thinking of becoming a wedding vendor and they want to roll out videos shot in 4K resolution, then that affects the different range of cameras you can show him.

Also when you are very clear about what his needs are, it narrows down the room for conflict in the future AFTER he buys the camera.

Sometimes a customer walks in and says they want “a correct camera” or the “best camera in the market” or the “latest XYZ camera brand”.

In this kind of situation, if you make a recommendation without asking further questions, don’t be surprised when later they come back into your store shouting that you sold them a N500,000 camera that doesn’t even record 4K video!

It’s not that they’re being difficult. You didn’t ask the right questions to begin with and so you sold them equipment that wasn’t fit for their unique purpose.

So now that we have discussed how to figure out their need, how do we get feedback that we have understood correctly?

The process is the same! Ask them using open ended questions!

“is there anything else that I have missed?”
“apart from XYZ is there anything you were looking for in the service?”
“so if I understand you correctly, the most important thing you want to achieve with this is ABC and 123?”

This is the point where the customer will say something like, “yes you are correct about recording videos, BUT I was also hoping the camera would also do XYZ...”

All the “but” and “maybe”, or “possibly” are areas where trouble could arise in the future.

The more information you have, the better your product or service recommendation will be.

If your recommendation is spot on, then you won’t have a difficult customer... except if you’re dealing with those people without home training. I can’t help you there!

Lets reduce our chances of having difficult customers by making sure we ask all the right questions in the beginning.

Also remember to explore implications with the choices they have made so far. You are the professional so there are certain things the customer might not be aware of.

If you say something like, “Oga shey you know that if you take this camera because of the video capability and you run it for 45 minutes, the battery will die quickly?” ...that is important information that might be useful to the customer!

They might now expand their priorities and say that the camera doesn’t have to be 4K so long as the recording time can be up to 1hr 30 minutes.

It’s best to have this conversation now before they come back into your shop shouting at your staff because they sold a “fake camera” that dies after 30 minutes.

Now that we have explored a number of scenarios that can create difficult customers, the most important question now becomes, “how do I handle the breakup?”

First off, it would be nice to see how we can handle the break up without any acrimony.

This would involve a debrief session and some customer service processes.

The debrief would be the conversation where you take responsibility and try to figure out what wen’t wrong. You can also seek some insight on what you could’ve done better.

Where you can, try to address some of the issues raised and then fulfil the rest of the contract like you would any customer.

BUT unlike other customers, once you are done you don’t try to get any referrals, repeat business or nurture the relationship in anyway.

The goal in this scenario is to avoid burning bridges and not actively pursue the relationship anymore.

Why is it a bad idea to burn bridges behind you? Because you don’t know who might come in handy in the future. A bitter enemy today might be a useful resource tomorrow!

So in this case the approach might be...

“Madam Sylvia I’m sorry about how things turned out and I’m taking full responsibility now to make sure that this kind of thing never happens again. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?”

After you have gotten permission then you can go into the questions to probe for more details. The more information you have, the more ideas you’ll have around redress.

“When did you first realize you had a problem with the camera?”
“What happened exactly?”
“Apart from XYZ did you have any other issues?”
“Apart from wedding videos, did you try to use it for anything else?”

If you’re store has a “no returns” policy, then there might be nothing you can do, but an apology and this kind of approach might soothe some nerves.

Of course we have to do the good Nigerian thing and say “Sorry Ma, I promise that this won’t happen again”.

I can’t stress enough that in this situation, if the client really caused you grief, you cannot do any of the traditional “follow up activities” with the client anymore.

Don’t call or text them for birthdays, don’t call to say hello, don’t call to see how business is doing... doing any of these things will keep you top of mind and might bring more opportunities for doing business with the client again.

If you’re trying to avoid doing business with them in the future, there should be absolutely no “follow up”.

What about situations where THEY take the initiative and reach out to you in the future?

You could play the “availability” card...

“Sorry Sir we’re not available for that date... can you call XYZ Ltd instead? They might be able to help”

If that sounds too cowardly for you, you can be more assertive about it...

“Thanks for calling Sir, unfortunately I’m not confident we can meet your needs because of how things turned out the last time. I suggest you give some other business a try”.

If you’re desperate and you could use the money, then the next approach is two fold.

First make sure you ask as many questions as possible to figure out the need the client has, the vision that they’re aiming for with your product or service, and explore with them any possible scenarios that might come up and how to address them.

The second step would be to charge them an amount that would make it worth all the hassle.

In fact some people charge them an unreasonable price the second time around just so that they go away!

Regardless of which options you take, the most important thing is to NOT get down on yourself and the business.

Difficulties arise every once in a while and we can’t expect to be cordial with everyone.

Take your business and relationship losses where you can, and double down on the business relationships that are the most profitable and fulfilling.

Don’t let anyone use their blues to ruin your reggae... and as one of my business partners prayed after a particularly difficult client, “may we never see this kind of customer again in Jesus’ name!”

How did you manage to copy and paste a whole text book? 85 paragraphs (+-).
U and who wan read am?

How did you manage to count all the paragraphs? Guy you are gangster!