Handling Difficult Customer Situations

There is nothing worse than finding out that your largest and most important customer is seriously upset with your company. You shipped product to the wrong location. Manufacturing did not update the BOM and a critical part is missing. Servers have been down too long and it is affecting their ability to do business. Product is delayed. Billing is wrong – again. If you have been in sales for any length of time, you know the disaster that can befall your best and most important customer. But customer relationships are like most others. When problems are addressed and overcome, the relationship is usually stronger as a result.

Think of a marriage relationship. When a couple goes through strife together and the marriage survives, usually the relationship is stronger. After all, when a couple overcomes great adversity together, smaller problems seem trivial. I have firsthand experience with this! (Refer to the introduction of my book for more on that.) Customer relationships are often the same way. If you can keep the wheels on the relationship by calling in the right help and preventing from being fired as a supplier, often times the outcome is a more committed relationship.

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Pardon the interruption, but I wanted you to know that my new book, Common Sense Sales, is now available at Amazon.com.  You can click HERE to find it.  There is more information on the right hand side of the screen regarding it and my first book, Click “Send” and Sell.  Be sure to check them out.
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The challenge to this thesis is if your company continually fails to deliver and you are frequently fired as a supplier. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, you need to find another place to work. At some point your professional reputation may be in jeopardy and your ability to make a living significantly impaired. If that is the case, it may be time to cut bait.

 And there are times when it is wise for you and your company to cut ties with your customer. This has only happened a couple of times in my career but in both cases were beneficial to the company and our employees. Some customers can be so unreasonably demanding that you find yourself accommodating their every whim, only to find yourself losing money on them in the long run. Or they treat your employees so poorly that they are seriously affecting morale. They’ve got to go.

So how do you handle a really bad situation between your customer and your company? First, make sure to stay calm yet act with urgency. When you get that call from your angry and frustrated customer listen and be empathetic. DO NOT throw your company under the bus. Never, ever say something like, “Yeah, those shipping guys are terrible. This is not the first complaint we’ve had about them.” Instead, act a little surprised that there is a problem and let your customer know that you will stay on top of it until there is a resolution. Then, do just that.

When resolving customer problems internally, it is best to pick up the phone instead of firing off angry emails. I wrote a blog on this, click HERE to read it. When you speak to your colleagues, let them know that there is a serious customer problem, but don’t take this opportunity to chew them out. Instead, focus on how they can resolve the problem and whether or not you can help. After the discussion or voice mail send an email as a follow up. Often times if I leave a voice mail I’ll follow up with an immediate email saying something like, “I’m following up on a VM that I left just a moment ago. Our customer …” That almost always elicits a response.

Then, get right back with the customer letting them know that you have engaged the right parties and that you’ll be in touch on a regular basis with updates. You may even want to arrange regularly scheduled calls with the customer to track the progress of the resolution.

At this point let the boss know what’s going on, what you have done to resolve the issue, and whether or not you need their involvement. You don't want them finding out about a major customer problem through another channel. They need to hear it from you.

How you handle difficult customer situations will also have a significant impact on your internal brand. Be sure not to:

•  Panic
•  Be a drama king/queen 
• Cry wolf
• Over exaggerate the problem
• Set impossible customer expectations
• Get senior management involved, unless absolutely necessary
• Expect your boss to handle the whole thing

Timely and consistent follow up with internal constituents and the customer throughout the problem resolution will help keep everyone calm and on-task. And sometimes, an ongoing check in meeting after the issue is resolved is beneficial to make sure that the problem doesn’t reoccur.

How you and your company handle a difficult situation with a valued customer can make or break your relationship. If you handle it well the long term relationship will be even stronger. If not, you may find yourself scrambling to replace a customer.