Customers Behaving Badly

The customer is always right . . . right?  Well, maybe not.  Not, for example, if he is abusing your people or costing more than he is worth in unreasonable maintenance.

One of the keys to building a great sales team and a great company is to develop and motivate a group of happy and engaged people. Studies consistently show that happy people are more productive than unhappy people, and when a customer is working over our people and we do not support our folks, they can quickly lose trust and loyalty in the process.

Fortunately, unhappy customers can usually be converted and we certainly need to try, very hard, to do so.  I have personally converted a number of people over the years just by taking the time to really listen to their issues and paying some extra attention to their needs. I always start out with the assumption that it is my responsibility to meet and exceed his expectations.  But every once in a while an abusive customer will show up who just likes to dish it out, and at some point we may be better off in the long run firing that customer than letting his toxic behavior infect our good salespeople.

Buyers are part of our business community.  We are happy to serve them when they also treat us with basis dignity and respect.