From the article: Your Client is Livid!
To be a successful small business owner, you have to be able to manage people. Unfortunately, not everyone is easy to deal with and some customers and staff can be downright difficult. What are your tips for dealing with difficult people? Share Your Tips
Difficult People
- Make them feel they are the nicest people to deal with due to their extraordinary skills, take time to understand them, analyze them properly and be a good listener.
- —Guest anilkumar20052004@yahoo
Just Be There With the Customer
- Have patience - listen, and not only hear, carefully with complete attention and appreciate the feelings of the customer who got hurt/disturbed due to lack of information or due to some fault of the product/service, you provided. Feel sorry for him when he has to come back and complain about something. Present a solution; let him feel that he is being properly listened to and attended. Give him the best treatment which he never expects while complaining. After you listen and take care, more than half of the problem is over and convert the problem into a question as sometimes some problems have no solutions but all the questions have answers !
- —Guest kavee s bhassin
Dig Deeper...
- In thinking about all the difficult people I've encountered - clients/customers, co-workers, colleagues, fellow condo board members, students, bosses - the main tip I would offer: "Put yourself in their shoes." Have empathy and look beyond their attitude and voice tone to find out what is really at issue. Often disgruntled folks ("tough customers") have a root cause of their unpleasantness and you are merely the person in the path of their emotional fire. Ask "why" 5 times to uncover the cause of their behavior. Why might he/she think that? What is that? Why would that be? And why? Finding out where others are coming from helps you understand the rationale for their behavior, thoughts or feelings. It may not be easier to take but it will help keep you calm as you process what's being directed at you.
- —Guest Karen C.
Patience
- Listen, Be Patient and act upon as you assess the Business Potential.
- —Guest KNC
Appreciate the Situation
- When you realize the business you are in is a customer service oriented business, you learn to appreciate the difficult situations. The customer is a person, customer service is about people, and people have different personalities and experiences which result in different reactions. If your customer service orientation is good and you can appreciate the chance you have to make a difference in this customer's situation and affecting their personality positively, your perception of ‘difficult’ will change. Appreciate your situation.
- —Guest Rose Sani-Gaiya
Love!
- Deal with difficult people by loving them - it's the ultimate opportunity to practice real love and self discipline - to grow as human beings - to develop empathy for fellow human beings.
- —UltimateLifestyleProject
Look inward
- One of the reason difficult people are difficult is that we let them "get to" us. It's important to pay attention to what triggers you - what kind of behavior irks you, or makes you upset or angry. How do you define "difficult"? The truth is that we all define it differently and what upsets one person, doesn't bother another at all. Instead of focusing energy on trying to fix those people out there, spend time looking inward to understand what sets you off. If you are able to assume the position of "Interested Observer" where you are curious and learning more about what's happening, as opposed to being drawn in emotionally and literally, you have more options. The person who knows more about what makes them tick, and who understands more about others is always the one in the power position! Please read more in my book, Understanding Other People: The Five Secrets to Human Behavior on this -- www.understandingotherpeople.com
- —Guest Bev Flaxington
