customer who is never happy

How To Deal With A Customer Who Is Never Happy

You’ve done all you can. You’ve bent over backwards to try and satisfy this customer – but to no avail. He (she) is a customer who is never happy, and seems to find something wrong with everything you and your company do.

Resist the temptation to respond to their negativity with more negativity

Customers who are never happy can be particularly frustrating. And it’s hard to stay motivated and positive when there’s no apparent appreciation for your efforts. When you encounter individuals like this, it can be tempting to respond to their negative behavior with a little negative behavior of your own – being cool, unresponsive, abrupt or even sarcastic.

Needless to say, negative responses can be quite unproductive, and can very often make matters worse for everyone.  It’s best to take a deep breath, and focus on service recovery. Here are two other approaches you can try:

1. Pour on the charm
One of two things will happen when you pour on the charm:  You will either win them over and convince them that you actually do care about them; or you’ll fail to win them over. If the latter happens, you still have the satisfaction of knowing you took the high road.

2. Talk to them
Tell them that their satisfaction is very important to you, and that it concerns you that they aren’t happy. Ask them directly what you can do to make sure they have the best experience possible. You may find the ensuing conversation helps you build that positive bond you were looking for.

It’s important to remember that any time you interact with customers you are only seeing part of the picture. You don’t know what’s going on in the background that is causing their never-happy behaviour. 

If, for example, the reason they are never happy is because they are in a stressful environment, they may actually appreciate the opportunity to interact with someone who’s a breath of fresh air.

“Don’t assume that someone’s negative behaviour is a statement of their character. We’ve all, at some point in time, responded poorly to a situation.”

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