How to Handle Difficult Customers
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There is a wide range of ways that customers may interact with your representatives, but there is one over-arching theme to abide by as a sales management team: Maintain emotional distance.
When you allow yourself to get emotionally tied up in what is going on, this causes unnecessary stress and makes the client even harder to deal with. A sales management team needs to realize that you have to go in with an absence of emotion and just smile, and whatever they throw at you, just say "okay."
I know a guy who has the same response to every problem that a customer has. He says "okay" and if he cannot do it, his response is "let me think about that," or "let me follow up with you on that." This type of response buys time for representatives to prepare a thorough plan for a course of action. Holding back on the initial response that you may have is the best way to avoid making a promise that you can't follow through on or responding in a way that is not positive to the customer relationship.
There is plethora of different strategies on how to handle customers but each situation that arises may bring up a different issue. Companies may have a number of new people coming in, big egos, a transition within their vertical or different departments that are battling over who is in charge.
The main thing is to do everything you can to mitigate the problem. They have their own issues to deal with and sometimes the onus is on you and your company. There are going to be situations where you have only two choices for action and both are going to make your business look bad.
Maintain your emotional distance and no matter what is thrown at you, try to avoid saying anything other than okay we will take care of it. As long as you are being paid, you need to take care of a problem as a sales management team. That is what you are there for.
You can't always have a relationship based on your terms, as sometimes they are going to set the terms of the situation. However, if they are being unreasonable with your staff and they are being nasty, you have to be able to call off the dogs. This means having a difficult conversation, or you have to move people around in your organization to accommodate the type of personality that is present at the other company.
Everything may be going fine at a company, as the people are getting along well and the communication line is open, but then someone leaves at their business and things begin to change. The nature of your relationship has changed, and you need to be flexible and make the most of the situation.
This is a big deal, and some people are very good at it, but if not handled well, your company may lose the account. This needs to be where a sales management team steps in and dictates the order of what is to come. People may have to be moved around, as a personnel shift could bring about a different mentality from the customer.
You may want to meet with the new staff who come in for the other company if the people who were previously on the account leave, as you may want to adjust your strategy if they have changed their priorities.