You groan at your inbox when the email rolls in or you see that number on the caller ID. You are hesitant to pick up your personal phone because it may just be that customer complaining about the minuscule detail.
Or, the customer that won't stop contacting you about their job even though you have made yourself explicitly clear.
Or, the customer that has sent 15 proof revisions and still is not happy.
Or, the customer that nickel and dimes you for every order, and still continues to critique the quality of the shirts.
Or, the customer that will unbox and inspect every single item looking for any little flaw to make a fuss about.
The list can go on and on. You can spend an entire day brainstorming other "hellish" features.
Truth be told, customers carry different personalities into your business. They have pre-dispositions, mixed industry knowledge, and an opinion. You can argue that every customer can come in with a clean slate, but if they are coming to you, that could mean they have left someone else.
Let's put ourselves in the customer's shoes for a second. There is a reason a customer can turn sour. A customer buying decorated goods is most often buying it on behalf of an organization. They have one goal: to get the order correctly. All other factors trump their other intentions. The reason they may not be easy to work with is that something triggered them. Let's brainstorm a few examples:
Customer A used previous printers that did not know how to screen print, and they had poor looking items for their event.
Customer B has a very specific event deadline, and if they don't have products in time, it could be disastrous. They have a million other things to get done before their event, this is a pain in the neck to them. Customer B is taking it out on you.
Customer C does not quite understand screen printing and thinks printing a shirt is like pressing print on a computer. They expect a different industry standard and when those expectations are not met, they become frustrated.
Customer D wants each print to be appropriate to the garment size and wants ink changes on garments that are difficult to source. They want everything a certain way because they think that is how everyone does it.
Do you notice a re-occurring theme here? The customer has an expectation that is not how you do things. This creates trust issues.
It is no different to going out to dinner and expecting to be seated for 15 minutes only to wait 40 minutes and another 10 minutes to get water. That dining experience created a lack of trust and now you have become a concerned consumer.
So how do you eliminate and avoid these customers? There are several best practices and everyone has different strategies. It all comes down to trust.
Read the full article here:
https://www.printavo.com/blog/dealing-with-customers-from-hell-how-to-approach-it
