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E L E CT R I C AL CONNE CT I ON
W I NT E R 2 01 5
CUSTOMER RELATIONS
‘The customer is always right’
I
f you do the job well, your customer
might recommend you to one to 10
people, but if it goes wrong, they will
be sure to tell a hundred people to never
use you.
We’ve all heard an expression or two
along those lines but now, with the
emergence of social media, it’s more like
a thousand people are going to find out
if a customer thinks you did a bad job. So
what do you do when the customer is a
nightmare to deal with and you just need
to get the job done as quickly and pain-
free as possible?
I come from a large family of plumbers,
and have been a plumber myself for over
24 years, so I’ve seen, dealt with or heard
of pretty much every type of customer.
I’m going to share some of the most
common ‘difficult’ customer types with
you here and offer some tips on how best
to manage them.
1. THE UNUSUAL
Unfortunately, as in all walks of life,
some personalities just clash. Some
clashes will simply come down to
opposing personality traits while, at
times, medical conditions such as
Alzheimer’s, dementia and a range of
other medical or personality-related
conditions make dealing with certain
customers particularly difficult.
If you know that you can’t remain
patient with such clients and don’t need
them as clients, it is likely going to work
out better for you and the customer, to
let them know that they will need to
find another tradie. You can use the
excuse that you are too busy to do their
job in the timeframe requested and,
perhaps, even have another tradie’s
number ready to recommend.
In many cases though, you can’t avoid
dealing with such clients because they
are either tenants who rent, or an owner
of an apartment, within a building you
work at. In these situations, I always
remind myself that they can’t actually
change their behaviour and that it’s not
personal, even when it feels that way.
I also try and treat my elderly customers,
who may have memory problems, with
the same respect that I would treat my
own elderly family members.
2. THE CONTROL FREAK
These customers are going to micro-
manage you and your work from the
moment they call you. They often won’t
trust you or anyone else who enters their
domain. They are usually a complete
pain in the neck and you will not have
a moment of peace, but if you work
within their comfort zone, things will
generally work out fine. So, first of all,
just expect that this type of customer
assumes that you are a potential burglar
who is really only there to case out their
place while you do the work – yep, they
are going to follow you like a hawk and
look for any opportunity to become high
maintenance or suspicious of you, even
though they called you, and not the other
way around.
This customer will also want to know
from the outset how long you will take.
Since it is hard to be exact with timing,
I always double the timeframe of how
long I anticipate it will take so that when
I finish early they are happy. Otherwise,
control freaks generally start to panic
and become anxious if you are there
longer than they ‘expected’ or if
you don’t give them any sort of
time estimate.
Remember, the whole ‘burglar’ point I
made above? The longer you are there,
You’ve all dealt with tricky
customers in the past and
you’ll certainly deal with more
in the future.
Brad Fallon
has
encountered his fair share
and offers some advice when
dealing with certain types.