Recently one of my clients hired a new director. I have to interact with the director at this account as part of my job. She’s about as prissy and b*tchy as they come. I can easily hold my tongue and smother her with kindness no matter how rude she is. But what pushes my buttons are catty comments like the one she slapped in an email last week. (That’s another rant – she won’t talk to me on the phone – she loves to hide behind email.)

I was setting her up with some services and products. She apparently didn’t like the pricing. Without even asking if anything was negotiable, she sent me a ranting email saying something to the effect: Your pricing is ridiculous. When contract renewal time comes up I bet you’ll suddenly find some discounting and free services. Thanks but no thanks. And she threw in a threat to not renew with us and share this experience with our other vendors. Mind you, we’ve received “Exceeds Expectations” ratings from this account for the three years we’ve had them. It’s the arrival of super b*tch that has turned the account upside down. And of course, she copied everyone and their mothers on the email.

I don’t like bullies and I don’t respond well to threats, not in my personal life and not professionally. I immediately called her and left a message on her voice mail and sent her an email to call her on the carpet about the contract renewal crack and spreading half baked stories to our other vendors. I was tactful and diplomatic saying that at contract renewal time or not, I’ll always strive for the most amicable solutions for her BUT SHE NEEDS TO COMMUNICATE WITH ME. Hopefully the tone implied that I was talking to a child or a dog (screw her) but the words were very professional and offered a mutually beneficial solution for both of us. At the very least, I do not want her to continue to set a precedent for our communication.

This coming week is going to be interesting.


How would you handle a simlar situation? What are your thoughts on dealing with b*itchy customers/clients at work?

Trip

I deal with this daily in my job. Being in the boiler pump game at a regional level I see all types. Thank God its mostly men. At the bid and spec level folks want you to give them the farm,, and while your at it. Throw in the kitchen sink factory. Its become very hard to make money on the sale of a project of any size. Most go out at a 10% margin or less. I fight to keep my parts sales at a 30 to 35 percent margin.

One:) I will not conduct business by e-mail. I find it turns out to be more work and leads to more incomplete thoughts than face to face, voice to voice or even hand written fax's or snail mail. If the customer doesn't like this. I let them go run there games on my competitors. 80% come back. :thmsup: And I dont want the 20% that don't.

Two:) You threaten me or treat me like crap. I will shut your acct. DOWN. They can then kiss the owners butts and lip lock each other cracks. But I wont play the game. This also applies to our Vendors and such. Ive seen to it that we have been fired or that we have fired company's we rep because of abuse as I see it on there part.

Three:) Be honest and conduct yourself as such. All this so called professionalism is boarder line BS now day's. I keep my speech simple and to the point. In person my body lang. is that of a 6'3" bull in a china cabinet. Im not going to be somebody I'm not. With established customers. Humor and such may have a place. :)

Four:) Don't hesitate to throw your good deeds or creditability around. Be ready with phone numbers. When I'm in a position to have Wal-Mart, GM, Ford and a host of other well know company's that don't question what or how I do things or that they know a problem to them isn't a problem in my hands. Im quite proud of the fact Wal-Marts World Wide data center has my product in it. Or that my product supports a major part of the net's central backbone.

Five:) Treat all the customers the same. Doesn't matter if its Wal-Mart, American Airlines or the happy home owner. I will run out to the home owners home as fast as Nordam to ensure the basic engineering and selection of pump is right for them.

Fact is if this gal/b#tch had done me the way she did you. I would have supplied her with contact info of our competitors and sent her on her marry way. And flagged her acct. as none renewable. Or at the very least,,, under review with a diff. set of pricing structure.

Im on straight salary. I do get bonuses from time to time. Last year I got a $209,000.00 bonus. But in my mind broken up over the last 7 years of employment with this company. That wasn't crap. It was a way for a cheap skate company to keep me a bit longer. As the owners scrape the cream off the top.

Good luck in whatever you do. But kissing her A$$ wouldnt be something I would be doing.

psy

The good part about email is there's proof of her comments. :) It has come in handy for me!

I think there's just some people on this planet that we have to deal with that are a waste of space. Maybe repeating the positive things from the past doing business as often as possible will make her threats more & more useless. :dunno:

Or maybe you need to go above her head due to a personality conflict....

Psy - Thanks for the reply. When I mananged the entire contract division in my last job, I pretty much practiced every thing you pointed out. But, I'm still looking for the limits of my authority in my new position so I'm taking it a bit more laid back. I particularly agree with talking to a person directly, always be honest, and toot your own horn. To Princess's point, email is a good way to document situations and I always follow up conversations with an email. Like I mentioned, I immediately called her on the carpet but of course she wouldn't pick up her phone. I hope she eats something that makes her fart at her next board meeting. :D

As a customer service, and my boss is monitoring at the back. I couldn't do much about a mad customer, and their attitude. Sometime they are giving F word or so to my family member or so, but I just can't do anything about it.
I can only tell the truth to the customer, and do whatever I can do under the company policy to help them. I always give out options, and let my customer to choose. It turns out that they will understand the situation

After I got in this field, I stop yelling or being an axx hxle on the phone or so. I will try to be understandable and concern over the matter, but not the person who talk with you.

Be a nice guy, and give a good day to the customer service. Please every customers a million times.