How to Deal with Customers from Hell

Ending a relationship with an abusive customer is a pathway to success. Find out why it is not worth being stuck with a client who does not respect you.

Hello boys and girls! I hope you have been enjoying the beautiful weather and you have been more productive than ever! Now that you know a bit more about marketing consistency, let’s drive our business ships to new lands and talk about a certain breed of people that we sometimes find on our way. As you can imagine, those folks are not the friendly and understanding type. In fact, appearances can be deceiving. Initially, they might be difficult to spot, but sooner or later, they are bound to show their true colors. Lo and behold! They come in all shapes and sizes. The come in hordes. They come alone. They are here to make your life a living hell and nothing that you do is good enough for them. They are not quite fond of paying for the services and/or products that they want. Instead, they are always looking for a way to add more complexity to your work and make you feel miserable, frustrated, and lower than the floor. |n short, they have earned the well-deserved title customers from Hell.

Have you met them? Have you experienced the sensation of helplessness, anger, and the irresistible urge to abandon business ship? Calm down, I do not want to get you started and open old or fresh festering wounds. Instead, I will try to give you a few pointers that might come in handy when you have to deal with abusive customers. Just read on, do not get frustrated, and think happy thoughts!

Staying in business roughly translates as nurturing, cultivating, and establishing long-term relationships with customers. It implies trust, faith, understanding, appreciation, and above all, it binds companies to their clients (and vice versa) with the seal of respect. Ideally, all businesses should strive to forge such relationships with their consumer base and they should really cater to their needs and demands. Yet, things do not always work that way. Often, companies that follow good business practices and are bound to a code of proper business conduct, are pestered by abusive customers. Whereas various PR specialists and marketers argue that customer is King and this is the axiom that makes the business world turn, each rule has its exceptions. Hence, it might not be your fault that customers are never happy with the products and/or services you offer them. It could be that you have just come across abusive clients who are there to take advantage of your good-heartedness and your naivety. Yet, there is no way to foresee that from the very onset. Initially, you have to trust people. Then, as the story goes, sooner or later, they will show their true colors and you might end up dealing with a client from Hell. If you ever reach this breaking point, you have to act quickly. Instead of trying to appeal to your customer and fulfill all of his or her whims in a desperate effort to forge a compromise and pretend that everything is alright, you have to take a stance and either make them respect your efforts or terminate the business relationship you have with them.

Trust me, this will save you lots of time and tons of nerves. There is no need to endure abuses or to spend sleepless nights working on projects that will not be paid for. Definitely, there is no point in hoping that everything might just turn out fine. It will not. So, be smart and make sure you read the signs of abuse before all hell breaks loose.

But what could be done?

Read carefully this oversimplified list and bear in mind that those are just some of the disturbing signals you should be able to pick up. Hence, stay focused and alert and watch out for the following:

Poison: Customers being quite reticent to sign a contract: If customers are unwilling to formalize their business relationship with you but they push you to start working on their project, you should take a deep breath, regain your composure, and explain politely that you'd better settle the legal stuff first before you move towards creating the dream product or service that your customer is longing for. Mind you, if you do not sign a contract, there is significant leeway for abuse as your customer might change his or her requirements faster than the speed of light. Trust me, you do not want to make a lot of extra efforts that will be literally unpaid for. In addition, the list of requirements of some clients is just like the universe: it tends to expand all the time while the amount of money they are willing to spend on a particular project remains constant. Yep, some people simply do not know when to stop.

Remedy: Luckily, mankind came up with the notion of contracts. Once a contract is signed, you and your clients can breathe a sign of relief as you are on one and the same page and both of you are bound to respect certain terms and conditions. Just make sure you include the complete list of requirements in your contract or in its appendices. Why is that necessary? The simple answer goes like this: to avoid abuse and to make sure nobody takes your time and knowledge for granted. Thank you!

Poison: Customers hindering the work flow: Ok, there is no easy way to put that, as it is imperative that customers be integral part of the project and follow it closely. Indeed, they should communicate their concerns and provide you with prompt feedback. Nonetheless, sometimes, you cannot fail but notice that communication with customers is not as smooth as expected. Some customers simply start bickering about tiny-tinny details that do not affect the overall development of the project. Others prefer to take their time and not to provide you with the required feedback in a timely manner. Hence, you end up groping in the dark and working without any sense of direction. At the end of the day, if something goes wrong, your customers might make you start from scratch and blame you for missing a deadline. In the mean time, however, they might not even bother to answer your numerous e-mails, in which you are virtually begging them on your knees to tell you what they think about your work so far.

Remedy: Include a special 'feedback clause' in your contract, obliging your clients to provide you with feedback within X (define it for yourself) number of days pursuant to the submission of a deliverable or the completion of a certain project milestone. In addition to nipping all the trouble in the bud, this clause helps you improve communication between your customers and your company.

Poison: Customers persistently pestering you with seemingly little requests: Often, customers ask us to add a small feature or two in addition to the ones we have already agreed to implement, design or develop in our contract. Hence, this is extra work, which is done in the spirit of understanding, engagement, and building a long term relationship. Yet, sometimes, you give your customers a finger and they are ready and willing to bite off your entire arm. Normally, there is nothing wrong with fulfilling one or two tiny requests that fall outside the scope of your current contract. Yet, those little requests might unleash a tsunami of successive little requests and eventually, you might end up making a lot of extra efforts that will be unpaid for. What is even worse, the implementation and/or execution of those tiny requests might affect the overall structure of the project. Then, it would be up to you to fix it. Alas, no good deed goes unpunished!

Remedy: Maybe it is a good idea to put some limits from the very onset. You can add a little clause to your contract, which stipulates that you are not responsible for the performance of the “bonus” features that fall outside the scope of the contract you have signed and you are under no obligation to resolve any issues that might result pursuant to the introduction of those extra features. Any possible problems should be resolved in a subsequent contract extension. In addition, remember that you are under no obligation whatsoever to fulfill every single whim of your customer that is not included in the contract you have signed. If your client wants extra things, he or she should pay you extra upon signing a subsequent contract extension. After all, you are running a business, not a charity organization!

Poison: Customers unwilling to pay you: Yes, this is what some clients do. You have done all the work you agreed to do, you have submitted a project in its entirety for evaluation, and lo and behold, your customer accidentally goes off the radar. Disturbing. Yet, you should not blame him or her. Such is human nature. People and money are hard to part. It might not seem fair to you and it might not do justice to your efforts and hard work, but when customers stop replying to your e-mails, when they cease to answer their phones, and when they do not respond to your messages, you'd better figure out what this attitude implies. Savvy? Maybe they will respond at some point. Maybe they won't. In the mean time, you will be getting stressed out and you will be regretting one thousand times commencing a project and getting engaged with that particular client. Relax. You are not the only one. It happens to all of us. No time to cry, go claim what is rightfully yours!

Remedy: Let's go back to our contract and add a 'penalty interest' clause to it. If customers delay and/or postpone payment and they do not coordinate this with you, you have all the right in the world to start running penalty interests. This is the only way to seal your contract tight and make sure you will be paid and compensated for the time wasted and the hard work done.

Final Remarks

Whereas every problem seems to be easy to solve as long as you have a contract with all the little nice clauses that prevent abuses, nothing is as simple as it looks. Indeed, the hardest part is to enforce the contract your client and you have signed. It is not easy to weigh all the pros and the cons of such a decision. On one hand, you might want to wait and see what your customer will do, you might be tempted by the thought of this customer continuing the ‘current’ business relationship, etc. On the other hand, going to court and fighting a legal battle is not easy either. It takes more than a justifiable desire to get even. It entails legal costs, precious time, and other valuable resources. Therefore, failing to terminate an abusive relationship might backfire and leave you stranded. You might be even forced to choose between the devil (letting your customer get off the hook and forgetting all about the fact that he or she owes you money) and the deep blue sea (going to court and waiting for years before a Judge rules on your case). The choice is yours. After all, your business is what you make of it.

At the end of the day, here is my take on clients from Hell: terminate an abusive relationship before the situation escalates, your frustration piles up, and you finally lose it. There is no need to prolong your agony. Although a future offer could sound very tempting and the prospects could look quite bright, bear in mind that you might never get paid, you might have to make more efforts that originally envisioned, you might be run around, and most importantly, you will be hating every single moment of it. Hence, the results might not be so brilliant either. No matter how hard you try, you cannot make something flawless if you hate the mere thought of it. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with explaining to your customer that it might be better to move on as you do not feel you can continue working with him or her any more. Honesty does not hurt, on the contrary, it allows you to live up to your reputation and avoid awkward moments. Lose them before you lose it all. Even the most tight-proof contract in the world can’t spare you the raging anger, the frustration, and the dissatisfaction you are going to endure. Remember, some customers are simply a big, fat waste of precious time and resources.

I realize this article is controversial as it attacks our golden target market. Yet, good business and honest and transparent business practices are kings. Whereas customer satisfaction matters a lot, some customers will never be happy. Consequently, you should move on and look for clients that you can actually make happy, continue working with them, and give them 110% of your talent, of your skills, and of your devotion! They deserve it!

Well folks, that’s all. Thanks for taking the time to read this article. I promise, I will be back next week to dissect the notion of mobile marketing. Yet, stay tuned to the feed that rocks, as we will be releasing some valuable new tips that can help you succeed in business. Moreover, do not forget to follow us on Twitter, join us on Facebook, and check out the Stuff We Say.

Have a great week and best of luck with your business!