Crazy & Demanding Customer: Turn The Nightmare Into a Win

Demanding customers are a nightmare. They drain your energy, they suck out your motivation, and they distract you from making more sales and serving the customers that you were meant to serve, the ones that are fun to serve. And demanding customers come in two forms. First is actually a prospect, not technically a customer. These are the people that when you're meeting with them to earn their business, start throwing out these crazy demands. Like, hey, I'll do business with you if you can throw in our back shed for free. Hey, if you gimme half off the garage, we'll do it. If you throw in a free upgrade, I'll do it. If you can drop your price by $2,000, we'll do it. If you can eat my deductible, we'll do it. You know those demanding customers. You know the type. Prospects, not customers. Then there's the customers who are demanding, but for some reason, they've hidden their demanding nature and they wait to unleash it upon you with vigor after you've earned the business. And more often than not, it's during the installation or shortly thereafter because things didn't go smoothly. And maybe sometimes they did, but they didn't think they did. And again, they become a Dr. They're distracting and they keep you from making more sales. So in this video, I'm going to share with you how to handle these demanding people, whether they are prospects or customers, to give you a confident and assertive path to either regain control or send them off to go work with someone else who'd be better served to put up with their nonsense so you don't have to. Because remember, sometimes the very best deals are the ones that we walk away from. First. Quick welcome or welcome back. Adam Bensman here, the roof strategist and everything that I do here on my channel is designed to help you and your team smash your income goal and give every customer an amazing experience. So if you like this video and you want more, whether you're a brand new person, a seasoned veteran, or an owner or manager, you, my friend, get into my free training center right now. There's a link in the description. There's absolutely no catch. If you like what's in here, you're going to love what's inside. And if you're someone who might be thinking about investing in our complete sales training and sales system, be a great way to get a sample of how our interface looks and platform and all that jazz. So I'll see you inside demanding customers. Let's first address our prospects when your red flags start flying. If you Throw in the shed, we'll do it. If you throw in the roof on the garage, we'll do it. Those customers eat the deductible. Do it for $2,000 less. There's a simple framework for you to follow, which is what you're requesting. Our company is not able to fulfill upon. What I can do for you is. And then state how you can do business. And if that's a good fit, I would be honored to work with you through this project. And if it's not, then I would recommend that you find a roofer that might be a better fit to accommodate your needs. And you'll be amazed at what happens when you take this assertive path to openly address the fact that what they're asking you cannot accommodate. It does not open the can of worms in negotiation, because if you give an inch, they'll take a mile. You know those customers like, well, if you don't do the roof for free, can you do it for half off? No. Can you do it for 25% off? Come on, give me a discount. I'm getting the whole roof for you.

It's a big roof.

So we just need to state that firm assertive boundary. And then when we say what I can do is this, we spell it out and then say, hey, if that works, I'm happy to do business with you. But if it's not, then I'd recommend you find a roofer who might be able to accommodate your needs. There are two outcomes right now, my friend. Outcome number one, which is a, okay, is the homeowner says, I'm going to keep shopping. And then what you say is, thank you. I just avoided a total nightmare customer and I don't have to deal with them. Which is great, because now you can take all that energy and motivation that they would have sucked right out of you to go make even more sales. Because opportunity cost is a real thing. Time is money, and there's limited in our selling season to make sales. And if this customer gobbles up a bunch before they earn our business and gobbles up this much more once we serve them, that's all time that you could have used to go make 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 sales more, serving the right people. Outcome number two, my friend, goes like this, where that customer who had unrealistic demands feels a bit of what I call an ego check. And it's not an aggressive thing. They're like, oh, okay, all right, I get it. This person's professional. They're assertive. They know what they're good at. They know what they can do. They're. They know what they can't do. He pushed back, and I realized what I was asking for might have been out of line. So let's hear him out, and then you earn their business. I have had this happen a ton in roofing sales, and I use this technique even today because sometimes people reach out to me, and they ask for things that we cannot accommodate, and I'm not interested in trying to bend how we do things. For one customer, that's going to be a total nightmare. So what I just say is, this is what you can do, and if it works, great, and if not, you should keep searching. And majority of the time, when I push back with that level of assertiveness, say, I know the best way for me to serve my people, and it's what we're doing, and if this works for you, I'm going to kick butt for you. But if it doesn't, that's totally okay. But I'd recommend that you keep shopping for a partner who can accommodate. Majority of those people get this check, and they're like, it's that way for a reason, and they end up becoming a customer. You, my friend, should feel empowered and confident asserting those boundaries. And when you do so, you'll either win the business and. And they're going to be a great customer for you because you set those expectations out of the gate, or they're going to walk away and you don't have to deal with it. What do you do, though, when they become a colossal nightmare after they become a customer? And again, this usually comes up during the installation or shortly thereafter. I want to give you a very simple framework to use, and it goes like this. This is an example, by the way, of when you'd use something like this. True story. I had a customer call up, and first time, it was, hey, Adam, the.

Crew'S tearing off the shingles, but the other guys at the same time are loading the roof with shingles. And doesn't the whole roof need to get torn off before they load it up?

And I was like, all right, you know what we're doing?

An hour later, Adam, the crew's doing this. And I thought this order was supposed to go on this way.

I'm like, oh, my gosh. An hour later, the crew calls, Adam, the customer's out here, and they're yelling at me for doing this, this, and this. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I wish I didn't even have to work with this guy. And it was a customer, by the way, that I had red flags from, from the beginning. And I wish I was more assertive, but I wasn't. That's why I learned these lessons. I didn't learn them the fun way. I learned them the hard way by getting my teeth kicked in time wasted and losing money. What I learned after that is to address the customer like this. By the way, you're going to notice a similar formula. Pay attention to. Not only does it work incredibly well for overcoming objections in sales, but it works incredibly well for overcoming concerns from a customer service standpoint. Owners, managers, maybe pass this to your admin. Who's feeling those phone calls? Guy calls in and I said, hey, listen, I want you to know that I truly do care about your house. And I hear you. You're concerned about your home. It's vulnerable, the shingles are off, and you just want to make sure everything's right. But I want you to know that we do this every single day. Our crews are trained, and we know what we're doing. And we always protect our homeowners homes in their best interest. That's the core of what we do. So what I'd like you to do is to sit back, let us do our work, and I want you to keep a list of all of your concerns. You can write them down. And I promise you that the minute this project is done, I will sit down with you and review everything, and we will make sure that all of those concerns are buttoned up before this project is considered complete. Does that sound good? And then people say, okay. And the reason that that works is when people are experiencing a roof install and have a question about this and a question about that. You and I both know that everything is fixable. And, yeah, mistakes do happen. So I want you to be in the homeowner shoes. You're the homeowner now, and you're saying.

I don't know about this company.

Are they going to stand behind it? Are they going to leave me with mistakes? My house is open the elements. What happens if it rains? What happens if this happens? And if we just hit that head on again with our level of assertiveness by using the ARO formula. Acknowledge what you heard. Reassure them that you're the expert. You do this all the time. And then overcome by giving them the path forward, you keep a list of it, and we'll go through everything and make sure that you're satisfied before we consider this project complete. And by the way, if you're panicking, you're like, Adam they're going to hold up the money if you say that like, listen, man, they're going to hold up that money whether you say that or don't say that. So just air it out. Because if they're not happy about something, they won't pay you. And this gives you an option to let them cool off. They know that you're on it and they feel taken care of. And this way, at the end of the project, you show up. And once you're there, these situations are much easier to handle in person than over the phone and you're able to squash all of those. And there's a touch up here and there or a callback item. You can get it taken care of. And then quickly while you're at that homeowner. Are you satisfied? Did we address all your concerns? Yes. Great. Then we can handle the final balance of blank and then that final check will come. So there you have it, my friends. That is how you deal with demanding prospects and demanding customers. And I hope this video helps you feel super confident drawing those boundaries and either avoiding those customers or regaining control and giving them them a great experience. Thanks for joining me in today's video. And just because our time here is about to wrap up doesn't mean you're in. My time has to. So if you haven't yet done it, jump into my free training center right now. There's no catch. Or hang with me here on YouTube. They think you're really going to love this video and I'll see you on the next one.