How to Deal with Difficult Customers

Alright, so today we're talking about difficult customers. This is Mike and he's of the landscapebusinesscourse.com podcast. And this is there's no right and wrong way to do this. This is just what I have learned in the past, how to deal with difficult customers. And this really doesn't matter whether it's commercial or residential. There are two things that can always help you overcome when people make complaints or they begin to not become fully satisfied with your service. There are two things you can do. Number one, speed. Number two, communication. Number one is speed. Speed. If they make a complaint the morning of like my, it's not a rule in our business but like I hate going to bed at night with a customer being unsatisfied and, and I let that. Maybe that can't be done when we have five or six thousand people, but for now when we're still in the hundreds, I can make sure that every single one of my customers is happy before I go to bed. And obviously I'm not communicating with them. Usually it's the office manager, however I hear about it. And so this is our goal. If someone makes a complaint and we get it in the morning when we come into the office, by the time we close the office in the evening, that customer should be happy. They should think like that we are incredible, we have incredible customer service and that we're going to follow through on our promise to make it right and continue great service going forward. And so what I mean by that is if we like for instance, let me think here. Actually it was today. It was today. I was thinking it was yesterday, but it's actually the day. Sorry, it's been a long day, it's late at night, I'm recording this and I just ran 12 miles. But.

This morning we went in, I got into the office a little after seven and office manager, there was a complaint from an out of town homeowner who from their real estate agent had heard that they had a whole bunch of weeds in their beds. Now what ended up happening is the flower bed that we had been weeding every single week. They were fine. It was another area of their property that wasn't communicated to us that they wanted done. And it wasn't even flower beds. It's like a rock bed area on an embankment. But that wasn't communicated to the customer. And so they were kind of unhappy, dissatisfied and slightly angry because they've been trying to sell this house and it hasn't been getting done. And so they emailed, they were unsatisfied Right. And so what did I do within an hour? Let me think. Okay. And within two hours, I had gone to the property. So we're talking about speed right now. Then we're gonna talk about communication. So within a couple hours, as soon as I possibly could, like, after doing all my major estimates and like, figuring everything out, the office that I do each morning went there. Within two hours, I had taken pictures of the beds that we do, taken pictures of the areas that they now wanted us to do. And within those two hours, we had then sent those pictures and know, explaining every little thing to them, saying, hey, this is what was we were contracted to do. This is what it looks like. And it looked great. The beds we weed every single time. And then this is the area that you're talking about that we is not included in the contract. And this is the area that your real estate agent is, you know, crying over and making a big deal out of. And this is what it would cost to get it done. And we could get it done within the next five hours by the end of the day. So that speed, within literally eight hours of us getting an email from an unsatisfied customer, we had already gone to the property, taken pictures, sent those back to the person with an estimate of what would cost to fix the problem, like clear out the debris, spray it, and then continue to do that on a monthly basis. They accepted right away. And within five hours, we had already done all the work, got them back on track, and they are thrilled with their service. And the reason people understand that stuff happens. Employees do things that are wrong or there's miscommunication. But what they can't handle. What a customer hates the most, is when you don't communicate with them and you don't do it in a timely fashion. So what are the two things? Takeaways from that story is, number one, we got to it fast. That's. And number two is communication. We could have just sent an email via text and. Because right away, I didn't even need to go to the property to know what they were talking about. I already knew, but what did I do? I went there and just took pictures because I knew they're out of town, they haven't seen the property. They don't even know what the real estate agent is really talking about. So I wanted to make sure that they realized that I was committed to them so much to the fact that within two hours, I would go to the property and take pictures and know exactly what they had they needed. That's why they would then also reply like, your customers are going to match you in your, in your communication speed. So because we were so fast getting back to them with an estimate, getting back to them with pictures, getting back to them with the communication, they then match that and right away emailed back and said, yep, let's go for it, get it done, take care of it every single month. Just make sure it looks good. And so if you are timely in your communication, like, you're fast, your speed and your communication is good, you are gonna have customers that pay fast, that accept estimates fast like you. I cannot tell you how many times we have come in as one of the highest B on some of these landscaping and grading projects, but the people will accept us because they say literally they have to wait one to two weeks to get estimates back from these other companies. Whereas within one day we have got a lead, gone out and done the estimate and face to face with the person, and then set them an estimate. Itemized, detailed, like, that's all part of our process and how we do estimates. And it's all very systemized and there's a very clear way to do that. However, just the speed of it and the communication is super important. Now. How do you deal with difficult customers? You gotta throw in that communication aspect. You gotta be, number one, empathetic, be like, hey, we're sorry. Like, always take blame upfront, even if you know you're. You're not at fault. Like this morning, like right when we got to the office, we sent them an email saying, like, hey, we're gonna take care of this. We're very sorry. Because if someone's unsatisfied, I feel sorry about it. Even if it's not my fault. I feel sorry because they are depending on me and I have let them down in some way, shape or form. It might be just a communication error. Like, it was like this today. However, you still want to show empathy. So that's the first thing. Instant communication back to them saying, we're sorry, we're gonna take care of this. And then follow up on that promise. Because if you do, they're gonna become customers for life and they're gonna become loyal to you because they know that you are gonna take care of them. And so we sent right away saying, hey, like, we're sorry about this, we're gonna take care of this. And then not only do we send a text email back, even though I knew exactly what they were talking about, we went and took pictures. Pictures are an incredible way. Like, even on our regular projects where people are happy. We will take before and after pictures and with the invoice, send that to them. It's just a great way of communication and it's a great way to show that you care. Now, difficult customers are going to respond to speed and they're gonna respond to communication. Communication that is well thought out, that is very intentional. And your long term goal is to make sure that they become long term customers. And so that's how you take care of a client that is difficult or might have problems with your service. Like you just want to over deliver. And a lot of times it's not going to take a whole lot of money, it's just going to take you speed and great communication skills is where it's at to retain those customers for a lifetime. This is Mike andes on the landscapebusinesscourse.com podcast. Podcast.