Types of customers

2. Types of customers • Disagreeable • Domineering/Superior • Suspicious • Slow/Methodical • Dishonest • Argumentative • Impatient • Leave me alone • Irritable/Moody • Insulting

3. How To handle them • Argumentative: Asking simple, polite questions with options keeps most situations under smooth control. • Impatient: Agreeing first on common points goes a long way in handling situations with difficult customers. • Leave me alone: Patience works wonders. Never press customers for sales or decisions. • Irritable/Moody: Do your job well. Be consistent in your positive behavior. You’ll have a natural, calming effect on customers and fellow employees. • Insulting: Go neutral. Serve customers promptly, and non-emotionally. You’ll feel an energizing power. And power, properly used, is a good thing.

4. How to handle continued • Domineering/superior: Let customers have their say. But in the end, make sure that the right thing is done. • Suspicious: Explain and demonstrate good service as many times as you need to. Some customers just “get it” more slowly than others. • Dishonest: Don’t jump to quick conclusions. If you say no and your assistant manager says to accept the return, you’ll look bad in front of the customer. Remember that compromising and negotiating are part of normal procedure in serving customers. • Slow/methodical: Be patient with customers who need it. Mirror their methodical behavior. Help them along by not overwhelming them. They’ll come around when they trust your good intentions.

5. Customer- Purple Dad-Blue Dialogue • Customer: “Hi I’m calling about my boiler that I have a warranty on.” • Dad: “Ok what seems to be wrong with it?” • Customer: “It hasn’t been running right, the AC is only cooling the house for a couple of hours then it freezes up.” • Dad: “Ok well I’m busy for the rest of the night but I can probably make it out tomorrow night to take a look at it is that ok?”

6. Dialogue continued • Customer: “Yes I think that could work but do you know what is wrong with it?” • Dad: “I have a pretty good idea on the problem but I’m going to have to take a look at it to make sure.” • Customer: “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” • Dad: “Yes I am a certified gas fitter and steam fitter.”

7. Dialogue continued again.. • Customer: “Ok then I’m expecting it to be fixed and working after your visit.” • Dad: “Ok I will do my best sir, Have a good rest of the evening.” • Customer: “Very well, you too.” • My Dad ended up figuring out what was wrong and the customer was very pleased with his work.

8. Type of customer • They type of customer my dad had to deal with in the dialogue was a suspicious customer. You can tell by they way he asks my dad a lot of questions involving the problem and not always being happy with his answer. He also makes sure that my dad actually knows what he’s doing.

9. My opinion • I think that my dad handled the customer well by demonstrating good service and explaining everything to him until he understood what was happening and what he was going to do. He had a good attitude throughout the whole encounter and used a good happy cheerful tone.