HOW DO YOU HANDLE ANGRY CUSTOMERS??
Please I need your advice. My name is Bob, I own (and work in) a Grocery store where I'm privileged to see and meet different kinds of people on daily basis. Both classic and classless, young and old, fresh and gowdy, overbearing and sentimental... Name it.
Sometimes, we see customers who are always bent on frustrating our lives, ranging from..buying stuffs and threatening to return the goods demanding for a cash refund after the goods might have stayed with them for some couple of days to buying and refusing to pay.
There's this woman, (not really a regular customer) who called and ordered for a full bag of Rice. After we had arranged and supplied the rice, she was supposed to make a mobile transfer to our account, she informed us that she had a minor issue with her mobile App which she was supposed to get fixed before making the transfer.
Being an old cash paying customer, we agreed to part away with the rice pending when she settle the matter with her bank, she would make the transfer, meanwhile she had already have our account number cos she used to buy stuff from us before.
One week slipped by, no response! Two weeks gone, I didn't hear from her. Then I became worried and put three successive calls through immediately after the fifteenth day of the supply to know why she hadn't make the transfer, she didn't pick my calls. I allowed her, hoping that she may call back when she sees my missed calls. As she was the busy type. But she never called.
I became perplexed. Being concerned for her safety as this was unusual. Alas! She was fine, hale and hearty.
The following day, I called again and she didn't pick. Then I subsequently sent a text message informing her that her debt has been marked as an overdue, (After I had enquired for her work, family and life) that she should kindly make the transfer to my account details that was attached below the text message.
Then she replied me almost immediately, telling me to stop bombarding her with unnecessary calls and to stop sending her silly texts, then I should learn how to be courteous when writing to my customers.
Yeeyyy!..... Courteous?, Silly?, Bombarding?, what have those words got to do with my simple, honest and innocent text message?
Well, having been in this business for long, I have been accustomed to handling antagonism with diplomacy. So immediately as I received her response, I quickly sent her another text message apologizing for "not being courteous on my text" as she put it. But here, I tried to read in between the lines to see where I got it all wrong but I didn't come to term with anything tangible...
To cut the long story short, from that moment I received her text, I chose not to call her again until whenever she made up her mind to pay.
Two weeks after, that was barely a month after the supply, I got a call from her. At first, she asked me why I don't want to give her a breathing space simply because she bought a common bag of rice from us? I was almost getting pissed, but I tried as much as I can and remained very calm but right inside me, I was deeply infuriated that I almost yelled at her.
I apologized again and assured her it won't happen again.( I have already made up my mind not to supply any other thing to her house without making payment upfront)Then she went further and dropped off the missile which was exactly what informed this post...
She said she's no longer buying the rice, that we should come carry it, owing to the fact that the rice is rebagged, half-full and substandard... All these she never noticed until after one full blown month. Jesu! And beside, the Rice I delivered to her house was an original Thailand Rice that's filled to the brim.
I simply said OK and hung the call, promised to call back to(morrow)day.
The question is...
How do you handle overbearing customers and what would you have done if you are in my shoes??
Sombody help!
