As a business owner it is also your responsibility to set the tone, culture, and value sets of your company. If you decide that you stand for and value family, excellence, honesty, and transparency, your consistent actions when serving customers must correspond with and reflect these values.

There will be times when your business screws up, and this is okay! Remember you are human, and your company is comprised of humans. Business is just humans serving humans, and none of us are perfect; so be careful that you are not promising perfection, as this is an unattainable expectation. Remember that your customer has the right to tell you when you screw up, and expect you to make it right. When you do screw up and get it wrong, make it right. Own and address the issue at hand, then share and execute a solution that will get your business engagement back on track in order to keep your customer impressed with you and your company. Believe it or not, you will actually build deeper trust and connection when you miss the mark or drop the ball with a customer, then pick that ball up and hit a homerun with it.

Now, there will be times when your business goes above and beyond to make a customer happy. You will set expectations, meet them, exceed them, and go above and beyond, but no matter what you do or how hard you try, your customer will not be happy. There are two instances where I encourage you to fire your customer (some prefer to call it parting ways, but I will let you decide how to coin the phrase).

First, there is a small percentage of the population that are impossible to please. No matter how hard you work or how much you know and educate them, they will always know more, think they can do it better than you and your company, and will let you know about it. Keep an eye out for people like this.

A quick tip to deal with this first type of customer is to ask them about past experiences with other companies, especially other companies that are in the same field as you. Listen to their language, it will say and share a lot. If they complain that the last three painting companies were awful, sucked, and did a crappy job, there may be something there to explore. I was once at a painting estimate, and a potential customer mentioned that they worked with one of my competitors and were “mortified” with the “God awful, shitty ass” work this company did on their exterior paint job. As I walked around the home and asked the customer to point out what they were not happy with, they pointed out things that actually looked very nice. In reality, the previous painter had done a very good job. I gave my professional opinion to the potential customer, and he became a little combative with me about our difference of opinion. Although combative, he was respectful. We concluded to have a difference of opinion. I then politely told him that we were not the best fit to serve him. He pushed back a little bit, but ultimately understood. We parted ways respectfully and he ended up hiring another painter.

I then called my competitor and asked him about Mr. Customer Not Happy Pants. As soon as I did, my competitor told me all about how impossible and unsatisfiable this guy was. “Stay a million miles away from this guy! I think I will live two years less duet to the stress he caused me,” he explained. My competitor confirmed that I made the right decision in avoiding this potential disaster. This experience, these questions to Mr. Customer Not Happy Pants confirmed that he fit into the first category of a customer that was impossible to please.

However, watch out that you do not confuse these customers with those that have high expectations! You will have customers that very much appreciate and value excellent service and will let you know when they do not receive it. Many times, these customers will also clearly explain what their expectations are, and will give you the chance to meet it. They have a high bar when it comes to making them happy, but not an impossible bar.

Now let’s get to category two. There are people in this world that are just plain jerks. They treat others like horribly, are abusive, manipulative and just plain bad humans.

Please take my advice here. Your business has no place for them. There is no amount of money in the world worth putting up with them. Maybe you as the business owner have thick skin and don’t mind the abuse, especially if it is a big ticket and profitable job, but remember that other members of your team will also experience them, and may not be as thick skinned as you. Do not subject your team to people like this! I highly recommend that the second you catch wind that you are dealing with this kind of person, you fire them immediately. Your team will thank you.

Two years ago, we painted the home of a customer after his home was hit by hail. He was paid 100% up front by his insurance company for the new roof, paint and other items affected by the storm. We came out and painted his home in a timely manner, there were no issues of missed expectations, and the job looked beautiful. After the job was complete, we sent him the bill. We knew he received it and opened the email because our Quickbooks program tells us this information. After some time of not receiving his payment, we called him with a reminder to pay us. No response. We continued to call him, re-email him the bill over and over for close to a year. After hearing nothing back from him, our accounting manager called him to let him know the bill was being sent to collections.

Then he called back, and he called back with a vengeance!

My accounting manager forwarded the profanity filled tirade of a voicemail he left for her in which he called her every nasty name in the book. He went on to scream, rant and curse about how awful of a company we were and how awful we were as humans. He then threatened to come down to our office to “pay the owner a visit”. When I heard this voicemail, I was livid. This was one of the nastiest and most abusive customers we had ever come across in my 20 years of business. Our accounting manager called him back and politely told him that he owed us money and it needed to be paid immediately, and then let him know that the owner (me) took him up on his offer to come down and “pay me a visit”.

Two days later, he entered our office. Our accounting manager greeted him from the top of the stairs. As she began to walk down the stairs he immediately launched back into his tirade of abuse. I quickly came down the stairs behind her to greet him and asked him to explain what he meant by “pay me a visit.” It became very apparent that he was there to physically intimidate and threaten me. As I calmly handed him his final bill, I asked him to come check out our jiu jitsu mats directly behind the front desk, and then placed a release of liability waiver in front of him. I told him we could handle this one of two ways, and I was fine with either. First, he could continue to threaten to get physical with me, sign the waiver, then we could get physical and see what happens. Or, he could pay his bill, apologize to my accounting manager, and leave. He immediately chose the latter, changed his tune, paid his bill, apologized for his behavior, tucked his tail between his legs, and left our building.

Not only is a situation like this sad, horrible, and disgusting for a business to have to deal with, it is also equally sad that a business owner thinks they need to put up with it under the false statement that “the customer is always right.” As you venture into building your business, keep a close and watchful eye out for these two types of customers. When you find them, fire them immediately, however you decide to do it. You team, and ultimately your business, will thank you.

Remember three things:

I love you.

I believe in you.

You got this.

Now, go get it!

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