In any Practice, developing and maintaining client relationships is one of the fundamental aspects of success. As a Practice, in the professional services space, that means developing the right skillset to seamlessly handle difficult clients. As someone working in the professional services arena, your success relies heavily on your relationships with clients.
You must build amicable and supportive bonds that lead to your clients re-hiring you and recommending you to their contacts. However, sometimes problems occur with these relationships, and clients become difficult to work with. They might start ignoring your communications, not paying bills, being rude, or badmouthing you publicly. If this happens, it may be tempting to part ways, but it’s usually better to turn things around if possible. Here are ways to handle testing clients when the situation arises. Listen
Stay calm
Acknowledge your client’s issues
Chunk problems While sometimes you’ll discover your customer is upset about a small problem you can rectify in a few minutes, other times things are more deeply rooted or complex. If a client has a wide array of issues, don’t try to address everything at once. “Chunk” things down into more manageable problems; these should then have manageable solutions.
Boundaries Sometimes a client is difficult not because you’ve done anything real to upset or disappoint them, but because they need someone to vent external frustrations to. People going through difficult times personally, such as a relationship breakup, financial hardship, or business downturn, may become snappy, negative, impulsive, demanding, or switched off. When this is the case, it helps to put boundaries in place.
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