I get a kick out of a lot of home business owners. They think they can setup shop, sell whatever it is they’re selling and never have to deal with the outside world. Newsflash…any time you’re selling anything to the general public, you’re going to have to deal with irate customers. They may have absolutely no legitimate reason to be calling you every name in the book, but it’s going to happen. The question is, how do you deal with them? Well, there are two ways. One way you get to keep the customer and make one for life and the other way you lose the customer. Neither is right or wrong. It depends on what’s more important to you.

Let’s start with losing the customer first because this is the easy way. When somebody is irate and complains about whatever it is you sold them, or maybe the service you’ve provided, you can just blow them off entirely. That’s right…don’t respond. Of course they’ll probably put in a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, but what the heck…like you care? Or, you can write a really nasty email back to them and tell them where to go with their complaint. This will probably produce the same results but at least you’ll get the satisfaction of having told them off.

Okay, now let’s move on to keeping the customer. You reply to their rant calmly and professionally. You ask them exactly what the problem is (if they haven’t clearly spelled it out) and then offer to help them any way you can. If they’re not satisfied with the product, tell them that you’ll be more than happy to give them a refund and apologize for not providing them with the service that they were expecting. What I do is even offer them a free gift as a way to say I’m sorry. This approach will usually take most people by surprise and ultimately what will happen many times is that they will come back as a customer in the future…if not actually work out the problem there and then.

There is an old saying. “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

It is quite true for home business customers too.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Looking for a solid 4 step plan to building your own business…FREE? Pick up my free report at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/4steps.html and get started TODAY!