Episode 15: Having Icky and Sticky Conversations with Clients

You bounce out of bed in the morning, you start your day ready for the BEST DAY EVER!!!

And then you check your email and there’s the kind of email with a client that strikes fear into your heart. In this episode of the Inside Scoop show we’re talking about icky and sticky situations and how to handle them like a pro.

Here’s the scoop from episode #15:

When you’re running a service based business, sometimes things go wrong and we make mistakes; it’s going to happen to us all
We talk about some general categories that these conversations can fall into and how we have dealt with them in our business
Making sure your client knows you hear them is super important, even if you don’t agree with them, they want to feel heard
Think about the situation from the view of your client: they may be scared or not fully understand, try to see it the way they do
Keep in mind there may be outside influences at play: you’re probably not the only person who influences your client in a day or a week and may have extra stress placed on them by others
Before you jump in to triage, make sure you completely step back and analyze the situation from all sides
Don’t waste time over explaining the mistake, just take responsibility and jump into fixing it
As you’re moving through the snafu, be timely with it; don’t spend days delaying and trying to figure out the problem
If something will take more than a day to resolve, send an end of day email update to let them know what’s going on and reassure them you’re on top of it
No matter how the client is behaving, it’s really important that you stay professional
Do something to step away for a moment: take a walk or call a friend to gain some perspective
You always want to take the high road, but you should know where your own line is and there is no excuse for abusive language or threats
We talk a lot about teaching people how to treat you, it’s ok for them to be upset that you made a mistake but you don’t have to keep a client that is abusive
If you are continuously having the same problem with a client or multiple clients; go back and figure out where the breakdown is occurring for you