How to Handle Unhappy Client Situations - Ep 32

We all love having ideal clients that sing our praises and refer business to us but what happens when there's an issue with a client and it results with them being unhappy. 

Brand Reputation | How to Handle Unhappy Client Situations

It's easy to talk about all of the good things that happen when we work with clients.  Clients that are satisfied with our services  refer others to us, and provide great testimonials which help others make the decision to work with us.  However, what happens when we have a client that is dissatisfied with our services and becomes unhappy with us?

How should you respond? What should you do? What should you do when they leave you a bad review online? In this Episode of the Empirenista Business Success Podcast we're going to discuss how to handle unhappy client situations.

What Not to Do

Whenever there is a mistake we can respond in two ways:

1. We can get in our feelings and lash out
2. Listen and learn from the unhappy client

I don't suggest lashing out. That's not a good look and you don't know who is watching you.  It could be future clients or business partnerships.  You lashing out or posting their review and your petty response online (especially on Facebook) could further hurt your brand's reputation.

Ways to learn

I know it's hard, but after getting over the shock of the message from your unhappy client or reading a bad review, take a moment to reflect.  Are the concerns of your client valid? Does the truly reflect your work?

Assess the situation

• What went wrong from the clients perspective? 
• What went wrong from your perspective and your team's perspective? 
• What were those areas: breakdown in communication, missed deadlines, failure to notify clients, missed emails (by both), lack of communication, 
• Could there have been a solution where both parties were happy?

Going forward:

• Do you need better systems in place:
• • Communication
  • Email
  • Follow Up
  • Contracts
  • Client expectations
• Update your SOP's
• Communicate with your team the new systems and procedures
• Clear language on website and sales calls with new clients.  This also prevents scope creep and misunderstandings
• Sticking to your ideal client.  Maybe this person wasn't a good fit

Keep in mind that these are the experiences that customers experienced.  Whether true or not.  Something happened for them to be unhappy and the goal is to resolve the situation as amblicly as you can.

Of course the goal is to only work with your ideal customer but you may have one or two non-ideal customers creep in.  Kindly terminate the relationship and move forward.

You've got the best services and give superior services.  With these tips you're now prepared to handle an unhappy client.

Thanks for listening! 

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