You would think that I would have thicker skin than I do by now, but
it never fails to get a nasty response from a client on a website and
it throws off the rest of my day. Here is the scenario: customer
asks for a website, they give you little to no direction. You create
a rough draft of said website and email them a link to preview it. As
expected it isn't what they envisioned. Customer then sends you a
nasty email about how disappointed they are and, if you are lucky,
they then give you all the detail of how they expected it to look in
the first place, but didn't bother to tell you until now. You are
then left with the mixed feelings of frustration, anger, and
insecurity. Frustration that they didn't tell you how they wanted it
to look to begin with. Anger that they would have the nerve to put
all the blame on you rather than saying something like "This is a good
starting point but we were looking for something more in this
direction...". Insecurity about the fact that I should be able to
read their mind.
My first reaction is always to get mad, then I think, "I am
professional and above this, I am not going to let it get to me". Then
I start blaming them for not communicating better with me or not
giving me enough information. The best solution is always to give
myself time to cool off before responding in any way. Finally after
some time, rather than trying to defend my self and accusing them, I
settle on accepting it and send them a professional email explaining
how I will work with them until they are happy with the end product.
It is a somewhat humiliating process because I have to take the Burger
King philosophy of "Your Way, Right Away", the customer is always
right.
I suppose I am much better at taking this sort of criticism now than I
was 5-8 years ago. It only bothers me for an hour or so now, and it
used to pull me down for a few days. I guess that is progress.
6 comments:
Sorry. That would be stinky.
It's stinky at my job when the kindergartners come in after PE and recess. Or when someone's tooty. But that's a different sort of stinky.
I'm glad you take the professional approach. I'm proud of you too.
I think you're great. Sometimes people are just crazy, that's all. :-) But you've learned how to deal with even crazy customers now, and that's what makes you even more valuable as an employee.
Sometimes my customers are really crabby and unreasonable too.... ;-) Sometimes I put them in their bedroom until they change their attitudes, but I don't think that would work for you.
it never ceases to amaze me how their ambiguity and miscommunication lead my time being spent and it being my fault. The boss gets angry when I don't do it the way that he didn't explain.
I feel your pain. Inside tell them off. That's my vote. With your inside voice just scream your inside head off.
Working with the general public is no fun! I think Jenny's customers are so cute and she's so funny!!!
I hear you brother. I've got lots of ideas for small businesses to start some day. But they all come down to making the customer happy and with some customers that's probably going to be impossible.
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