Managing Sticky Situations at Work

Chapter 5Sticky Situations with ClientsA customer breaks his word, chews out someone on our staff, or keepscalling us in the middle of the night. What do we do? Do we shrug itoff, remembering the customer is always right? When looking at stickysituations with customers, we sometimes decide to put our heads inthe sand. Maybe those customers are a bit difficult to work with, butthey bring us lots of business, right? Is the business they bring us reallyworth the trouble? Therein lies the fundamental question. Are valuedemployees deserting us while we keep our pesky client? Are we losingmuch-needed sleep while we struggle over what to do about this client?Are we suffering inside because of what a client is putting usthrough? How much value does this client really bring? Where do wedraw the line in the sand?I wish I could answer these questions. Unfortunately, I can’t. Wemust decide when we’ve reached our point of saturation. What I cantell you is that we do have permission to fire clients. I suspect manyof us think of our customers as rare commodities that we must embracefor dear life. We believe we can’t afford to lose a single payingcustomer. In Michael Port’s best-selling book, Book Yourself Solid, hesays the way to really be successful is to get rid of dead-weight clients.