Does the old business adage, "the customer is always right” ring true in your business? What about that customer? You know who I am talking about, that one customer who always demands more out of you than any other customer and never seems to be satisfied. Are they always right?

Customer service is so crucial to any business. I believe it is integral to marketing to retain customers. Poor customer service is one of the four reasons customers stop doing business with companies (the other three are high prices, shoddy quality and long gaps of time between orders and delivery.) But is there a line that the customer can cross where they are demanding too much from you? Yes, of course. You have to be profitable and a customer who asks you to do more and more without any added cost to them is eating away at your profit margins. Just how do you draw a line with a customer who makes such demands? The easy answer is just cut them loose. Tell them to take their business elsewhere. Add a little insult and you will lose them and their over-demanding attitude forever, right? Think again. This is the age of social media. A picky customer turned spurned customer will light up your social media sites with angry comments and there is little you can do to stop them. Let me suggest a way to draw a line without the whole experience going viral as well as retain them as a customer.

Listen to your customer, even if they are being unreasonable. There may be something you can do to help them with part of their problem, although you may not be able to solve all of it. In many cases, there is a tipping point with customers. When it happened, you get a barrage of complaints, but it really all stems from the one problem that started the ball rolling. For instance, I went into a nationally franchised restaurant with my family for my wife’s birthday one evening. The restaurant was very busy. My daughter had to be somewhere after we finished eating, so we were on a bit of a schedule. After we were seated, it took a long time for the server to come to take our orders. I let her know we needed to order our food when we placed our drink orders because we had some time constraints. But the food was delayed. We waited nearly 45 minutes for it to arrive. While time was ticking down, I noticed our waitress standing with a group of the wait staff talking in front of the kitchen. I was perturbed at her. She didn’t as much as come and refill our glasses or tell us how much longer the food would take. Nor did the manager come around to see how things were going. By the time the food arrived, we just boxed it up and left. I have not been back since.

Now let me rewind that episode and tell you how it could have gone much better. When I told the waitress we were under some time constraints, she could have told me that they would do their best and maybe suggest some food items that would take less time to prepare. She could have alerted the manager to the potential problem brewing because food wasn’t coming out of the kitchen fast enough so he could fix the problem. If they couldn’t get the food out in the time we needed it, it would have been nice to be compensated for the delay with a discount. That wouldn’t fix the problem, but it would have softened the blow.

Here’s the truth about dealing with difficult customers: if you don’t talk to them, you will make the matter worse, not better. If you can’t fix all of their problems, try to fix some of them. Make the attempt. Try to understand what is at the crux of their complaints. Ask the question, "what could we do to make this better?” If the answer is out of bounds, explain the parameters of what you can do and what you cannot. Fixing what you can might just help you retain their business. Ignoring them will certainly help you lose it.