After my last post here, perhaps us guys should start a thread on BAD customers!
I bet this one will have some LEGS?
Paul...
Paul is absolutely right, but if you run a company that gives a reasonable standard of service, I doubt if even
slightly awkward customers are any more than one or two percent of the total. The problem is that some of them are so difficult, so awkward, and so unreasonable, an encounter with a bad one can ruin your whole day. The great majority of model boat customers are really nice people, a pleasure to deal with, and a few regulars have become good friends. Satisfied customers are also of course, the best and cheapest form of advertising. I suspect that I'm in a similar positon to Paul, it's my business and I can do whatever I want. When faced with a real A-hole, I could tell him to F off if I really wanted to, I don't have to answer to anyone. I've never done it, but the knowledge that I could any time I wanted to, helps me to cope fairly easily with that difficult one or two percent, sometimes I can even smile at them.
To get back somewhere near the original topic, I know that Jackie & Laurie of Model Slipway can tell some good stories about awkward customers they've known. I'd have to be safely on the other end of a phone before I'd be brave enough to give any lip to either of them though, especially Jackie.