Handling Angry Clients

What do you do when your client gets mad at you? How do you handle this? An angry client can be one of the biggest time and energy drains on a sales person.

What you should specifically do will obviously depend on what the client is angry about. Sometimes our clients have a legitimate reason to be angry, such as when we screw up. Other times clients get unreasonably upset because they have different expectations about your business relationship.

In either case, your objective should be to make the client happy again (unless your client is so unreasonable that you need to let them go).

The first step towards converting an angry client to a happy one is to get in rapport with your client while he is angry.

This approach may sound a little weird to you. It works though, and you'll realize its true once you reflect upon your own experiences with anger. Ever been mad at a company, or another person, or a politician for example? When you were angry, how did you feel when you spoke to someone who didn't share your anger? You felt misunderstood, maybe even to the point where you didn't want to be around them, right?

Now think about how you felt when you encountered someone who shared you anger. You felt understood and wanted to be around this person more, didn't you?