Worst Customer Service Experience

Everybody likely had at least one memorable customer service experience and faced at times with customers who lo and behold will make things difficult for a customer service representative. The question then becomes, how do you deal with this individual?  

While working as Business Development Executive, the department received a website design request for their property business with minimal information provided with a 30 days deadline. The web designer was facing difficulty to design the website for the company. I requested the client for a little more information to provide through an email first and then follow up by a telephone call. The client came after three days something with that they don’t have a company name yet and they were not settled on what they would be doing yet. Just design something in red and brown and they would go from there. 

The designer sent some better ideas for approval based on very brief instructions. The pattern was ready and already sent to the client for approval. A week later, the client contacted after every day follow up, with a request for redesigning another website for them while reminding to complete their both websites on time. In the last week, the client came up with all the details and asked to copy exactly and demanded to complete the websites on time. There just was not enough time to do all work.

The week was hard not only for web developers but also for me as the client never replied for the call or email yet we met the deadline and completed the projects. The client showed up on the exact day and it was not a surprise that he was not satisfied with the concept and design for the website. He demanded to use new character art, discarded his own provided images and asked to add something of the web developer’s choice. In short, the client always was on things such as change the photo, change the font, and change the colour.  Upon further review of the proof, I spotted the following comments by saying that it hasn't changed. Two months of hard work he finally liked the websites but refused to pay the amount decided for the websites. His demanded that he would not be paying the actual amount as we didn't meet the deadline. The manager was out of the city and I was representing the company on his behalf, adopting the old adage “the customer is always right”, I sincerely apologized for the inconvenience and offered to make maintenance free of charge for a one full year for both of the websites, which was not a part of the contract. This made him calm and complimented the efforts made.

Thus, make your best judgement to understand each customer in order to bring solution for the problem he or she faces.