Firing a customer

There is that old saying that has been around for decades: The customer is always right. Let me clarify as nicely as I can: Bullshit! My God, if you do this work long enough you will come across the absolute worst customers you can possibly think of. Too bad you can't make your customer take a psychological exam before taking them on as a customer.

If you have a customer that is a contractor or states, my dad was a builder, you may want to think long and hard before taking them on. One customer stood over my employees shoulder every minute of every hour. Constantly telling him was doing it wrong, or simply critiquing his every move. After about 12 hours of this behavior we finally gave up and told the customer that there was no charge for the work that had been completed.

Some customers become hostile. They will insult you, berate you, even threaten you. Yes, there are some batshit crazy people out there. You don't have to deal with this. You don't have to tolerate this behavior. We have even experienced racism against our black and Hispanic employees. This also means that you don't have to subject your employees to this behavior either.

It may mean losing money walking away from a job. Unfortunately you have to pick your battles. You will need to determine what's best for your team, yourself and your company. Those people are out there. Unfortunately you don't have a way of detecting it. When it happens try to keep you calm and take the high road and simply remove yourself from the situation.