Clients bullying Small Businesses Owners – Have you been bullied?

♦ July 1, 2013 ♦ Leave a comment

Clients bullying Small Businesses Owners – Have you been bullied?

Bullying in the Workplace has become a popular topic, and unfortunately, a frequent activity in the Workplace.  But, business owners being bullied by clients?  Come on!

What about the age old mantra “the customer / client is always right”?  Truth is, things have changed over the years, and unfortunately, the client is not always right and can be downright impossible, unreasonable, rude and a bully – and you don’t have to take it!

Bullying in the workplace has increased dramatically over the years, as did schoolyard bullying and cyber bullying, in fact, bullying has just mushroomed and is happening everywhere.

During a search on the topic of “being bullied by clients”, a surprising number of articles / blogs came up, describing instances of this phenomenon. From these and also from conversations with small business owners, it seems that especially the publicist, the designer, the IT guy, the property agent i.e. typically the sole proprietor or micro business owner seem to experience bullying more often, though it does not exclude other “bigger” small businesses.

We have a few stories of our own and worst of all, we didn’t even recognise that we were being bullied.  We thought we were just bending over backwards more than what other clients were expecting, and in retrospect, realised that we were being bullied into doing things in a way we don’t agree with or feel comfortable with.  This has led us to make the decision: we will choose our clients just as much as they choose their service providers.

Customers or clients who bully may do the following:

  • pose unreasonable ultimatums i.e. ignoring what was agreed on and making unreasonable demands,
  • expecting you to change the way you do things (work model) i.e. expect you to “skip steps” in your business process,
  • intimidate with an overbearing presence i.e. checking up on you, telling you what/how to do your job,
  • withholding information you need to complete the job for them,
  • unreasonable criticism of your work, especially on aspects that are not necessarily part of the job,
  • threatening you with losing business to a competitor or possible loss of initial sale or losing that ONE key contract.
  • repeatedly contact you or your employees in an effort to wear you down and
  • lastly, withholding payment.

This puts the small business owner in a difficult position.  The recession is causing havoc for big business, and so much more for small businesses.  You have to take any and every deal you can get, and you have to “give in” to every client demand; match every deal offered to you or give in to that ONE client’s demands and NOT get rid of the client because you “just can’t afford” to lose the contract.  “NO”!  You don’t just take any job and you decide who will be your clients.

Your client has to comply with your specific business model and your business values; a business model and values that you have tried and tested and perfected over years and that works well for you.  As a small business owner, you can decide who you want as clients.  This may seem strange to you, but just as a client can decide that they will not make use of your services, you can decide not to take someone on as a client or “fire” a client.

The story is told that the CEO of a large airline declared their vision as follows: best price, always humour and quality customer service – upon receiving a letter of complaint about their particular humour, which the customer did not like or enjoy, the response was not a letter of apology, but the words: we will miss you.  This is such a lovely story, as it gives the clear message:  one client shouldn’t make me change the way I do business, especially if it has been proven over and over that it produces client satisfaction and business success. Don’t compromise on what you believe in and value as a small business owner. “Fire” your client if they bully you.

NOTE:

Bullying does NOT include:

  • occasional differences of opinion
  • non-aggressive conflicts and problems that relate to quality of work or speed of delivery  or cost (service)

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