Customers should be civil if they want to be heard

Get this: A contractor watched a relationship with a client deteriorate and their interactions became increasingly confrontational. Some of his tradesmen almost refused to work on the project because the homeowner was deemed abusive.

The client became so angry that communication with her was impossible. Eventually, the company secured a restraining order against the customer. But rather than abandon her, the contractor hired a subcontractor to complete what little was left to the job. I wonder if before that sub started work, the contractor warned him of possible confrontations.

And now this: After several hundred dollars of spa treatments, a client stopped at the counter to pay for the services. She told the cashier that she had a gift card to cover the bill but didn’t have it with her.

The cashier began to explain that they had to have the card, and maybe she could use it next time. That’s when the fireworks began. The customer threw a tantrum, screaming, pounding the counter, engaging other customers in the discussion, making everyone in earshot uncomfortable.

The customer went on to say she had received the gift in 2005, but the spa hadn’t yet opened in 2005. This went on for some time. The business refused to back down from its policy of needing the certificate in hand at the time of service. So what did the client do? She and her mother stormed out, and she filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

These are two situations where a customer’s behavior goes to the extreme. Sad to say, this is happening more often lately, and I’m not sure why.

In the first scenario, the contractor did not walk away, and as a result, the client’s actions worked. But in the second scenario, the business subjected all its other clients to an uncontrollable customer, and the effect was so profound that at least one came back the next day to see if the staff was OK.

Something is wrong when individuals think this kind of behavior is the means to an end. But if it works, why change?

Every day we receive letters and e-mail from people who have problems with a service or product. Most are reasonable requests for resolution, either through conciliation, mediation or arbitration. That is what we do, and boy are we happy to help resolve problems between reasonable people. We often are the start of a resolution, so there is no reason to escalate at the early stages of dispute resolution.

Here are some tips for how to be heard:

•It is unnecessary and inflammatory to send a first complaint letter to every government agency you know, the media, your congressman and three lawyers. All that bravado serves no purpose but to blow a potentially easily resolved issue into something bigger than it needs to be. You can always run the problem up the food chain, but don’t start with all guns blazing.

•Consider what you want before you begin your communication about a problem. It is so much easier and quicker to deal with a problem when everyone knows what the desired outcome is, from all those involved.

•Business owners, please, there comes a time when you simply need to turn away and stop giving into consumer tantrums. You can fire clients, you can turn down projects and you can tell someone you want to refund their money and not complete a job. The woman at the spa with no gift card? She went to several Internet rating sites and told her story about these spa owners who refused to honor her gift card. That just adds more facets to this tantrum. Consumer terrorism’s most accessible weapon is Web-posted ratings.

Kudos go to the spa owners for not caving into the tantrum. The BBB is now involved and plans to hold everyone involved accountable. I don’t think the woman without a gift card is going to like this reasonable process at all.