The 12 types of toxic customers (and how to identify them)

In every business you have to deal with all kinds of customers. Some are very good clients, educated and who know how to value our work, regardless of how many times they need our services or products.

But other times we have to deal with clients who are not clean wheat. Rude, critical, anxious, insecure or those who ask us for discounts when they don't have to.

Next we will know the types of toxic customers that in every business we can find, seeing its main characteristics.

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The 12 types of toxic customers, and their characteristics

The relationship with customers always depends on the context, on aspects related to the time and place in which the interaction with them occurs. However, beyond that, we can recognize types of toxic customers by taking into account that these are not hermetic categories and that do not summarize the way of being of these people in all the situations of their lives; we simply rely on the type of predisposition they show to us.

Next Let's discover the 12 most common types of toxic customers, in addition to learning how to identify them and what problems they usually cause.

1. controller client

The controlling customer is one who, over and over again, he is bothering us to find out how the project or the product that we are going to offer is going.

He is the typical one who is constantly calling us, proposing new proposals by mail and changing the course of the project over and over again. They need to be “in control” of the situation and, since they cannot control us like we were puppets, they feel that they have some power knowing what we do and what we don't do.

Supervision is fine, since sometimes things can go wrong in the production process or there is some detail that you would have liked to know in order to change it. The problem is that being constantly aware of what we do and stop doing is a real nuisance, since In addition to wasting our time, he gives us the impression that he does not trust our experience, perseverance, and responsibility..

2. hypercritical customer

As his name itself indicates, the hypercritical client is one who criticizes everything. He is never happy with what we have done, being demanding and perfectionist to extreme levels.

Certainly, he is within his rights to ask for the best, since no one wants to pay to receive something that is below quality standards.

The problem is that the hypercritical client he sees flaws where there are none, or he notices those who don't have much importance. Our work is not enough for him and, on top of that, he is not capable of seeing all the good we have done.

3. impatient customer

The impatient customer he is constantly rushing, waiting to see if what he has asked for arrives yet. He seems to think that the more times he watches how we are going the sooner he will have what he has asked for. He hurries us, but we must always comply with the agreement.

But to make matters worse, he is not the one who complies with being punctual. If we have asked him to present us with documentation or to tell us on a specific date what he wanted, he simply tells us that he had missed it.

Since he is the client, he sees himself in the right to ask others to hurry, but he does not have to comply. According to him, if he gives us what was agreed at the last minute, we will already do our "magic" and we will be able to do our part within the stipulated time.

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4. indecisive customer

Insecurity, indecision and fear of giving an explicit answer are the characteristics that define the indecisive customer. He is not capable of choosing a proposal or option that we have told him once and for all. It is normal to have some indecision when establishing the first contact with a professional, but from then on, not having anything clear is a big problem for us, since he consumes our time, energy and patience.

He needs more proposals, more innovative ideas, something out of the ordinary, but later what was originally original turns out to be no longer so. He loops to start another project when the previous one has already been determined or, even, it had almost reached the end. He wants to change everything up a bit before the presentation.

5. complaining customer

The complaining client seems very hypercritical, since he never seems to be satisfied with the work we have done. This type of client is the one who always blames the problems on other people, both on us as professionals and on other people involved in the process.

He needs a scapegoat on which to project his own failures.. He focuses on small defects instead of seeing the great advances or benefits of the product / service, showing a terribly biased vision and, on top of that, he says that others do not understand him.

He is usually the type of client who speaks ill of other professionals, which is why you have to be very careful. The fact that he speaks ill of other professionals can make us think that he really has had bad luck and now has the opportunity to receive a very good service or product. The problem is that this is not going to reach him, he is going to be very critical of what we have done and he is going to include us in his list of bad professionals.

6. offending customer

Of the worst. The offending client is one who, when going to the professional, he does not have the respect he deserves, despite the fact that he was the one who came to help him. He doesn't take our profession seriously, or makes nasty statements like "he does this even." my niece" or "I do this with my eyes closed" But what will he know that we don't we know?

He does not listen to our explanations, nor does he respect our agreements. He doesn't give us calm, and to top it off he doesn't clarify what he wants. We don't work several hours in a row so that someone with bad words comes to us and tells us that we don't work well. We are the experts in what we offer, with which we have every right to protect ourselves from these people. They are people who can be touched.

7. anxious customer

Anxiety is what characterizes the anxious client, as can be deduced from his name. He needs to know the project step by step before giving the green light to start. The problem is that you need to make sure that everything is going to go well, both for the good use of your money and for your feeling of security. He fears that things are really going wrong, bordering on pathological.

It is the client who is interested in the product or service but does not dare to pay for it because they either believe that it could harm them (p. g., buy a cell phone and believe that it is going to explode) or fear that they are wasting money (p. g., being scammed). He always gets worse. He does not trust experience, he does not believe anything that is told to him. As much as we insist that the project is going well, he doesn't seem to believe it.

8. Customer angry with the world

This type of client is one who is toxic based on what has happened to them recently. It is about that person who, either because of his personality or because he has had a bad day, today he has had to be angry with the world, and in that world we find ourselves. His way of expressing himself is mostly through shouting, and he doesn't spare dry expressions that can be aggressive and offensive.

They are usually those who define themselves as direct people, who go to the point, but it is that from being direct to, directly, saying everything with anger, there is a big step. Very much in line with the previous case, the client who is angry with the world is someone hostile, who although we can understand that a client does not always have to be happy that we serve him, it is necessary to calm him down a bit. You cannot enjoy a good service or product if it already comes reluctantly.

9. Conflict avoidant client

We go from the client who is angry with the world to someone who is directly afraid of facing him. The conflict-avoiding client is one who he does not understand that he is within his rights to be uncomfortable with what has been offered to him, and so he must say so. This is a type of customer who tries to be a very good customer, and he's afraid we'll think he's looking down on our work. See tension where there is none.

The main problem with this type of client is that he approves over and over again everything we have presented to him, making us believe that the project is going in the direction he wants. His innate fear of saying "no" means that, when things are very advanced, he can't take it anymore and he tells us that everything we've done doesn't convince him. He A good time he says it! We have invested a lot of time and resources for nothing, Making us start all over again.

10. unpleasant customer

Clients are not going to be our friends, but it is still good to feel that they give us good vibrations. A customer who is very, very difficult to work with ends up being an unpleasant customer.

We don't care how much money he's going to give us, if it's not comfortable working with him, it's not really worth it. It may be because of the way he talks about him, his looks of superiority, speaking with a certain sarcasm, the jokes in bad taste that he makes or the jokes that make us have bad "vibes".

11. Client without obligation

In every professional relationship there is a first step that cannot be avoided: making contact. In this first contact, client and professional talk about what is offered, what is wanted, what the services are like and whether or not they intend to establish a professional relationship. This first step, once passed, implies two paths: either the relationship continues, starting the project, or it ends because the client cannot receive what he wants.

The problem with clients without commitment is that they opt for a third way: that of not breaking the relationship but not strengthening it either. They are the typical ones who do not stop asking us the same thing over and over again, or they disguise it as a new question to consult but, basically, we had already told them. They are constantly making us lose money by offering you free consultations instead of offering you the product/service we are experts in. We are not a free service. If you want the product/service offered, pay for it once.

12. Haggling Expert Client

The customer who is an expert in haggling is the one who thinks that, really, by doing our job, we are going to make him a discount or some kind of special offer. He is the one who tries to sneak it in, making you very nervous.

His vision of any economic transaction is that some lose and others win, instead of understanding that both who receives the money and who receives the product/service benefit. Prices are what they are, and unless it is a market sale, they must be respected.

Conclusion

These 12 types of toxic clients are the most common that we can find in every profession. As we have seen, there are all kinds and for each condition, so you must be very careful and know how to fit each one of them. The variety of toxic customers is also synonymous with the variety of problems, problems none of which we want for our businesses.

Set limits, specifying the prices of the product or service offered, giving the occasional touch to avoid unpleasant comments towards our profession and clearly establish which They are the dates of fulfillment of each objective. They are strategies to prevent clients from ending up destroying our business.

Bibliographic references:

• Blythe, Jim (2008). Essentials of Marketing (4th ed.). Pearson Education. ISBN 978-0-273-71736-2.
• Frain, John (1999). Customers and customer buying behavior. Introduction to marketing (4th ed.). Cengage Learning EMEA. ISBN 978-1-86152-147-7.