Book Review: How to Deal with Difficult Customers

Have you ever dealt with an obnoxious salesperson? You might want to take a moment to send the offensive person a postcard or email suggesting they read: "How to Deal with Difficult Customers" by Dave Anderson. The book is subtitled "10 Simple Strategies for Selling to the Stubborn, Obnoxious, and Belligerent". Mr. Anderson points out early on that many times the salesperson turns a nice person into a stubborn, obnoxious or belligerent customer. He also points out he obvious: most customers have dealt with other salespeople and the experience was so unpleasant they loathe having to deal with another one. Not so obvious, it seems, is that sales is a two-way street between buyer and seller.

Mr. Anderson begins "How to Deal with Difficult Customers" with a preface where he tells the reader he will not waste their time "rambling on". I appreciated that because one can always get money, but once time is used it is gone forever. He then rambles on including a list of the books chapters and a synopsis of what you will learn. Next is a short acknowledgement, followed by "About the Author" and then an Introduction. It is important to read the preface to learn that he will not be using the words: "stubborn, obnoxious, belligerent" in the book, but rather an acronym. If you are like me and want to get right to the reading, you could become offended by this. Using it is cute, witty and meant to be friendly. As a customer, it tends to reinforce why many people do not like salespeople.

Each chapter starts with "Straight Talk" and ends with a summary of the chapter. This makes it a good text book for new salespeople. Some sales professionals are born sellers, but for most the ability to sell is a learned experience. Much better to learn through the mistakes of others, than through lost sales and unsatisfied customers. Mr. Anderson uses the "250 rule" as his guideline. Dissatisfied customers spread bad publicity about a company at the speed of a click of a computer mouse. Customers should not judge a company by the quality of their customer service reps or salespeople but most do. Sales is usually a high turnover business and I would suggest any company that relies on salespeople to make "How To Deal with Difficult Customers" required reading.

Salespeople are often pumped up with enthusiasm, especially soon after attending a sales presentation. Mr. Anderson's sales-abiltiy is evident as one reads the book. That he is pumped up and filled with enthusiasm about the subject is evident. He educates readers, who do not know, that this trait does not come naturally to most. He shares his secrets on how he remains positive in a field where one deals with stubborn, obnoxious, belligerent people and dealing with rejection when the final word from them is "no". The book is full of funny sales anecdotes from his career. He gives examples of scripts a salesperson can use adapting them to their industry and personality.

I recommend "How to Deal with Difficult Customers" to all salespeople who want to learn how to increase sales. Everyone deals with stubborn, obnoxious or belligerent people at some time in life. We often have to sell people on ideas or our point of view. Thus, I would recommend this book to non-salespeople as well, especially to customer service reps. They often face an irate customer, or are the ones that create them. I would recommend that next time Mr. Anderson writes a book, he put the "About the Author" at the end of the book. It seems it was there to sell his credentials as an authority on the subject, rather then letting me find that out as I read the book. Readers are customers interested in the subject matter, not being sold on the seller. If the author is a good seller, we will be back for more.

The book was published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. of Hoboken, New Jersey and published in October 2006. The book is available online at Mr. Andersons website: "Learn To Lead" for $22.95. http://www.learntolead.com. Discounted prices may be available through other outlets.