A Different Breed
The first thing to recognize is that a responsive customer service mechanism and the kinds of activities and behaviors we have been talking about in this series are not designed to solve the “Problem Customer” issue. Good customer service process will work effectively most of the time with “Customers with Problems” and the issues we’ve addressed up until now. From here on we are talking about a different breed.

The Problem Customer
The problem customer is distinguished from Customers with Problems by the following:

A customer who is unusually angry, rude, upset, difficult to please, unresponsive, provocative, or behaving in a way which is socially abnormal, and who does not respond to conventional customer service techniques or approaches.

While this may serve as a working definition, the two key points to keep in mind are the descriptors “unusually” and “unresponsive”. These two elements of behavior set the Problem Customer apart from the Customer with a Problem. These two descriptors are also clues staff may be advised to use as litmus tests to determine if they are dealing with a Problem Customer or not. This is important because Customers with Problems not only will tend not to respond to customer service approaches, their problem behavior may get worse as a result.

Four Typologies of Problem Customer
While there are shades and variations of these four primary categories, most problem customers will fall into one (or some combination) of the following:

1. Under the influence of drugs, alcohol or other substances
2. Mentally ill, of diminished capacity, those suffering seizures, fits, or other clinically defined mental/neurological problem
3. Customers who believe you have victimized them.
4. Customers who “act out” as a tactic to get their way.

In each of the above described situations, customers are either allowing themselves to be un responsive or external forces (ie. alcohol or drugs) are inhibiting their ability to respond. This is why we note respondents in these typologies are unlikely to respond to accepted customer service techniques which may be effective under normal circumstances.