Every business is going to have the occasional unhappy customer. Some are very hard to satisfy. What do you do with upset customers?

Even before you make a sale, you need to be sure that you are setting your customer’s expectations to an appropriate level. Don’t promise the world and deliver a grain of sand. Keep your promises closely in line with what you actually deliver.

If you’re providing a service, make sure that both you and the client are very clear on what is to be delivered. If you are or become friends with a client, you still need to keep your professional relationship professional. Talk about what is expected of each party and use contracts to spell it all out.

If there’s a problem, try to fix it promptly. If you’re ignoring a customer’s problem you’re only going to make them angrier and the problem will be harder to solve. This is particularly important if the customer is a regular. You don’t want to lose a regular over a minor issue that you could have fixed quickly if you had been prompt about it.

You also need to know when to fire a customer. If a customer is too much trouble, there may come a point at which you say “enough” and just give them their money back and refuse to help them again. Sometimes you’ll have to do this with a big client, which can be painful, but if their problems are taking more of your time than they are worth, they can be worth dropping.

If you do fire a customer, be professional about it. If you have files or anything else of theirs, send them back immediately. There will be enough bad feeling over whatever the problems were; you don’t want them saying that on top of everything else you didn’t give them back their property.

Problems happen. Be professional about how you handle them. Well handled, an angry customer might become your biggest fan.

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