Customers are the backbone of a business, regardless of the industry it’s in. They dictate demand, provide feedback, and enable a business to survive and grow. As such, businesses are beholden to customers to provide them with the best quality of products and services. Customer interactions go hand-in-hand with this, as every interaction a customer has with a business shapes the customer’s ideas about that business. In an increasingly digital world where customers might really require some quality person-to-person interaction to sort their problems, they value businesses who give them individual attention. Customers also market businesses to each other through word of mouth, and so it is incredibly important that they feel understood by the business.

At times, customers can be difficult to handle. They might not know exactly what they want, or they might escalate problems and in general be hard to satisfy. This could be unintentional – nobody likes being thought of as “difficult.” It might just be that their personalities lead them to behave in a way that requires a more unique approach when it comes to dealing with them as a business. Dealing with difficult customers is a skill that develops over time, and finding a starting point that works out in the business’ favor can be tricky.

To help with this, Fundera has compiled this infographic of 11 types of difficult customers. It talks not only about a diverse range of personalities and describes how they act, but also about how a business can handle such interactions in a way that is constructive and effective. After all, just because a customer is not agreeable immediately does not mean that they can’t be an incredible, loyal asset to the business, so don’t let that stop you!