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By William T Lasley, About.com Guide to Arts / Crafts Business since 1997

Dealing with Obnoxious Customers

Sunday November 4, 2007
You know the type: people who are loud, offensive and who usually do not spend one dime on your crafts. Do you ask them to leave your booth? Do you just play it out and see what happens in the hope that they will actually turn out to be good, paying customer? Of course, getting into the habit of asking people to leave your booth is not a good thing, but sometimes you may have to take matters into your hands to make room for paying customers and get on with the show. How do you deal with customers who you would rather not have in your booth?

Comments

November 15, 2007 at 9:24 am
(1) jim says:

If they are not bothering other potential customers i just leave them alone. And i tend to ignore them until they go away. Once in a while they will mellow out and actually buy buy alot of items. Their bad behavior is just a defense mechanism because they have a fear in making a mistake in buying.

November 15, 2007 at 10:15 am
(2) Dick Wexelblat says:

I once had a booth visitor pick up an item and tell me it was too expensive. “I’m sorry you can’t afford it,” I replied.

November 15, 2007 at 1:36 pm
(3) lc says:

Cool! It is good answer.

November 16, 2007 at 11:51 pm
(4) fma says:

I don’t like it when people congregate and are either loud to each other, on their cell phones and block people from entering my booth. I usually talk to them pleasantly and begin to explain things about my work. If they aren’t interested, they will quickly leave because I am interrupting them. If they become interested, then their loud, obnoxious behaivior usually stops.

November 23, 2007 at 5:09 pm
(5) Donna says:

I have people, mostly men, who just want to hang around and talk. I make record bowls, so the assume I’m an expert on music, I am not. When other customers come to my booth I will then just talk to them. One advantage of other people in the booth is it makes it lok popular and I find I sell in waves. I do better when there is more than one customer looking at a time.

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