Moving On From a Bad Client Experience

The other day I was thinking of resources I wished I had when I started my business and one thing that popped up was how to bounce back from a bad client experience. It’s something every small business faces, yet I don’t hear it being talked about super often.

My biggest goal in anything I do with my business is to help. I genuinely care and want to help each person and business I come across. So when someone has a bad experience I have absolutely taken it to heart in the past. Thankfully I haven’t had too many other bad experiences, but every once in a while they will pop up.

The biggest thing that has helped me is knowing that you can learn from it. Maybe you messed up or maybe you didn’t, but either way there are still things you can learn about if a client has a bad experience. How did it get to this? Did you see this coming or was it out of nowhere? Asking yourself questions can help you create a little map of the experience from beginning to end. 

Something else that has been super helpful is just reminding myself that I’m human. Everyone makes mistakes and not everyone is going to mesh well together. Maybe it was an issue that was solely on them. Maybe they were overwhelmed and just needed to clear something off their plate. There could be a number of reasons why, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less of a person or a business owner.

Also just understanding that everyone goes through this and it’s totally normal. Everyone has bad and good days and it’s no different when it comes to work. I’ve had clients that I still talk with to this day, but also clients that I haven’t spoken to in years. Every experience is going to be different and I think each experience is meaningful and impactful for our small business owner journey. 

Cover photo shot by: Dorothy Louise Photography