Dealing with difficult clients

Knowing what you want from life✓ Managing perfectionism✓ Becoming responsibly selfish✓ Getting the most out of your time✓ Feeling in control✓ Setting achievable goals✓ Personal leadership✓ Developing a resilient approach✓ Developing an assertive approach✓ Dealing with difficult clients✓ Worried about a colleague? Fulfilment at work Moving too quickly to asking closed questions during a consultation, as this might result in bypassing the client’s perspective and not eliciting all the information we need; Interrupting the client before they have finished answering a closed question, as this can limit the information that is obtained; Not using open questions later in the consultation when additional topics are raised. To check their understanding, you could try asking them to summarise the information back to you; for example, ‘I appreciate I have given you lots of information; just to ensure I have explained it thoroughly, perhaps you could recap for me what you need to do between now and your next appointment?’ By adjusting the way we communicate with our clients and allowing for more interactive discussions, we can hopefully avoid situations of frustration which can result in difficult encounters.