Not Every Customer Is Mad: The Power of Pause and Kindness
It's officially December — this episode airs December 2nd, and even Lori needed a minute to believe it when a member's "Happy December 1st" email landed in her inbox. Flower shops are deep in install season, wreath and garland add-on sales, corporate poinsettia and gift basket orders, and weekend Christmas parties. And scrolling the florist forums, Vonda and Lori are also seeing something else pile up: post after post about disgruntled, ungrateful customers. So this week's conversation is a heart-check for the busiest month of the year, built around an idea Lori almost titled the episode with — not every customer is mad; some are just lonely.
The doorbell that started it all
The spark wasn't even a floral story. Lori stumbled onto a series of doorbell-camera videos of an elderly neighbor who kept ringing a man's door, angry that a light on the side of his house was shining into her bedroom. She'd complained maybe twenty times; she'd even called the police, who determined the light didn't shine into her house at all. Instead of snapping, the man finally asked a different question: do you just want to come sit on the porch and have a glass of iced tea — are you lonely? The woman burst into tears. "I just don't have anybody." All that anger was never about the light.
The lesson for the shop counter is obvious once you see it: maybe the customer isn't really that angry about the wilted rose. Vonda connects it to a game a friend used to play at the airport, inventing backstories for strangers walking by — that one's headed to a funeral, that one to a party. We genuinely don't know what the person across the counter is carrying. Maybe they just came from their mother's hospice room. And as Lori points out, it's okay to make that scenario up if that's what it takes to give them grace — it's your starting point for the conversation, and it protects your own mental health too.
Firing a customer is strike three, not strike one
Both hosts have said before that it's okay to fire a customer — and it is. But they're seeing more and more managers online reaching for it as the first line of defense, cheered on by commenters. Their take: make it strike three. Firing customers on the first offense doesn't grow your business, and if you keep doing it, you won't have many customers left. The exception: actual fraud attempts don't count as customers at all.
There's also a check-yourself-at-the-door step before any of this works, and Vonda names it directly: what have you been through today that's shaping your reaction? You were late, something broke, your mom's in the hospital — that weight comes to the counter with you. Lori teaches the same thing in Sales Prep School as mental mindset: prepare your mind before you walk in the door. She's honest that even she — "Lori's so nice" — gets rough when her cup is drained, and that facing a difficult customer every day of December would test anyone.
You're not a therapist — but you do absorb emotions
A florist doesn't just take orders. You absorb whatever emotion the customer wants the flowers to carry — sympathy, the joy of a new baby, the love of a secret admirer. It's a roller coaster all day long, and the hard flip side is that when a customer comes back mad, you absorb the anger too. Nobody behind the counter is a therapist (as Lori jokes, they just play one on a podcast), and faking it doesn't work in an industry where authenticity is what sells. What you can do is build positive triggers for yourself: pause before you respond, and keep a few phrases in your back pocket.
Phrases that de-escalate
Instead of leading with "you put your hydrangeas next to a heating vent" — even when it's true — try these, from Vonda and Lori's own list:
- "I hear what you're saying, and I can see how that would be confusing."
- "Thank you so much for your feedback." (It's all in the tone.)
- "Let's see if we can turn this around for you." — Lori used this one over the weekend.
- "Thank you for taking the time to explain that to me." — Vonda's favorite; you can hear the customer de-escalate as they talk.
- "That's a valid concern."
- "I need a little more information to understand the situation — do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"
And use "we" language throughout: we're going to work through this, we're going to figure this out, hang in there with me. It may not be anything you did wrong — but the customer isn't left in the dark, and crisis gets averted.
One bright spot from the forums: shops' Thanksgiving results were all over the map — big and small, coast to coast, some slow and some slammed, with no pattern the hosts could find. But Monty of Watanabe Floral in Hawaii emailed about a Black Friday promotion — 25% off future deliveries, marketed with the "Black Friday sale" language customers were already searching for, no paid boosts — that returned an ROI so strong he can't wait to run it again. The point: instead of sitting back worrying, get out there and promote. And if your corporate clients ordered poinsettias or gift baskets last year and haven't called yet, pick up the phone and ask.
Lori's hope for this one isn't a tidy list of tactics. It's that the next time a customer comes in hot, you pause, check your own triggers, reach for a phrase, and remember — as she wrote in bold — your kindness matters, your patience matters, and the way you show up for strangers matters. Vonda closes with proof: a Walmart employee she watched kneel down on the floor to look up into the face of a customer in a wheelchair whom everyone else was ignoring, listening and running to fetch each item they needed. Take a deep breath, and move forward.
Key takeaways
- Not every angry customer is angry about the flowers — some are overwhelmed, hurting, or just lonely. Pause before you react.
- Firing a customer is fine as strike three, never strike one — and fraudsters don't count as customers.
- Check yourself at the door: your own stress shapes your reactions, so prepare your mindset before your shift.
- Keep de-escalation phrases ready: "Let's see if we can turn this around," "That's a valid concern," and lots of "we" language.
- Don't sit back and worry — promote. Play off what customers are already searching for (like Black Friday), and call last year's corporate clients now.