A dedicated space for high-quality, peer-led insights on how to grow, differentiate, and succeed.

Tips & Education

One of the common questions that get asked on the forum (especially from new freelancers) is how to deal with those customers who may be challenging, have a different personality to you, or simply make you feel a little awkward. 

Whilst most of the feedback you will get on here is to just work through the communication and hope for the best, But, there is a model/theory that works really well when you become stuck. I swear by this model and I have used the principle many times in lectures to management students, and on Fiverr to manage customer interactions.  And whilst it isn’t 100% accurate (no model is) it gives a good strategy into how you communicate with others, and to assess your own communication skills. 

In the early 1990s a model called insights discovery was created to show how different personalities interact. The model puts both you and the person you’re communicating with into four colour energies 

To come up with what your colour is there a questionnaire needs to be completed on the company website where you’re then given a primary personality trait. However, upon reading this post you should have a fair idea of where you sit.  And here's there cool thing. Once you know your colour, you can then begin to understand the colour of your customers and how they will potentially interact with you. 

If you’re both fiery red, then it’s likely that you will both come to conflict, so you will need to be more calm and reserved?

If your both cool blue then the order process may take longer, as you will want to literally dot every 'I' and cross every ‘T’. Do you need to be more fiery red to close the order?

If your customer works in the 3rd sector, do you need to be more earth green to show you care about what they do? more empathy may result in a better review? They may also not want to be rushed in the process and need more time to process what you have  done.

If your customer is a start up business, do you need to be more sunshine yellow to show your enthusiasm and excitement for them? If they know you get it, you will potentially form a better connection with them. 

With practice, during your conversations with your customers it will become clear quite quickly what colour they are and what strategies you need to make to get the order across the line , particulary when communicating with them on the order screen, or when you have a Zoom call.  

Like I said it is not 100% accurate, but it will go a long way in helping you improve your communication skills and dealing with conflict. This method also allows you to look inward and understand how your own actions and traits may have an effect on the order ocmmunication and what to do to improve.  

Have a look at the images below to get a better understanding of how it all comes together. 

As you can see the colours are split into introverted and extroverted sections, along with details for how both you and your customer like to work. Think about which one you fit into! 

Based on what you know about yourself. Think about how your customers present, you can then understand what colour they possibly fall into  

This section gives some help into how to interact with them and how you present yourself during the order process.

How your customers get stressed and how to remedy 

If things aren't going well. look for these stress signals and possible fixes to get back on track

So, as you can see, there are ways and stratgies to address the way you communicate with a customer BEFORE things go wrong and durIng order, and even the resolution process,  and whilst it might work for everyone it may be useful to think about where you sit in the circle and what you can do to improve your communication skills. 

note: All images are taken directly from insight discovery material and are not created by me. 

How to deal with those challenging / difficult customers by using Insights Discovery.

A home for meaningful connections, peer support, and professional growth.

Fiverr Community

Job Title

Login to the Fiverr Community community to connect with others, attend community events, and more!

Login or Sign Up for even more

To unlock all parts of the community and get the best experience, complete your profile.