DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’m at a loss. I work full-time in a home improvement business with my husband. We have been working together in this business for 25 years.

There’s just the two of us, and we work extremely hard. I am on site at least 35 hours a week, as well as handling most of the emailing and accounting, half the estimate writing, and all of the scheduling.

Obviously, it is crucial that we communicate with the customers before, during and after the project. Customers often have questions, and if I am the right person to answer it, I do so. (Hubby and I both have our strengths.) The customer will then give a vacant nod and look to my husband for confirmation that I have answered correctly. Or, they will ask the same question again to him. Or, after I answer, they turn to my husband to ask a follow-up.

I am treated as the secretary, and my technical skills and knowledge are ignored. This behavior happens with customers of all ages and genders.

I would like to know a polite way to insist that I am actually part of the problem-solving team. Do I interrupt their recap of the question? Can my husband refuse to answer and redirect the question to me? I’m not sure how to respond to their obvious rudeness in a way that is polite but firm.

GENTLE READER: Correcting customers’ behavior effectively — without offending them — is a two-person job.

The next time you answer a customer’s question, only to have that person look at your husband, his response should be, “That’s my wife’s area of expertise. When she says that’s what we should do, then that’s what we should do.”

If you are inclined to protest that this is a misogynistic solution to a misogynistic problem, Miss Manners will remind you of two things. First, you said the business was a partnership. Second, who invented this solution, and who will be telling your husband what to say?

Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, [email protected]; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.