Difficult customers come in a range of types: angry, intimidating, impatient, demanding, indecisive (and each of these in differing degrees!).
But serving difficult customers with care is possible.
Here are some basics for dealing with irate customers:
1. Stay calm
2. Pay Attention
3. Know Your Ideal Customer
Remain calm to avoid a two person shouting match. When you react in a way that mirrors your customers, it can cause an escalation of their anger to try to out shout you. By remaining calm, you reduce the likelihood for them getting louder.
When trying to remain calm, it’s a good idea to ask the customer what resulted in them coming to you and if they reached you easily.
The source of your customer’s anger may have less to do with your product or service – and may have a lot to do with some inconveniences experienced (e.g., an argument they had recently with their boss, lengthy queue at your customer service desk, cumbersome process to submit a support ticket, or voice menu hell trying to figure out which option to choose from the automated phone system).
A big caveat: Do not remain calm and then use a sarcastic tone or continue repeating the same canned response back to the customer. The customer can detect this and realize you are not authentically caring.
2. Pay attention to what your customer is saying. Listen carefully. Don’t jump to any conclusions about who is right or wrong, but listen to find what makes this case unique. By demonstrating that you are listening in a patient manner and asking questions to clarify the source of your customer’s displeasure you will disarm them. And you will have a better sense of how to actually address the issue the customer is presenting.
Then, if you discover you cannot help the customer, explain why and offer to find someone who can. Always follow up on such an offer so the customer knows you fulfilled your promise to refer them to another source, and there is nothing more you can do.
This may require you to make decisions that make sense – which means you need to adhere to the spirit of your company’s policy on the situation, not just the letter of that policy. Policies are guidelines.
And if there is no policy in place, now would be a good time to create one. Then you can deal more effectively with customers who come to you or your colleagues with a similar problem in the future.
3. Know your ideal customer and respect your time. If you have authentically attempted to resolve the customer’s concern but they are still upset, you need to move on.
If someone walks into a fast food burger restaurant and asks for a filet mignon, medium rare, that person is going to be disappointed. And maybe become irate, asking to see the manager.
No matter how much the manager tries to calmly explain he does not have filet mignon, the customer complains. The manager may even be caring enough to refer the person to a steak house down the road.
But in some cases, that still won’t make the customer happy. Your product or service will not be a good fit for everyone. You cannot please everyone. And contrary to the popular slogan, the customer is NOT always right.
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Serving difficult customers with care is not easy, but it can be done when you practice these basics: Remain Calm, Pay Attention, Know Your Ideal Customer.
The next time you are serving a difficult customer, keep in your mind what it was like the last time you reached out for support only to find yourself at the end of a long queue of other callers or frustrated with the process required to submit a ticket at a help desk.
Image by Katie White from Pixabay
I have worked in both foodservice and retail and these customers are common great advice.
I appreciate your comment - especially in light of your own experience.