Anyone who has spent any time at all in a customer service role will have experienced a customer who is difficult to deal with. Whether that’s a customer who is angry, upset or just very frustrated.
It’s an unavoidable situation, even for the most experienced customer service professional working in an efficient department. An angry or tense exchange can have a negative impact on both the staff and customers involved. Research shows that 76% of customer service staff experience burn out either often, or sometimes and 54% of customers said they had shared a bad experience more than 5 times.
There are a number of techniques available to reduce the chances of a customer becoming frustrated or angry and then defuse the situation as much as possible when they do.
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1 Verbal Handshake
The verbal handshake is a practice that refers to a pleasant introduction and a warm invitation for the customer to share their problem or question. A calm and friendly verbal handshake puts customers more at ease, even in cases where they arrive at the call frustrated (e.g. after a long wait on hold) and reduces the chances of an escalation duration of the interaction.
2 Holding Patterns
One of the most frustrating experiences for a customer is often the time spent placed on hold. This can raise frustration levels and lead to ‘drop offs’. Avoiding drop-offs where possible is essential to avoid losing customers and wasting the time of your customer service staff.
Best practices for holding include; creating choice, checking back in, and adding personal touches. The creation of choice gives control back to the customer and allows them to choose whether they are willing to hold or not they may refuse if they are in a rush and this allows the call attendant to address their next caller without worrying about the last.
Checking back in during particularly long hold times provides relief from the recurrent hold music or script and reassures callers that they are being actively attended to while adding personal touches accomplishes similar outcomes.
3 Attention
Demonstrating that you’re paying attention to your callers is key to building a rapport with them. Some good ways to do this include verbal feedback using the information that they are giving you. Not only does this allow it to be committed to memory but also shows active interest. Ensure that you have their name and use it often and with purpose.
4 Accuracy
Taking messages or queries on-call can be challenging however, it is important to be concise, precise, and accurate in order to ensure the best possible client outcome. Having a quiet or muted background will allow call attendants to avoid asking for repetition from their customers and attain information with enhanced ease. Tips for accuracy include taking down contact information, subject, date, and then specifics in order to reach the customer with updates if required. In order to ensure accuracy, it is recommended that callers read messages back to their customers in order to fix possible pieces of inaccurate information.
5 Control
Empathy and direction will go a long way in maintaining subtle control of the conversation in order to get messages in the most efficient way possible.
Empathy will serve as a tool to better understand your customers and encourage a better rapport with the organisation that the call attendant is representing-essentially leaving a better impression of the same. Many customers will come away happy if they feel they have been listened to and their problems understood, even if the operator isn’t able to resolve the issue immediately.
Empathy also plays a key role in managing difficult situations as it relieves some tension through understanding and patience with customers. Being direct will enable callers to get to the heart of the issue without distraction after which they can direct the information or customer to a relevant party or service without the frustration of circular conversation for both parties.
6 Anger
Dealing with angry customers or clients can be challenging for even the most experienced of callers, this can be eased through a series of important tips to remember. Remain calm and composed, although this may be difficult it is important to maintain your composure in order to solve issues as efficiently as possible. Actively listen, don’t interrupt, and don’t speak over a customer even if you think what they’re saying is incorrect. Very often an angry customer just wants to be heard and understood
Avoid putting irate callers on hold as far as possible as discussed earlier this is considered one of the most frustrating parts of a call. If you do need to put them on hold, remember to check in with them regularly if the hold time is extended and reassure them that something will happen soon.
At the end of the day empathy and understanding can go a very long way to keeping a customer calm and even come away feeling happy despite the fact that things have gone very wrong.
If you want to get more great tips and ideas on how to deal with customers on the phone, telephone answering specialists Verbatim have produced a great set of video tutorials about customer service techniques to use on the telephone.
