Developing Customer Service Skills For 30+ Years
One of the toughest tasks facing customer service representatives is dealing with angry, frustrated, and difficult customers. Fortunately, there are tried and true methods to defuse these difficult situations professionally, and in ways that save time for everyone.
This section contains tips, techniques, and principles to apply to even the toughest customers no matter what sector: retail, service, regulatory and more. Most are taken from my books. You can browse these books on amazon by clicking here.
Hashtag: #defusingangrycustomers
Everyone acts badly on occasion, and the majority of your angry customers are probably just like you: normal people who get frustrated Is Angry and Hostile Customer Behavior A Result of Their Personalities? Think about some the difficult customers you have encountered.. What did they…
Refusing A Customer Request For You To Make An Exception Customers are always asking for exceptions, since they feel their circumstances are somehow special. The “Can’t you do this just this once” request is one that can be annoying to you, because it’s either whining,…
Customers Who Lie. Customers Who Exaggerate How Can I Correct A Customer Who Is Exaggerating? Customers will often exaggerate to make their situation sound more serious than it is, or to put themselves in a positive light. While customers can do this intentionally as a…
Understanding how anger escalates can tell us a lot about how to prevent escalation and start defusing What Is The Escalation Cycle, and How Does It Apply To Angry Customers? Getting caught in the escalation cycle with a customer is one of the worst things…
A way of encouraging angry customers to “let go” of their anger and work to solve the problem What Is The “Distraction Technique” and What Is It Used For? The Distraction Technique is one of a family of verbal self defense techniques we teach readers…
Individuals Differ On Whether They Complain What Is Propensity To Complain? We’ve all experienced situations as customers where we’ve been upset with a product or service, and NOT complained. Perhaps we’ve been too busy, or it’s not convenient, or the concern we have is really…
The Powerful Apology To A Customer How To Offer An Apology To A Customer That Is Effective There are ways to apologize to customers that will calm them down, and turn their anger into something less volatile, and there are ways to apologize that actually…
Many times, customers want to be heard and treated as important even if you can’t solve their concern What do angry customers really want from me? Sometimes it seems that it’s impossible to figure out what an angry customer really wants from you and…
Civility seems to be dying out, particularly when customers get frustrated at not getting what they want, when they want Why are some customers so darned difficult and rude? It’s understandable that customer service providers often ask this question: Why do customers act so rudely…
It’s not fair, but it’s reality. Customers blame you because you are handy, even if you aren’t doing anything blame worthy Why do angry customers pick on me, when I don’t make the rules? It’s very frustrating to encounter customers who aim their anger and…
