Effective Customer Service: Dealing with Angry Customers

So what's the best way to deal with an angry customer? They're on the phone, they're yelling at you, and the first reaction is just yell back or hang up. The problem is, if you're a big major business, you can't do that because it's going to create more problems. They're going to call back twice as angry. And hey, they are the paying customers. The first thing you have to do is listen. Now, this isn't necessarily pleasant, but you need to listen to them. The second thing you've got to do is spite the urge to debate them. You may have all the facts on your side. You had to cut off their service because they didn't pay. But if you just throw that fact out to them right away, you're just going to escalate things. They're going to get angrier and angrier and angrier. So telling a customer why they are wrong isn't going to help resolve the dispute. It's not going to diffuse tensions. Most important, it's not going to get rid of them. They're going to keep calling back again and again and again. So you got to fight that instinct to tell them why they're wrong. You have to fight the instinct to just provide rational facts. Because if someone's calling you up and they're angry, well, what is anger? It's an emotion. They're not calling up, typically factually laying out numbers in a calm, soothing, professional voice, are they? They're calling up angry. You can hear the tension in their voice. You might hear extra volume in their voice. So we can't ignore it. People get angry. We're all human beings. I get angry, you get angry. Anger is a part of life. And you have the job of talking to customers who are angry. You need a solution that works for them and for you. So the first thing you've got to do is realize that there's emotion there. Part of what will diffuse the emotion is to listen to them, really listen. I don't just mean saying huh, huh while you're checking email and writing nasty things about them on the report. You have to listen to it periodically. You have to say, let me make sure I'm understanding. And then you have to play back in your words, synthesizing what they are saying. You're not just mimicking them. You're not pandering to them, you're not agreeing with them, but you are telling them back a summary of what their complaint was. But even that's not enough. You've got to then say Did I understand you correctly? Did I get it right? You need to wait until they actually tell you that you got it right. That's very, very important. Once you do that, they are going to feel respected, they are going to feel listened to and some of the tension is going to be gone. It doesn't make everyone happy, but it solves some of the problem and it puts them in a mental state, in an emotional state where they are much more likely to listen to you. You do need to express some sympathy for them feeling bad. Again, it's not the same thing as you agreeing with them. You're not agreeing with their facts. They may have the facts wrong. They may be a hundred percent of the wrong. You may be 100% right. But if you want to deal with this consumer problem, you, you have to recognize that's how they feel. Make sure that you understand their sentiment. Express some sympathy for the fact that they're feeling bad. Now. Now is the time when you can bring up something of a factual nature that could help resolve their problems and to do it with a polite, respectful tone of voice. Now, you can try to match them. If they're yelling and screaming, you don't want to yell and scream back. But if they are speaking slowly, you may want to slower your speech patterns. If they're speaking softly, you can soften your speech patterns. This will make them feel more comfortable with you. We're not trying to manipulate them. We're trying to calm them down so we can have an honest and fair discussion to resolve this, their dispute. So try to do that and try to figure out, is there some common ground? Is there a simple solution? Sometimes if someone is in the wrong, they forgot to pay their bill and now they're upset. You cut their power off if you simply listen to them and acknowledge, wow, I can understand that must have been devastating when you had your entire family over for dinner and the power went out and everyone had to eat cold food. You can sympathize with that. And the mere fact that you sympathized may make them open to the idea of, okay, I gotta pay my bill on time and okay, you're gonna pull out your credit card. We can turn it on right now if that is the potential solution. So try those techniques and realize when you've got an angry customer, it's not a time to consider yourself a debate star. Debates don't win. It's not a time to bombard someone with facts. It's not anything. You're going to win by proving someone they are wrong. It is a time for communication, for empathy, and for bringing people together for a mutual resolution. Can I share with you one small problem? Our research shows that the vast majority of people who watch this channel don't subscribe. If you could hit subscribe, it'll really help us share this message and help more people all over the globe. So, please, if you could just take one second to hit subscribe, it would help a lot.