The Top 5 Ways to Deal with Upset Customers

Work­ing in call cen­ters and the field of cus­tomer ser­vice means that inevitably, you and your team will deal with upset cus­tomers. The upset-customer spec­trum may range from slightly frus­trated to irate and yelling – but the end result will be the same if you don’t han­dle it prop­erly: You could per­ma­nently lose the customer’s busi­ness, and quite likely, that cus­tomer will tell his or her friends about the bad expe­ri­ence. The story may also be spread through social media chan­nels, as the cus­tomer uses his or her empow­ered voice to ensure that no one else has to deal with your company.

No one enjoys deal­ing with upset cus­tomers, but also keep in mind that peo­ple don’t buy a prod­uct or use a ser­vice with hopes that they can call cus­tomer ser­vice to com­plain; the cus­tomer is not sim­ply call­ing you to ruin your day. How you han­dle the customer’s com­plaint will either esca­late or dif­fuse the sit­u­a­tion, which will make your life much harder or much eas­ier – and deter­mine whether or not you have lost a cus­tomer or retained his or her busi­ness. So how should you deal with upset cus­tomers to ensure the best pos­si­ble out­come? We’ve com­piled five essen­tial tips to help you out.

The moment you encounter an upset cus­tomer, your very first step is to lis­ten care­fully and be patient as your cus­tomer vents and or/explains the prob­lem. It’s nat­ural for your “hack­les” to go up when a cus­tomer is yelling or starts with per­sonal attacks, but remem­ber that behind the emo­tion is a gen­uine prob­lem, so care­fully lis­ten and be patient while the cus­tomer vents. If you start off defen­sive, it will only esca­late the customer’s anger, and it will be harder to sort through the issue and get a sense for what the real prob­lem is. Remem­ber not to take the attacks per­son­ally, even if the cus­tomer is mak­ing per­sonal accu­sa­tions toward you – the cus­tomer is look­ing for acknowl­edge­ment that he or she is angry, so rec­og­nize that there is a prob­lem and that he or she has a right to be upset. Chances are, your patient approach will help dif­fuse the anger. Once the cus­tomer is calmer, you can start work­ing on address­ing the prob­lem constructively.

Once the cus­tomer has started to calm down, it’s now time to start fig­ur­ing out how to address the prob­lem and start putting your soft skills to work. Avoid phrases such as “that’s our pol­icy,” or “you’ll have to go to our web­site” – the cus­tomer did not call you to be shut down or re-directed – the cus­tomer called to speak to a live per­son who will help solve the prob­lem. By reit­er­at­ing the issue, you’re com­mu­ni­cat­ing to the cus­tomer that you clearly under­stand what is going on and affirm­ing to the cus­tomer that you are listening.

Instead of dis­tanc­ing your­self from the customer’s prob­lem by telling the cus­tomer that another depart­ment will help the cus­tomer, or that you’ll need to have a super­vi­sor assist with the prob­lem, let the cus­tomer know upfront that you, per­son­ally, will take respon­si­bil­ity to ensure that the issue is solved, and that you will work with the cus­tomer to make sure he or she ends up sat­is­fied. By stat­ing your respon­si­bil­ity, instead of sim­ply pass­ing the cus­tomer off (even if you will need to coor­di­nate with another depart­ment or a super­vi­sor to solve the prob­lem), you’re com­mu­ni­cat­ing that you’re on the customer’s side; you’re an ally. This per­sonal approach will rein­force to the cus­tomer that he or she is being lis­tened to and that the prob­lem is being addressed. In a cus­tomer ser­vice world where cus­tomers are used to nav­i­gat­ing through auto­mated phone sys­tems and deal­ing with scripted call cen­ter reps, this per­sonal acknowl­edge­ment will stand out.

Instead of dic­tat­ing to the cus­tomer your company’s pol­icy or telling the cus­tomer what will hap­pen, re-phrase the process by say­ing some­thing such as “What would you con­sider a fair solu­tion?” When you do this, you allow the cus­tomer to be a part of the solu­tion and help set the start­ing point for a nego­ti­a­tion, as well as set a level of expec­ta­tion for the out­come. Even if the cus­tomer sug­gests some­thing that is beyond what your com­pany can offer, it gives you a start­ing point to work down from so that the cus­tomer is com­pen­sated for time lost on a ser­vice or a bro­ken product.

Once you have ended the call, your job is not over; if you have dealt with an upset cus­tomer, follow-up after a few weeks to make sure that the prob­lem was suf­fi­ciently solved and that the cus­tomer was pleased with the result. By check­ing back in, you are demon­strat­ing that your com­pany really does care that the cus­tomer is pleased, and you are let­ting the cus­tomer know that his or her busi­ness really mat­ters and that you will go the extra mile to keep them.

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No one wants to deal with upset cus­tomers, but the sil­ver lin­ing is that if you know how to deal with upset cus­tomers, you can actu­ally increase cus­tomer loy­alty to your brand – all it takes is the right cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing to ensure that you’re endear­ing, and not alien­at­ing cus­tomers, when you deal with their issues.