Handling Difficult Customers

It can be a challenge to smile with some customers. Customer service jobs are some of the most stressful jobs in the world. If you are dealing with pleasant customers all day, then the job is good. However the reality is that you will have plenty of customer conflicts, which can be very stressful. Most customer interactions are pleasant, but it just takes a few bad interactions a day, to cause stress. If the staff have no training for conflict resolution, they will go home full of stress. Staff who have a lot of stress are not good for customers or business.

While you can not eliminate all stress from these jobs, there are ways to reduce stress. The number one reason that these customer conflicts are so stressful, is that we do not have a lot of practice handling these conflicts in a correct way. The staff need to be trained and be given the tools to better deal with the conflict. One of the first things to do is to give staff a preset power or dollar amount so they can solve most customer issues. Then staff can be trained in some basic steps in conflict resolution. Below are some conflict resolution training tips.

Do not say , "Calm down"  to the customer, that is like pouring gas on a fire. This can further enrage the customer. Empathy needs to be shown to the customer. You need to be able to listen and understand the emotional language of the conversation to see how important the issue is to the customer.

(Example)   A customer might call their newspaper customer service and complain about just one missed paper. The staff might think , big deal its just one missed paper and why is this customer so angry. Well, unknown to the staff, the customer wanted this morning paper because there was going to be an article about one of their children. So in this case the strong emotional tone from the customer indicates how this is very important to the customer and why it needs to be corrected. (Send another paper out right now)  Once the staff realize the real reason,  they might be able to understand the level of anger from the customer. Also the staff can now see why the customer is so angry, and show empathy.

Also keep in mind the customer may have had a bad day, and this issue could be the outlet or trigger for their anger. Their anger is not a personal attack, but rather strong emotion about the issue.

Once you know what the issue is, present a few solution options.Then review the options with the customer and implement the best solution.

There  are many more techniques that can be taught to the staff, but these give a little insight into how training can help staff deal with difficult customers. Staff who have less stress are great for customers and will help increase business.