What are customer service representatives across the U.S. and Canada experiencing when it comes to their customers’ attitudes?  It runs the gamut from kind to irate and everything in between. Not knowing what type of personality will be on the other end of the line can raise anyone’s stress level.  Our best strategy is to be prepared and to use our words and voice to calm and de-escalate difficult people.

During the Tooty Training ® program, Difficult Customers, I ask customer service representatives 2 important questions.

• How often do your unhappy customers use profanity?
• Are you more intimidated by harsh words or tone of voice?

The answers have been the same over the past 4 years.  Customers don’t use profanity often and the use of profanity is common in some service areas but not in others. The biggest take-away from this question is the discovery that more representatives are intimidated by tone of voice than they are by words.  If representatives are affected by a customer’s voice, then we can conclude that customers are also affected by a representative’s voice.

What provokes a customer to respond negatively?

Voice: A monotone or impatient voice says, “I don’t care” or “I don’t have time for you.” 

Attitude: Your voice is what projects the attitude you have which is why voice and attitude go hand in hand.  If your attitude today is, “people aggravate me” then there is a good chance that you will aggravate your customer.  If you talk with others around you about your customer as being “that jerk” or “that idiot who doesn’t understand”, that negativity towards your customers will become contagious.

Wording:

What shouldn’t you say to a difficult or unhappy person?

1) Calm down

2) I don’t see any notes in the system

3) Probably, I think, not sure, etc.

4) Don’t make excuses

5) Don’t give personal opinion

Interested in Difficult Customer Training?  Contact me directly at lori_miller@tootyinc.com