This year I found myself in the middle of a challenging situation that involved two people who were totally irrational. Their mean spirit, ruthless tactics and harsh words made me want to lash out. I began to plot their demise and calculate how I could triumph. I rehearsed clever zingers that would put them in their place and practiced my response to their eventual apologies. And then I woke up! I knew I had to be a calming influence in a tough situation even though every bone in my body wanted to react. Trying to endure verbal assaults without having your own emotions come through is as hard as it gets. Sometimes a difficult customer can get the best of us so understanding what is behind the negativity and having a strategy to deal with difficult people will allow you to stand strong, keeping your emotions intact.
During the month of July my team at Tooty posed as irritated and impatient customers as part of ongoing evaluation and training for our customers. CSRs do admit that the customer’s tone of voice and mean comments make them sweat. The goal of the calls and evaluations was to determine if a gruff voice, snarky comments or an uncomfortable service challenge deterred the CSRs from providing positive solutions. The Tooty call results showed that we are most likely to take a short cut on assessing the issue in order to get the customer off the phone and in our haste the solution given may not solve the issue.

In a recent survey of our customers, 85% of the customer service representatives and their managers stated they were more intimidated by tone of voice than the words a customer uses. They also shared that in some of the markets they serve over 50% of their customers use profanity in the conversations. The first few words from a customer often determines the direction the conversation will go. What can you and your CSRs do to handle difficult customers more positively?
1) Remember that your customer’s bark may be worse than his bite. Behind every gruff voice is a nice person waiting to come out! A kind word can cool a hot head.
2) The way you sound when you answer will either set off an already unhappy customer or bring calm.
3) Go the extra mile to address your customer by name and use please and thank you to be respectful. A little oil of courtesy will save a lot of friction.
4) Show empathy by using some comments such as; you understand their position, you can see how they’d feel the way they do, and they’ve got a great point.

Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you, not because they are not nice but because you are nice. You can’t change human nature, but perhaps you can improve it!