Dealing with an angry or unhappy customer is an opportunity to learn, and an opportunity to turn a negative situation into a positive customer experience. How you react to an angry customer can make or break the perception the customer has with your brand.
Instead of fearing an angry customer, use the situation to improve your product or service, and to build a better relationship with your customer.
Here are ten tips on how to handle angry customers.
Listen
Practice active listening rather than passive listening. Active listening means concentrating on everything the customer is saying so you have a clear understanding of why they’re upset. Passive listening means only absorbing part of the message, and not paying full attention to the emotions behind their communication.
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
Be present and give the customer your full attention. Read the customer’s inquiry twice before you respond. Focus on the words they’re communicating and not the anger behind their words.
To show the customer you’re actively listening, paraphrase what their complaint is, ask clarifying questions, and don’t interrupt them. This is often the most effective way to handle angry customers at the outset of the situation.
Apologize
Apologize for the problem they’re having. Acknowledging the mistake and letting the customer know you’re really sorry will go a long way. Be thorough in your apology.
Instead of: “I’m sorry for the inconvenience”. say: “I’m sorry your order was late, this isn’t the customer experience we’re aiming for and I can see how this would be really frustrating. I’ve looked into the issue and here’s what happened…”
A thorough apology shows the customer you care, and you understand their frustration. Offer a brief explanation but don’t drag this out too much. Keep the explanation short and move forward.
Show empathy
Empathy helps guide your response and reaction to an angry customer. Empathy doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing with the customer. It means you truly understand how they feel.
By truly understanding how the customer feels, you’ll be able to relate with them on a more personal level. As you have difficult conversations with customers, showing empathy will help de-escalate the issue and show the customer you respect them and are really listening to them.
Maintain a calm tone of voice
Don’t let frustration get the better of you. When dealing with an angry customer, you may be tempted to match their tone of voice. Avoid this at all costs, as it will only make the situation worse.
It’s easy to copy a frustrated person’s tone of voice and to respond immediately after they finish a statement. But you’ll have a more productive conversation if you can remain calm and if you can take a brief moment to think about your answer.
Use the customer’s name
There’s power in a name. Using the customer’s name puts a face to the person you’re talking to. It helps instil a strong level of personalization in the interaction. This is much more effective when dealing with angry customers than addressing a nameless entity who could be anyone.
“Remember that a person’s name is to that person the most sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
Using the customer’s name shows you care, and it also reminds the customer that you are also a real person working for a real company. Addressing the customer by name also shows them that you respect them.
Build and maintain trust
It’s very likely that the level of trust an angry customer has for your company has been damaged, and it’s important to rebuild and maintain that trust moving forward.
If you’ve made a mistake, it’s okay, you’ll just need to work a little harder to repair the relationship.
The first thing you need to do is show the customer you care and show them you truly understand the problem. When handling an angry customer, make sure you have all of the background information and order history for that customer. This will show the customer you’re confident and capable of helping them.
Be honest and transparent with the customer. Give them a behind-the-scenes view of the things so perhaps they can even empathize with you.
Don’t take it personally
Remember, this is work, not your personal life. Don’t take a customer’s anger personally, as if they’re angry with you. They’re not angry with you, they’re angry with your product or service. They had a certain expectation when they purchased a product and they experienced a problem.
If you take it personally, you risk getting angry with the customer and this is when the situation becomes worse.
Taking it personally also brings your own spirits down, and that can negatively affect your overall quality of work and mental well-being.
Avoid negative language
When it comes to handling an angry customer, support teams must be skilful in the language they use. Negative language will only add fuel to the fire, whereas positive language is an ingredient to help tame a heated situation.
Avoid using language that implies the customer is wrong or makes them feel isolated. The customer doesn’t want to hear these things right now, even if there is some truth behind the statements. Instead, using positive language will help instil confidence with the customer and begin to turn a negative situation into a positive one.
Resolve the issue
Your primary goal when handling an angry customer is to resolve their issue. Are there workarounds? Is there something you or the customer can do themselves immediately to satisfy their needs? If so, let them know.
If you discover you’re not able to resolve the issue immediately, be honest with the customer. Set expectations with them so they know when their issue will be resolved. More importantly, meet those expectations and if you can’t, let them know ahead of time so you don’t further damage the relationship. If needed, escalate the issue to a senior member of the support team or your manager.
Collaboration is often the fastest way of resolving the issue. You may have more experienced or technically adept members of the customer service team and so their help is often invaluable to solving an issue.
Share the knowledge
Angry customers can teach us a lot. More often than not, the root cause of an angry customer points to some operational changes support agents can make to improve the customer experience. One of those things is sharing what you learn from the customer.
Have an easy way to share feedback from angry customers with product managers, designers, and engineers. Then, the entire team can collaborate on coming up with long-term solutions to keeping your customers happy.
Conclusion
Handling angry customers is difficult, but it’s not impossible. The most important thing you can do is let the customer vent their frustrations. Then, meet them with respect, patience and empathy.