Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ANGRY CUSTOMERS
Facilitator’s Guide
Customer Service
Training Guide
Training Materials:
Participant handouts
a) Learning Objectives Difference
b) What Makes People Angry f) Strategies for the Call
c) Step-by-Step Approach for Center and Service Center
De-Escalating Anger g) Case Problems
d) Things that Can Make h) Your Success Story
Matters Worse i) Summary Card
e) Methods that Make a Huge j) Course Feedback
Flipchart (Things that Really Help)
Post-It pads
Attendance sheet
1. Recognize situations that can cause frustration for customers, and seek
ways to minimize the issues.
2. Avoid using words and behaviors that contribute to stressful situations.
3. Use techniques to help defuse emotions, and take control of the
customer interaction in order to achieve a positive outcome.
4. Recognize how our own beliefs and expectations can add stress to
working with upset or angry customers.
II. What Makes Customers Angry VII. Call Center and Service
a. Our own experience as Center-Specific Issues
customers a. Strategies for the Call
b. What makes people angry Center and Service Center
(general) b. Service Center
c. Specific things that may c. Call Center
upset Water Bureau VIII. Case Problems
customers a. Assign problems
III. A Step-by-Step Process for b. Read out
De-Escalating Anger IX. Noting the Customer Record
a. Four positive steps a. What to include in Memo
b. Overall benefit b. What NOT to include
IV. Things that Can Make Matters X. Stress Management Tips and
Worse Techniques
a. Not listening a. Our own expectations
b. Excuses b. Stress management
c. Defensiveness techniques
d. Quoting policy
e. Jargon, abbreviations XI. Success Stories
f. Words to avoid a. Your best story
g. Rudeness and sarcasm b. Lessons
V. Methods that Make a Huge XII. Conclusion
Difference a. Recovery
a. Apologize b. Future interactions
b. Soothe c. Review flipchart
c. Listen d. Summary cards
d. Assure you can help e. Closing
Psychologically Challenged
Chemically Impaired
Upset for a Reason
Angry at the World
Today we‟ll drill deeper into how to work with upset and
angry customers.
In this course you‟ll learn some tools and skills that will
help you, in many cases, to work more effectively with
irate customers.
What we’ll cover Bad News: Working with angry customers is almost
today always difficult, and there are no simple answers, no
recipe or formula you can follow in every case. Have to
read situations and use judgment to decide how to
respond.
Our own One of the best ways to deal with angry customer
experience as situations is before they happen—
customers
Think about how you feel when you’re a customer and
something has upset or frustrated you. Maybe a long line,
rude waiter or apathetic salesperson.
What makes Lots of things can make a customer angry. Most of the
people angry time, the customer will be pretty vocal about letting you
(general) know what‟s upsetting them. We need to pay attention
and respond based on what is upsetting them.
Four positive steps [Review the following, and have participants complete the
“Benefits” column of their handout, “Step-by-Step Process
for De-Escalating Anger.”]
Not listening Think about how you feel when you‟re telling someone
about a problem and they seem to be not listening. They
interrupt, they look bored, you get the impression they‟re
paying attention to something else.
Not interrupting.
Encouraging person to continue by saying things like
“I see” and “Yes.” (And in Service Center: nodding
and making eye contact.)
Paraphrasing what the customer said so they can
confirm your understanding.
Defensiveness It‟s natural to try to explain why you think we‟re right and
the customer is wrong—especially when you‟re sure you
are right!
Apologize During the initial part of the interaction, apologize for the
situation. The words should be simple. For example…
Assure you can Assure customer you can help (if you can). Accept the
help responsibility, and let them know they came to—
or called—the right place.
First, some good Angry customer situations will not happen often! Call
news! Center reps may get a couple a week, per Carrie.
In Service Center, even less—maybe one difficult
interaction a month, per Corbett.
Or,
If you ever feel Incidents when you might be in danger will be extremely
you’re in danger rare. Nonetheless, if you work in the Service Center, it‟s
important to know what to do in case you should ever feel
threatened.
Strategies for the Most of the skills and techniques for working with angry
Call Center and customers apply equally to the Service Center and Call
Service Center Center. But there are some differences in physical
circumstances and in how we can respond.
Read out [Have each group explain their situation and what
techniques they would use to work with the customer.
In all cases:
No sarcasm
No character defamation
No judgment of customer‟s sanity, intelligence or
sobriety
Do not mention customer‟s anger (furious, irate) or
behavior (yelled, screamed, cursed). You might state,
“The customer was concerned about XYZ.”
If customer made threats (said they would call the Mayor
or Water Bureau Commissioner or newspaper), put a note
in the account to document what they said and how you
responded.
Our own We cannot “fix” other people, but can adjust our own
expectations attitudes. Let‟s look at some common attitudes and what
happens to us as a result of having those attitudes:
1. When we‟re at work, we expect things to go
pleasantly, or at least neutral, most of the time.
When we get a situation that‟s unpleasant, takes us by
surprise and throws us off balance.
2. We’re nice people and we wouldn’t treat someone
else badly. When a customer is abusive, it makes us
indignant because it‟s unfair—after all, we didn‟t do
anything wrong.
3. We tend to take things personally. Hard not to
when the customer is yelling at YOU!
Using the skills in this course will help you work with the
customer. It may also help to remember that part of our
reaction comes from our own expectations. If we can
remind ourselves that people are human and have bad
days, or they may have legitimate reasons to be angry,
it can help us manage our own feelings.
Your best story Think of a situation where you worked effectively with
a customer who had been upset. Write down:
CONCLUSION