UNDERSTANDING AN ANGRY CUSTOMER

You probably see hostile customer everyday. You know the ones that treat you like a personal dumping ground for everything that has ever gone wrong in their lives.

They may be sarcastic or abusive the may swear at you threaten attempt to intimidate they are difficult to deal with an encounter with one of these people can ruin your day.

Although you may be provided, it isn’t a good idea to respond in kind doing so will inflame the situation and can in fact put you at risk yelling back or trading insults can result in only negative consequences for you.

Let’s face it you don’t have much time to waste arguing and yelling you have too much to do, but you do need to deal with hostile customers, you need to get the situation under control, deal with it and get on with your work.

There are a number of techniques you can use to do this month we are going to help you understand what is going on when hostile customers direct their anger at you. Understand angry people help us become less reactive prone to losing our own temper.

IT AIN’T PERSONAL: The first thing to remember about angry customer is that their behavior is directed at you ( and it can be personally insulting), the real source of the anger at you as a person he/she is usually angry at you as an employee of an organization that is perceived as cold, unfeeling and unhopeful.

WHAT DOSE AN ANGRY PERSON WANT? One of the half truths about hostile customer is that they want half truth about hostile customer is that they want their problem solved. This isn’t the whole story, when a person is initially denied something from an organization, they get to a point where the problem solved, but after a point, they get so angry that they are unwilling to work positively to get what they started out wanting. Even if you could work something out with them, they would still be angry.

WHAT TO DO: There are specific things you can do to take control of potential hostile situations so that they don’t escalate into major consuming conflicts.

First you need to observe customers as they approach you and prepare yourself for the possibility that they may show in such as hostile behaviors.

Second when you are in conflicts with hostile customers you must strive to present yourself in as unbureaucratic a way as possible. Remember we are talking about customer anger being really aimed at the organization if the customer perceives you as an object of the bureaucracy, they will be more likely to be more abusive.’

SPECIFIC: Let’s get more specific how do you do this;

1. Speaking in a friendly manner.
2. Use the customer’s name and introduce yourself.
3. Greet the persona properly.
4. Listen carefully.
5. Never say “I only work here.”

CONCLUSION

Every hostile situation is different, and not all solutions will work all the time. The general principles we have talked about here are prepared based on observation earlier in the process of dealing with customers, and make sure that you come across as a real person.