We must face the fact that not all people are alike. In the call center industry, one of the most challenging part for an agents' shift is handling an irate customer. When you are faced in this situation what do you usually do?

There are many many different ways to deal with difficult customers. It all depends on what your goal is.

I'd say the #1 thing is to listen to them, you'll find right away that it really defuses people if they just know someone is listening to them. Repeat the problem back to them and make sure you get buy in "yes, that is my problem". Many organizations quietly lose huge parts of their customer market, it's the difficult customers that represent those people and will give you insight into significant (and sometimes easy to fix) problems.

This does several things but its important to get a customer on a "yes yes yes" track vs a "no no no" mindset. Take ownerhip....the #1 complaint of difficult customers ironically isn't the issue causing the trouble...but that no one is taking ownership and working on getting it resolved. If a customer feels that someone stepped up and took ownership they forgive immense amounts. Give them a 30 second call everyday until the situation is resolved, or better yet...get it resolved and give them a call the next day to make sure it's okay.


DO NOT fall into common traps such as...

"It wasn't me that did this"
"It's in your contract, section B4"
"I just work here"
"Calm down sir"

Employees must also have the ability to terminate calls without passing customers up the chain of command if the customers behaviour is offensive. I believe that the basic dignity of the agent must be more important than the retention of the aggressive customer.

If the reason the customer is agitated is because of a poorly trained/supervised adviser would you still advocate the caller being cut off?

I personally do not advocate any caller being cut off, the key here is the word 'customer', they can only be angry for one reason 'pooor service', who provides the service? Pass the call on but do not terminate.

Poorly treated customers inform more people about their treatment than those who are treated well.

I think that the difference is one of degree here Steve - agitated you must deal with but I believe that offensive behaviour is always unacceptable.

I agree with Ann Marie nothing excuses offensive behavior for whatever reason

If an abusive customer is also one of your most profitable ones then what? This could be the difference between having a business or not.

So the agents dignity it put on the line and message is sent out that it,s ok to be abusive

For me, sometimes we just need to use empathy and sympathy to our callers. We dont have to agree on anything he/she says, but the ability to let her/him know that we understand them. If you can't handle it yourself, escalate the call. Escalation is not only use when the customer is asking asking for supervisor. If you think that the call needs to be taken care of, escalate the call and it will really help the customer.

I don't believe that empathy or sympathy is the right approach where the caller is offensive. For example:

*Innuendo or taunting about the agents race, colour,age, sexual orientaion,sex, marital status,ethinic origin,accent,religion.

* Verbal abuse or threats

Do these kind of customers deserve the agents sympathy? Surely not.

Hi everyone,

I am a newbie here as well as a newbie in the Call Center Industry,
Just have 2 years of experience, just sharing what i think,

As a past agent myself, selling to customers is not a major problem
but building a good relationship is the key for a long term business,
I guess everyone is aware of that.

From my Experiences , I tend to play it cool while dealing with a abusive customer or any kind of customer,

While talking a call just need to listen to the customer just as Justin
has described, Listen then ask for the customers permission to speak,
Then the customer feels as if he is running the show, he tends to melt down,
then we can start taking him along the way & solving his problem but we should never forget to talk professionally as well as keeping it cool [ not letting the conversation slip away ], i always understand that sometimes we just cannot help it, but hanging up or abusing a customer back is not an option, in any case.

Just sharing my view,

Regards
Kev

Apparently verbal judo has been taught to hundreds of police departments and companies across the USA and Canada and seeks to diffuse a dangerous situation by redirecting anger rather than directly opposing it. (Verbal Judo Institute in Albuquerque)

Verbal judo is based on the assumption that an offending individual reacts to an authority figure according to the following breakdown:

7 to 10% - according to what is said
up to 40% - according to tone of voice
up to 60% - according to body language

Just indicates how difficult it is to defuse a situation over the phone I guess

When does a difficult customer become an offensive customer?

It is important for agents to understand the difference, be skilled and have authority to deal with both. Agents able to do this will naturally grow in confidence with each 'difficult' customer dealt with.

The way I see it - a difficult customer is likely to be angry, and potentially abusive. I have learnt to see past (ignore) abuse, see that it's not personal, just pure frustration at the company/product/situation, and take it as an opportunity to turn it into a positive experience for the customer.

However, I think guidelines should be in place to deal with those customers whose abuse does becomes offensive. The tricky part is that each agent will have different levels of tolerence and the question is how to define offensive?

*Innuendo or taunting about the agents race, colour,age, sexual orientation,sex, marital status,ethinic origin,accent,religion.

* Verbal abuse or threats

How can abuse like this not be "personal" and why should an Agent "ignore" it?

Surely any individual subjected to abuse has rights?

I agree with Ann-Marie's description of offensive behaviour, but wonder what else may be perceieved by individual agents as unacceptable?

Swearing, shouting, argumentative? The list could go on. How are these customers dealt with? It is these 'difficult' customers who are an opportunity.

The only part of call centre work i enjoyed was the angry customer! I loved it. It was a beautiful challenge to transform the situation and send the customer back to their lives with a smile on their face... and it put a smile on mine too to know i had affected someone positively.

As for swearing and abuse... even better! The bigger the challenge the bigger the learning and the bigger the reward. This is common sense. Most people are stuck in some weird belief systems about 'dignity' and what you should and shouldn't put up with... It doesn't matter, the situation is neither good nor bad nor right nor wrong, it is whatever you are going to make out of it. If you could see that actually you can benefit hugely from these customers then you would welcome them, embrace them and look forward to your next one coming!

Think... there is no box!

What we all deal with when an angry person is on the phone is predominantly a sysmptom of a wider business issue, sort this out and invariably you will not have to deal with angry people.

I have been working the phones in customer service / tech support for almost 3 years. I have worked cable tv, internet, and digital phone. Far and away, the vast majority of irate customers get that way because of communications breakdown.

Agents are rarely taught how to effectively relate or interpret information. How often do you hear an agent repeating the same sentence over and over, with increasing volume? It should be obvious that, if the caller did not understand the first time, they won't with increased repitition. Irate callers are mostly frustrated with a) no one seems to be able to fix the problem, b) no one cares enough to find out what the problem actually is, and c) no one really gives a damn if the problem ever gets addressed. In fact, for many agents this is true. Add to that process and access issues which can prevent the problem from being fixed and both agent and customer are frustrated.

I have found that the best way to deal with all customers is to forget all the jargon from the my moniters and simply talk to the person on the phone. Once the wall between agent and caller is gone, 2 people can discuss things rationally. Empathy, good communications, and so on, all fall into line. One also needs to recognize a couple of simple facts: profanity is not necessarily abuse, it may just be part of that persons vocabulary; abuse does not require profanity or even negative language, consider passive-aggressive speech; and finally, we tend to respond with anger when frustrated. Being willing to listen to the customer and to help, or at least coherently explain why help is not possible, will eradicate the frustration and return some basic civility. If nothing else, the customer will fall back to "you have been great. Your company sucks, but you have been wonderful."

Finally, there is the issue of the irrational caller. Obviously, you cannot give blanket authority to agents to drop calls; no calls would get processed! On the other hand, the if-you-ever-hang-up-you'll-be-fired approach removes basic dignity and humanity from the agent. Agents need to have some recourse when faced with a caller who refuses help and only wants to abuse someone. A somewhat effective approach is for the agent to be able to get floor support or a supervisor to listen in and approve the release.

There are very few of these calls. Of the 30k calls I have taken, I'd be surprised if more than 10 fell into this catagory. To qualify as beyond help, the caller must be talking so fast / loud that you cannot respond, must cut you off when you do begin to respond, and must refuse to provide account information and/or description of the problem. Refusal to troubleshoot can also put one in this catagory.

I have been known to goad callers out of their anger by either talking louder than them, talking so quiet that they have to calm down just to hear me, or simply asking, "Ma'am, do you actually want help or would you just like to vent? I only ask because I need to know what you want." The latter stands a good chance of making the caller hang up. For me, I am willing to take the consequences of dropping a call, so I devised my own rules:

a) until you give me your account information, you are not a customer. You are just a lunatic.

b) if you don't want my help, then go yell at someone else. this is not abuse-an-agent.

c) yelling, screamin, crying, swearing, and freaking out may be entertainment for you, but it is not for me. If you can not be more rational than my two-year-old, you need a time out. Call back when you have regained your senses.

To summarize: 99% of angry callers are just frustrated and can be calmed by showing that you are listening and willing to help. The other 1% probably need sedation and are not your responsibility.

Your reponse is absoluteley astonishing and I suspect will never find it's way into any contact centre training manual.

You're probably very right!

My sideline is freelance writer. I spent 2 years writing for the project's Quality 'zine, but we recently parted ways over creative differences (I'm creative, they're different). Right now, I am trying to write some coherent articles in the hopes of breaking into the call centre trades. So far, I have way too much to say about how the idustry operates, so mostly what comes out is "(&$(&@$&%($@@ STOP IT!!!!"

Somehow, I have to make that palatable. By the way, if anyone knows of some reputable trade publications that are not full of articles on how great every new bit of software is, please let me know. ;)