The importance of being able to deal with difficult customers.

I know I’ve been saying every skill is important but the most important is probably the ability to deal with difficult callers. The better you deal with them the better your performance will be and the lower your stress level

First I want to say that there is a difference between a difficult caller and an abusive caller. Be aware of your center’s policy on abusive calls. Hopefully they will have rules in place where you can escalate the call to a supervisor or disconnect he call in certain situations.

What is the difference between an abusive and a difficult call? To me an abusive call is when they start attacking you personally but each person has their own definition of what they can take.

1. The first step is to try and avoid the situation all together. Start the call with a pleasant tone which will reasure the caller that you want to help them with their issue.

2. There are two types of calls that go bad the first kind is when the caller was mad before he got on the phone and the other is when he gets mad during the phone call. This will deal with the former. These callers can be mad for a variety of reasons such as billing issues, long hold times, or maybe they have called in multiple times and we never solved their problem.
One of my first calls was a lady with a blackberry issue. I told her I would transfer her to the blackberry group. She refused and we were not allowed to transfer without the callers permission. She continued to yell at me about how she was on hold for twenty minutes and finally gave up. I don’t know why she thought yelling at me would help.

3. While that lady upset me a considerable amount I did the right thing. I let her rant. Usually if you let people yell for a few minutes they will calm down. It also helps to use reassuring phrases like I’m sure that is frustrating or we are sorry for your inconvenience. I don’t recommend taking blame. Even if the caller says it is your companies fault it doesn’t mean they are correct.

4. When listening to the client try to find key phrases in their complaint to determine the issue. Prepare yourself for when they are done. Come up with questions to ask to clarify the situation. If you diagnose the problem tell the client I can help you with that, they usually like that phrase. If you are unsure of an answer don’t say it.

5 If you are in a situation where you cannot help the client use a phrase like, what we can do for you is ______ giving them a positive alternative works much better than just saying no we can’t help you.

6. Doing what you promised. It is always important to follow through on what you told the caller you would do for them. Not doing this only makes them madder for the next agent they call. If you are unsure that you can follow up or if it goes to another group and they are responsible for the follow up tell the caller. It is better however to say something like I am sending your ticket to the __ group but I don’t know what there workload is than promising they will take care of it.