Somewhere between 鈥渂uyer beware鈥� and 鈥渢he customer is never wrong鈥� is the sweet spot
of customer service where you concede that the people you serve are never wrong but
gently allow that they are not always right. Whether you are serving a hotel guest
or working with a team to serve a particularly particular business client, mutual
satisfaction is the goal, with one caveat: Your customer鈥檚 happiness is the source
of your satisfaction, and your satisfaction is defined by your company鈥檚 success,
which depends on your customer鈥檚 happiness. Yes, it鈥檚 quite circular. You protect
your company鈥檚 interests by making your clients鈥� legitimate demands paramount, which
is much, much easier said than done. To that end, we share a game-changing tip for dealing with difficult customers.
Listen and Respond Appropriately
Everything that needs to be said about dealing with difficult customers can be abridged to a three-word sentence: Listen; respond appropriately. It takes a long time, however, to unpack that wee sentence.
Listen
鈥淟isten鈥� equals 鈥渃ommunicate.鈥� Effective communicating begins with finding common ground and expanding it:
- Make sure you understand exactly what the customer is saying and wants.
- Make sure the customer understands what you are saying.
- Make sure the customers/clients know the rules that bind you and affect them.
Chron, an online Hearst Newspapers publication, cites :
- Not recognizing what the audience knows and needs to know.
- Not using the proper method of communication. (Blast your message by email or teleconference or go more one on one and personal?)
- Not ensuring the intended message was the one received.
Respond Appropriately
Listening is a two-way process, a matter of give and take, and you can鈥檛 respond appropriately if you don鈥檛 truly listen. Too often, responses are based not on what you actually heard but on expectations shaped by experience. The customer presents a familiar issue in a familiar way, so it鈥檚 easy to shift to autopilot and address a type of problem and not necessarily the one at hand.
The proper response is the one informed by good communication that identifies the problem and enables you to present a solution informed by your expertise.
Does it help to know the and the how-to of which addresses 鈥渕anaging your emotions in a hostile confrontation鈥�?
Sure, having textbook responses can help, but there鈥檚 a risk of defaulting to canned solutions that don鈥檛 apply. So, you can memorize the 11 types of difficult customers and how to handle them, or you can develop and employ a protocol that deals with people as .
Your , however, whether driven purely by experience, a , the golden rule, or a mix of the aforementioned, will be useless if your people
aren鈥檛 empowered to execute it.
Are Your People Empowered to Respond Appropriately?
Sir Richard Branson, co-founder of the Virgin Group Ltd., relies on a business model that puts employees first. The result, theory and practice indicate, is a well-served customer. Branson is big on empowering his people, which includes giving then the authority to push the envelope on problem-solving. That doesn鈥檛 mean no boundaries, just flexibility.
In an article titled author Brian Greenberg, founder of True Blue Life Insurance Inc., says, 鈥淚 give my employees the authority to incur a company loss of up to $500 in order to resolve a service issue. If a customer is upset, an employee can offer a refund of $500 without even asking. As a result, I deal with far fewer headaches, and both the customer and the employee have a better experience when resolving issues. Everybody wins.鈥�
So, let鈥檚 say you鈥檝e created a culture of excellence where empowered employees are skilled at identifying and resolving customer service issues. What does that look like? Here鈥檚 a fictional example of a customer service rep listening and responding appropriately:
- Irate customer calls to complain that the clothes dryer he bought is pure junk sold by crooks.
- Service rep keeps it professional, listening patiently and getting the facts behind
the anger:
- Dryer lint trap snagged and ruined an expensive set of sheets.
- Dryer is out of warranty by almost five months. Problem surfaced within weeks of the purchase, but the first time it didn鈥檛 involve a 1,500 thread-count, Egyptian-quality cotton sheet set costing $157.99.
- Rep sympathizes and responds appropriately, ordering delivery of a $17.10 (retail) lint trap.
- Customer walks away happy without walking away from the brand.
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