John Tschohl, founder and president of the Service Quality Institute, presents his guide to Handling Irate Customers and Difficult Situations Technique card.
Not all customers are nice. Strong, assertive people will chew people up and spit them out if your employees are slow, weak, or incompetent. Very few employees know how to handle an irate or difficult customer. Many employees just hang up the phone. In person, they might call the police.
With Virgin Airlines, I called a ticket counter agent “dumber than a rat,” and he called security on me. I had to apologize, or he was going to kick me off the flight to the UK. He had spent one hour on the phone with Delta Diamond Desk and could not find my reservation that Delta could easily see.
It takes very little to send employees into orbit. To many of these employees want to get rid of you at any cost, and they do not care how valuable you are and how much revenue you mean to their company. Many employees couldn’t care less.
When I developed Feelings in 1979 in our field tests, employees wanted to know how to handle irate customers, so we built it into the program. Let’s say an employee starts their shift at 7 am, and at 7:10 am, they have a major blow-up with a customer. We expect the employees to pick themselves up and be cheerful for the balance of the day. This is one reason employee turnover is so high among front-line employees. Frankly, it ruins an employee’s day when they have a confrontation with a customer. Eventually many employees say, “This job sucks. I am out of here.”
I find you never need to raise your voice or be really irate to get an employee upset. It is critical that all employees who interface with customers be trained on how to deliver an awesome customer experience and handle irate and difficult customers. It will help you keep customers and reduce employee turnover.
Here is our Handling Irate Customers and Difficult Situations Technique card. These are the principles we teach:
About the Author
John Tschohl is the founder and president of the Service Quality Institute—the global leader in customer service—with operations in more than 40 countries. He is considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on all aspects of customer service and has developed 17 customer service training programs, including Remember Me, that are used by companies throughout the world. His monthly strategic newsletter is available online at no charge at www.customer-service.com. He can also be reached on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
For more information on John Tschohl and the Service Quality Institute, visit www.customer-service.com.
