Handling Difficult Customers Essay Example for Free

Handling Difficult Customers Essay Listed are some of the easons why customers become difficult when communicating technical problems. 1. Wanting a live operator but ending up in an automated telephone loop. Excessive waiting times to be connected to an operator. 2. Representatives rushing callers or even faking a disconnection. 3. Incompetent Representatives, incapable of processing requests effectively. 4. Representative not actively listening to the complaint. 5. Departments not communicating with one another. 6. Condescending Representative using technical Jargon they dont understand. 7. Representatives who sounds bored and disinterested. 8. I will address the complaints: 1) Wanting a live operator but ending up in an automated telephone loop, 2) Incompetent Representatives, incapable of processing requests. 3) Representative not actively listening to the complaint. The support specialist should follow the customer problem resolution and recovery procedures to address the significance of each of concept and overcome challenges that may arise Consumer emotions The first thing that a customer hears is a message saying, miour call is valuable to us. Please hold the line for the next available Representative. Then. they wait, and ait and wait. Finally after what seems like hours to them, they are connected with you. They are already angry with their situation and are faulting the company, now they are really angry about the wait time to get to speak with a live person. They feel that if they were really a valued customer, the wait time would be minimal. Resist the temptation to label the customer as a problem and cut out the negative thoughts. Start the recovery process with an apology after you let them vent. Smile and speak with sincerity, and dont fall into the trap that youre angry or difficult customer is aiting you with. If you feed into the anger, you will only escalate the problem. Your words, tone, and attitude are should be empathetic. This will deflects and diffuses an angry customer. You want to make sure the customer know you are listening and taking their situation seriously. Now the customer is upset that the Representative couldnt or didnt answer their questions and wasted their time. Their expected all the rep to know the particulars about their product without having to put them on hold or transfer the call to someone else. If you do need to work with other departments, please inform the ustomer that you will personally take the matter into your own hands and will need to investigate on the issues. Reassure the customer that you are coordinating the best possible resolution, and if you need to get the assistance achieve it. A great rep always sounds friendly. Customer doesnt like someone who sounds bored and disinterested at their problem. They want to feel that you are about their issue and are interested in resolving their issue. When you answer a customers call, please smile. Keep a positive attitude and be upbeat, they will be able to hear it in our voice. Ownership When upset or angry about a situation, a two minute wait time can feel like nothing at all, or can feel like forever. A company must learn how to influence the customer feelings about the waiting time. Representative must approach these customers with the mind set of the customer has a right to be angry, even before you know the details. Let them vent their feelings, without passing Judgment, and only interject when they start to becomes directly abusive towards you. If the customer senses that they are communicating with someone who is ncapable, it will create another reason to be frustrated or angry. If you dont have the power to solve the issue or answer the question, tell the customer that you own the problem. Let them know that you will apply your personal effort to find a solution, Sounding bored or disinterest is absolutely preventable! Have your environment arranged in a way so that the telephone conversations are customer oriented, convenient, and efficient. Reduce distractions by tuning out office noise, have paper and pencil handy to take notes when necessary. Be prepared to answer the elephone by having it within easy reach, no more than an arms length away. Customer callers do not hear the first two words of the conversation so when answering the phone use buffer words. You can say something like, Thank you for calling , or Good (morning or afternoon) this is.. Dont Just say hello and then wait for customers to answer. Self-control When you respond with hostility, or lose your self-control, you are contributing to the escalation of the situation. You have a snide response, and then the customer is even more fired up and ups the abuse. Instead calmly interject with some empathy. Say l understand your frustration with the situation; I want us to move past this so we can fix the problem that you are calling abo ut. Please allow me to help you. Sometimes the technical problem is in need of more attention because it may impact other customers. You dont want to seem like you dont know what you are doing, so acknowledge the individual customer emotion first. Then resolve the technical issue that you can handle and address bigger issues as a more multi- department activity. Let your customers know that you are listening and you want to help. Write down notes during the conversation. When the customer is done venting, reiterate the priorities from the customer perspective. Address the emotional and technical aspects of the customer concerns. This will put you in focus on the appropriate issues and reassure the customer that you are concentrating on their priorities. Adaptation Our Country is made up of an increasing number of immigrants and transitional residents. These same immigrants were the founding Fathers of our Country. Maybe the caller is new to the English language and was put on hold for so long, or didnt know to press a certain number for a Representative. Companies can take these complaints and adjust the systems to address the needs and accommodate multiple languages. Some companies have taken customer service to the next level and are hiring multilingual customer service providers. Having these systems set can prevent many of the listed complaints from being uttered again. Mistaken customers customers. Their wait time was less than a minute, but they wanted a live operator to pick up the call. To deal with these types of customers, we must learn coping and problem-solving skills to deal with our own personal feelings. Reiterate your empathy nd continue to acknowledge the customer right to be angry. Takes deep breaths, smile and wait patiently for your turn to speak. Problem customers Problem customers do exist and everyone has to deal with them. They can be high maintenance, scammers, litigious, abusive, criminal or Just plain bizarre. When you have one of these on the phone, the best thing to do is ignore the language and behavior and continue to follow the same procedures as with an angry customer. When they have crossed the boundary set by standards, then it is best to let the customer know that your manager or the law department would be best to handle heir situation. In the end, if there has to be compromise from one side of the conversation; let it be from the company. Great service can make customers more comfortable with a company because they do things better for them. Everyone involved wants a fair and fast solution that can be settled simultaneously. If compromising means that you are able to retain customers, then that equals to: business survival. Reference Swartzlander, A. (2004). Chapter 3, 4, 5 in Pearson Education, Inc (Ed. ), Serving Internal and External Customers (pp. 56-75). Prentice Hall.