Ways to handle an Irate Customer

Sustaining customer loyalty is a hard task for most call centers, this is because there are a lot of irate customers that can beat you up and fight with him/her.

Unfortunately, these kinds of customers are part of the business and industry where you are working at. How you respond will determine whether the customer will go out and use word of mouth to tell the world what kind of representative you are and rave about what kind of service your business give to customers like him/her. 

Below are some tips and tricks that will help you ease off the situation and neutralize the incensed attitude of a customer.

The customer has the right to be angry, always assume that 

No one purposely makes mistakes, but mistakes are part of life, they always happen. If you are a call center representative, sitting on your station then all of a sudden a customer will call, upon answering you will just hear a shouting customer at the end of the line. The most corporate way to respond to this is to evaluate the weight of the customer’s complaint while you try to listen to it. Restrain from responding with an irate manner, and assume that the customer has the right to be angry, even if you don’t know the details yet. 

Customers, usually, feel betrayed and grassed on because they were expecting to experience the best service from the product that they either both or the service that they have ordered. In short, their expectations were not met. 

The customer may be angry maybe because he/she has waited a lot of minutes just to talk to a representative, or the problem came at a very convenient time.

Whatever the circumstance and the complaint is, always recognize the right of the customer to be angry and listen carefully to what he is saying so that you will know how to respond to the problem by finding what caused him/her to be angry. 

Patience is a Virtue

It is not effective to interrupt a customer while he/she is at the peak of expressing her anger with the service or the product that she got from your company. Let the customer vent his/her sentiments. Do not put gasoline in a raging fire, the situation will only worsen. Just keep calm, listen to your customer, and wait for the time when she has finished off her sentiments.

Just be patient and let the customer be tired of her emotional distress before you speak to him. Just breathe, be calm and wait.

Keep Calm and Speak Softly

If you run into an irate customer and he/she seems to be insulting you, respond to the person calmly.  If you shout, you will just put more fuel to the fire and you will just have a battle of emotion and loudness of voice. Here’s what you’ll do, listen to the person’s points, take note of the problem and find out the root of his/her emotional distress. Once the customer is done, speak as soft as you can.

It may seem that the customer will not tend to care in whatever you say, but remember, the customer called to seek some advice from you. At the end of the day, he/she will still want to get something from you. 

Reiterate and Confirm

Always make sure to address the concerns of your customer. After you have listened to the customer, restate the priorities that you believe the customer stated. This will guarantee that you are focused on the customer’s problem.

Correct the Problem

It may not be feasible for the customer to guarantee that the solution that you have will resolve the problem, but it’s good to assure them that you are always there to assist them if the problem happens again.  Show that you are confident so that the customer will not doubt what you are giving him.

Always Follow Up

If it’s possible, make a follow up call or send a follow up email to the customer asking if he/she has experience the problem again. Compassion and attentiveness will go a long way in retaining the loyalty and satisfaction of the customer. Following up been tried and tested for years by many call centers, and they succeeded in getting their customers loyal to them.

These tips are only some of the many ways to ease of an irate customer. Just remember the quote of Larence J. Peter, "Speak when you are angry and you'll give the best speech that you will ever regret."