Truth be told; not always dealing with people is easy, either by legitimate reasons, either because the individual in that day woke up with his left foot. Making difficult to give support.
Be aware that sooner or later you will find customers who act in a controversial manner.
This kind of profile has the particularity to find weaknesses, get unsatisfied, believing he is always right starting to get aggressive, which even if they are right in their claims does not justify often lack education.
To manage communications in an intelligent and effective way, with this customer profile, agents must take a few actions that will change the final perception of customer/user, making a different mark from the competition.
As we said at the beginning, many times the malaise of the costumer isn’t just about a personal issue but added the problems and failures of service/product. End up being the trigger to discharge the frustrations on the attendant / support.
To avoid failures the agents charged to carry out communication directly, should recognize particular actions to achieve a positive view of customers / users and achieve the expected results at each interaction, obviously with respect. Some tips:
- Be patient. The first reaction is the most important, being a virtue that every agent must demonstrate in each of their interactions, to avoid falling into impulsive responses against negative provocations of customers.
- Escape of discussions. It is always better to listen carefully first and sooner get a personalized service that will resolve the problem that initiated the contact.
- Demonstrate real interest not to fall into trivial answers that generate a malaise much higher. Should never underestimate the value of a positive and attentive listening.
- Apologize if you have made a mistake (error of the organization, technical problem) is the best start to make it clear that we are already working on the problem to solve it.
- Satisfy the customer’s complaints in the most transparent way, accurate and immediate as possible. The speed of response is a treasure for both the customer and the support center itself.
- Identify the reason why their product/service caused disappointment of the customer. It is crucial to determine if the failure comes from the company itself, a contracted service of others, etc. If it does not deal with any of the two cases, but the user’s own guilt, the task of support becomes more complex, but not impossible, having as objective the modification of the vision of the consumer through the provision of feasible solutions and direct the problem in question.
- Avoid defensive and evasive comments. The customer must feel that is speaking with one voice in its favor and not against. The agent should never ignore or criticize the consumer, but should show to be close to him, proving to be a support to find the best solution.
- Keep the customer/user informed about the progress of your request, the actions taken to resolve their problem. But be careful; avoid the abuse of waiting time, because this is one of the most annoying factors for any consumer.
- In all cases take a deep breath. This action relates directly to the emotional level that can reach an agent within seconds of contact with an angry customer, after all remain calm is the key.
- Direct efforts in resolving a problem by time helps to calm the anxiety of the customer and demonstrate a better job by agents. The focus is a variant to leverage the knowledge with that count the support agents, anticipating moreover the consequences that generate each of their actions.
The capacity of a support professional in demonstrates empathy may become his greatest virtue, mainly to increase the quality of their communications.
Demonstrating that you feel so much concern and need to solve the problem as far as the customer does not only allows to break the defensive barrier and aggressive user, as well, to find and offer practical solutions (within its competence and level of course) in complex moments where conflicts seem unavoidable.