Coping with Rude Customers

Oct. 25, 2010 - PRLog -- In August, airline attendant Steve Slater made a hasty departure from a JetBlue aircraft after a difficult encounter with a customer.

While business is tough and customers can be demanding managers need to ensure that their staff doesn't overreact.

Writing in the October issue of industry publication "Customer Service Newsletter," Lindsay Crum of Footlocker.com offered these thoughts and advice for managers:

This incident, although unusual, offers a great opportunity to discuss the very important issue of employee stress, and ways to manage that stress before it leads to burnout.

We train our associates that although we cannot always control how the customer behaves, we can always control how we behave. We need to remember that the customer is angry with the situation - not with us personally - and their frustration is making them act in a negative manner. Rather than matching the customer's tone or volume, we should counteract it. If the customer uses a loud voice, ours should always be a notch lower; if the customer is getting agitated, that is our cue to respond even more calmly.

Another piece to the "stress relief puzzle" is to make sure associates are mentally and emotionally healthy off the phone as well. Associates should be encouraged to bring in pictures that calm them and make them comfortable (family members, pets, etc.) and place them at their workstations. They should also make sure they are taking all scheduled breaks, and using them to take a step away from their phones, relax, and refuel with high-protein, low-sugar snacks and water.

In our industry, it is certain that we will work with customers who are angry, upset, and not always respectful towards us. However, by ensuring we are doing all we can to control our responses, tone, and work/life balance, we can guarantee that our response to these customers is always calm, professional, and appropriate.

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About the Customer Service Group

For more than 20 years, the Customer Service Group has helped customer service, call center and help desk managers increase productivity, improve service quality and boost customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention. The Customer Service Group publishes Customer Service Newsletter and The Customer Communicator.

Website: http://www.CustomerServiceGroup.com