7 Secrets for Moving Customers Out of a Hardball Mentality
Here are 7 proven tips for moving customers out of a hardball mentality into a constructive dialogue..
1. Confidently acknowledge and address anger. A big mistake among customer service professionals is to ignore a customer’s expression of anger or tip-toe around it.
There is something known as the communication chain. When
people communicate, they expect the person they are
communicating with to respond or react…this response is a link
in the communication chain. A failure to respond to
communication leaves the communication chain unlinked - broken.
For example, If I walk into my office and say... “Hello Sherry,
how are you?” ....and she says absolutely nothing, she’s broken
the communication chain. And that leaves me feeling awkward,
perhaps embarrassed.
If a customer expresses anger and we fail to respond to it, the
communication chain is broken and the customer feels like they
are not getting through. The customer might become even angrier
and more difficult, as they are resorting to whatever it takes
to feel heard and understood.
You can keep your angry customers from getting angrier by
confidently acknowledging their anger and responding to it. You
can respond to anger with a statement like, “Clearly you’re
upset and I want you to know that getting to the bottom of this
is just as important to me as it is to you.” This statement
directly and professionally addresses anger – without- making
the customer even angrier. Now that the anger has been
acknowledged, you have completed the communication chain.
2. Allow the customer to vent, but don’t lose control. An Angry
customer can be compared to an erupting volcano. When a volcano
is erupting, there is nothing you can do about it. You can’t
speed up the eruption, you can’t put a lid on it, and you cannot
direct or redirect it…it must erupt.
When a customer is angry, they must experience and express their
anger – and often this is done through venting. We should not
interrupt an angry venting customer or tell them to “calm down.”
This would be as futile as trying to tame a volcano. A volcano
erupts and eventually subsides. Your angry customer will vent
and eventually calm down.
Always let angry customers vent. In most cases, your customer
will only need to vent for fifteen to thirty-five seconds.
Venting beyond 35 seconds can become ranting and cause you to
lose control. After a few seconds of venting, you’ll want to
jump back in and move the conversation forward constructively.
3. Don’t react emotionally. It can be easy to lose our cool when
a customer gets hot, but be warned: In most cases, showing
frustration, impatience, or acting even mildly upset doesn’t
help you move the customer out of a hardball mentality. Usually,
losing our own cool does nothing but make the customer even more
upset or our attitude will make the customer even firmer in his
original position.
If you feel you’re beginning to lose your cool, don’t be afraid
to hit the “pause” button. You hit the pause button by putting a
customer on hold or telling the customer you will call them
back.
4. Heed Steven Covey’s Words…Understand, then be understood. In
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Steven Covey
tells a story of a patient going in for an eye exam. After
briefly listening to the patient’s complaint, the doctor takes
off his glasses and hands them to the patient and tells the
patient to simply “take his glasses where them.”
What are the chances you’d go back to a doctor that prescribes a
solution without even diagnosing a problem? You don’t have much
confidence in someone who doesn’t diagnose before they
prescribe… But how often do we prescribe a solution before
completely diagnosing the situation, in dealing with customers?
Seek first to understand. Before you try PRESCRIBE a solution
for a customer’s problem, before you quote policy or tell a
customer what you cannot do, seek to truly understand the
customer’s viewpoint. How has the problem impacted your
customer?
Has your customer lost money, time, respect, or confidence
because of this problem? Does the customer feel embarrassed,
wronged, discriminated against, or powerless? Try to really
understand what your customer is experiencing and feeling. when
you respond, communicate your full understanding of the problem
from the customer’s perspective. Only then can you truly
diagnose, BEFORE you prescribe a solution.
Listening with the intent to understand gives you empathy for
the customer and puts you in the position to solve the real
issues. Once you really understand your customer, you naturally
begin to communicate with empathy and to communicate more
effectively. Your customer, who feels understood, can now begin
to understand you.
5. Don’t belabor your point…no matter how right you are. be-la-bor
- [bi-ley-ber] – verb: (1) to assail persistently, as with scorn
or ridicule (2) work at (something) repeatedly or more than is
necessary: He kept belaboring the point long after we had
agreed.
If you really want to tick a customer off or incite an already
upset customer, belabor your point. Repeat your point (your
policy; your position) over and over again. I mean really badger
the customer with your elementary explanation so that the
customer feels they aren’t too bright.
Customer service professionals all around the world make the
mistake of belaboring a point when speaking with customers.
Don’t let this happen to you. Simply make your point once
diplomatically and then enter into a constructive dialogue with
your customer.
6. Get the customer saying ‘yes’, and if possible, keep them
from saying ‘no’. When a person says “no,” all of their pride
demands that they remain consistent with themselves. And it is
very difficult, once they’ve said ‘no’, for them to change their
mind and become “agreeable” with you, because their sense of
pride is now involved. And we invest so much in our pride.
Here’s how it works. Build an affirmative path by asking your
customer two simple and obvious closed-ended questions that you
know will result in a YES response. Once you do that, the
customer will be on an affirmative path (with you) and it is far
easier for them to agree with your next question. It’s very much
psychological…your customer won’t feel comfortable disagreeing
with himself…and will feel compelled to say yes to your third
question so that he agrees with himself!
7. Have a graceful exit. When all else fails, you need a way to
gracefully get out of a conversation with a difficult or
unreasonable customer. Here’s a simple way to gracefully exit:
“We see this differently and I’m going to have to put thought
into the perspective you have shared with me. I will visit with
my supervisor about your concerns and call you back with a
response.”
Try these tips and I promise, dealing with difficult customers
won’t seem so difficult after all!
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