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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