To paraphrase a saying from gladiatorial combat in ancient Rome: “For those who are about to be verbally abused, I salute you!”
If you have worked in a contact center for any length of time, you have been the recipient of a lexical tongue lashing. I always found it amazing how people who may be mild-mannered in other aspects of their lives suddenly turn into fire-breathing, overbearing, and threatening miscreants of mayhem when communicating by telephone.
Perhaps it is the disembodied/anonymous nature of those interactions that fuels their passions. But whatever the reason, being on the receiving end of such vitriol can be uncomfortable...if you allow it.
And therein lies the crux of the problem: a problem for which I offer a solution: the Angry Customer Protocol (ACP).
I have spent the last 26 years answering thousands of phone calls in a 911 center. They ranged from the hilarious to the horrific. And during that period, I encountered many unhappy, hysterical, raging, angry, and threatening people.
Initially, I did not manage these calls well. I took offense and felt insulted. Worst of all, I internalized those feelings and allowed them to affect my attitude towards work.
If you have worked in a contact center...you have been the recipient of a lexical tongue lashing.
Callers who resort to insults can be particularly troublesome when you are dealing with life-or-death situations. It was a bad combination that eventually required me to reassess my reactions to challenging callers and change my approach.
Over time, after a great deal of research and trial and error, I developed the ACP and its five simple rules.
Picture the ACP as a pyramid where each rule builds up the other, providing a solid base for better customer interaction and problem resolution. (SEE FIGURE 1)
Rule #1: There will always be angry customers. It is inevitable.
If you wake up every day praying that you will not have to deal with angry and unreasonable people, you will have a long, unhappy career.
Providing a service invites customer complaints. Some may be justified, some may not. But if you build it, the complaints will come.
In a contact center situation, you may not be the face of your company, but you are certainly the voice of it.
Customers consider displays of irritation, anger, and/or condescension on the part of the service rep as offensive behavior and will waste no time requesting a supervisor or posting on social media to convey their displeasure. So, it behooves you to avoid this style of communication.
Rule #2: Customers will often use language that insults and demeans.
Eventually, it is going to happen. A customer will use salty, vulgar, and offensive language. Communication can deteriorate quickly if someone is not the adult in the exchange. Hopefully, that is you.
The problem with many customer service rep interactions is that when confronted with foul language they feel disrespected. Answering a phone does not mean you automatically deserve respect. You do not. Never expect it.
This rule is a tough one for some people, but the fact of the matter is that you must anticipate someone’s dreadful day while not having it affect yours.
Rule #3: Customer service reps cannot change Rules #1 and #2.
Seriously, you cannot. Accept it. Embrace it. The sooner you do the better off you will be. However, the question you may be asking yourself is, “Why is a customer afforded the luxury of treating me in an offensive manner while I’m not permitted to react?” Fair enough.
Allow me to provide an example from a 911 dispatcher’s point of view. Over the years I have received calls from people dealing with all sorts of stressors in their lives. Whether fire, EMS, or police-related, they are often calling on what has been described as the worst day of their lives.
Because the callers frequently teeter between keeping it together and falling apart, they will quickly resort to foul language directed at the dispatcher if the situation appears to be disintegrating.
This kind of reaction is not a personal attack. It is simply someone expressing their frustration at the circumstances in which they find themselves.
Now consider a customer calling a contact center who has a problem they are attempting to resolve (often after going online first to find a solution). They have spent several minutes navigating various IVR menus (“Please listen closely as our menu options have changed”) just to speak to a human being.
The worst way to deal with crap slingers is to sling it right back at them...you can look incredibly foolish doing so:...
In short order, the customer is relegated to a phone queue where every few minutes a recorded voice is pleasantly intoning, “Your call is important to us, please stay on the line for the next available operator.”
Do you think they really believe their call is important to you? No, they don’t. When you finally pick up that line and the person on the other end becomes sarcastic or makes snarky comments, you should never respond in kind. They are simply voicing their dissatisfaction with the process. Which leads us to Rule #4.
Rule #4: Dodge the insults and grab the facts.
It is mind-boggling listening to a customer service rep going toe-to-toe with an angry caller, exchanging insults, yelling, and believing that they have successfully transcended the situation by acting just like them.
Unfortunately, the results of such an encounter yield an even angrier customer, a stressed-out rep, and a fractured resolution to the problem.
The worst way to deal with crap slingers is to sling it right back at them. And quite frankly, you can look incredibly foolish doing so: especially if your calls are recorded.
There is nothing quite like sitting in a room with a manager and a quality assurance (QA) professional while they listen to you imitate the unruly behavior of the customer.
Want to reduce your stress dramatically? Focus on the message, not the delivery system.
No matter how much someone rants and raves, there is usually a problem in search of a solution. Learn to separate the two.
Respond (being calm and non-judgmental) rather than react (knee-jerk and excitable). Allow the customer to rage (being highly emotional and spewing invective), vent (recounting the hoops they’ve jumped through to fix the problem), and relax (the calm after their verbal storm).
You can then move on to addressing their dilemma. One other important point. If you always respond to customers in a low-key, rational manner, an audio recording can be your best friend.
In other words, no matter how obnoxious or rude your caller becomes, maintain your composure, follow your company’s protocols, and focus on the facts.
If that same customer should happen to complain, the contrast between your two modes of communication will often exonerate you.
Rule #5: Work the facts and resolve the problem.
If you have followed the first four rules of the ACP, you are left with a customer’s actual problem and a calmer disposition.
When you are objective, resolving the customer’s issues becomes a much easier undertaking. Your mind is not distracted by anger and irritation towards the persons you are tasked with assisting.
Customers want solutions. They want to know that you hear them and are taking constructive steps, so they no longer feel powerless: which is often at the root of their bad behavior. You can lighten their burden without carrying it yourself.
From a QA standpoint, the ACP can be used as an evaluation mechanism to assess calls that went badly between the customer service rep and the customer. Quite often the breakdown is a direct result of violating the rules associated with the protocol.
Bottom line: the ACP is an effective tool in handling challenging customer interactions. Its rules serve as a roadmap for controlling a rep’s emotions, which by extension controls the caller. Use it to your advantage.