Keep Calm when a Customer Complains
When the customer is complaining, the customer is angry and they may act aggressively or use aggressive language. The language, tone and gestures used by the customer are difficult to handle and require tact and wisdom to handle. You do not want to alienate the customer further by countering their language with equal or more strong language and gestures. You are not in the game to win the argument, you are there to win the customer.
Keeping calm though is a difficult job under these circumstances and one that needs to be learned and developed over time. If you put a fresh person to the job without any training you are sure to end up with a problem that is bigger than when it started.
Your team should learn to recognize the fact that while the customer may be behaving in an aggressive manner, the role of the customer services team is to remain calm and find a resolution to the customer’s issue. They should also recognize that what the customer is actually angry at is the experience they have had using the product or service or the process they had to go through. They expected something better or they received a poor product or service which has made them lash out.
The customer is not angry at you personally and they should not provide a reason for the discussion to become personal. The angry customer is complaining about a poor product, which is an opportunity to improve the product, or they are complaining about some process they had to go through for acquisition of the product, which is an opportunity to improve the process.
The customer services personnel need to be imparted the training to remain calm when the customer is venting their emotions. This training should be part of new inductions as well as continual refreshers should be planned so the skills do not perish.
Work towards making sure that customer goes back having a positive experience from their interaction with you rather than becoming more frustrated.