Tips to Stay Calm When Dealing with a Rude Client

Serving rude customers is an integral part of customer service. The way a customer service representative handles a rude customer determines how good he is at work. Customer service representatives are the face of any business. In most cases, they are not responsible for the bitterness in a client's behavior, which makes it even harder to stay calm. To take responsibility on behalf of the company, accept the blame for any problem, find a way to handle the call and then guide it to a resolution requires a set of specific skills. This is the reason why most organizations employ customer service outsourcing to provide their services to the client.

As mentioned above, staying calm when a client is rude or angry is difficult. However, if you are in the profession of customer support, you must be able to overcome this obstacle. Here are some tips that can help you stay calm while interacting with rude customers. These tips also apply to support representatives by email and chat:

1. Never return rudeness with rudeness: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." This phrase is aptly applied to the customer service domain. While dealing with a rude customer, responding in kind is a big no-no. The moment you answer your client in a rude tone, it is likely that your anger will worsen, which will make the situation worse than it used to be.
2. Let them ventilate: if the client is rude at first and uses aggressive language, you should let them vent before you start the conversation. Do not stay silent while listening and respond with a verbal gesture to recognize your query. This may not calm you down, but at least it will help you understand that you are listening and are concerned about the problem.
3. Getting into the client's shoes: does not mean that you really have to put yourself in their shoes, but simply understand how they feel or how they would have felt if they were in their situation. Once you have understood your problem, you are likely to connect naturally with it on a human level. The creation of this tacit link, also called rapport, with the client will help you to interact cordially.
4. Learn meditation: some people are born aggressive, which makes it difficult for them to deal with rude clients. Naturally, aggressive customer service representatives must learn to meditate, which will help them stay calm while interacting with a rude client.

Advice for Representatives That Provide Support Outsourcing Services by Email

While the tips mentioned above apply to executives who offer outsourced support services via email, there are other things that you should keep in mind while interacting with rude customers. Here are some specific tips for them:

1. As an email or chat representative does not hear the tone in which the client is speaking, it is possible that he can not understand the client's mood. As an insensitive response can cause more anger, the chat and email representatives should play safely at the beginning of the interaction. They should always try to capture the client's thought process before providing instructions.
2. Email and chat support representatives based in a different country may, at some point, not understand the connotation of certain words and use them in their response. A word like scheme, which means "plan" in India, translates into "conspiracy" for an American. Such words should be avoided, especially when dealing with angry clients.