Tips for Keeping Your Cool When Dealing With a Rude Customer

Attending to rude customers is part and parcel of customer support. How well a customer care representative handles a rude customer determines how good he or she is at their job. Customer care representatives are the face of any business. In most cases, they are not responsible for the bitterness in the demeanor of a customer, which makes it all the more challenging to stay calm. To take ownership on behalf of the company, accept blame for any problem, and find a way to manage the call and afterward guide it towards a resolution requires a specific skill set. This is the reason why most organizations employ customer care outsourcing services to render their customer services.

Email Support Outsourcing Services

As mentioned before, keeping calm when a customer is rude or irate is tough. However, if you are in the profession of customer support, you should be able to overcome this hurdle. Below are some tips that can help you stay composed while interacting with rude customers. These tips also apply to email & chat support representatives:

1. Never Return Rudeness with Rudeness – “Eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” This phrase aptly applies to the customer service domain. While handling a rude customer, responding in kind is a big no-no. The moment you retort to your customer in a rude tone, his/her anger is likely to exacerbate, which will make the situation worse than it was.
2. Let Them Vent Out – If the customer is rude in the beginning and using an aggressive language, you should let him/her vent out before starting the conversation. Do not be mute while listening and reply in verbal nods to acknowledge his/her query. This may not calm him/her down but it will at least help them understand that you are listening and care about the problem.
3. Step Into Customer’s Shoes – It does not mean that you have to actually step into their shoes, but simply understand how they are feeling or how you would have felt if you were in their situation. Once you have understood their issue, it is likely that you will naturally connect with him/her on a human level. Creation of this unspoken bond, which is also called rapport, with the customer will help you two interact cordially.
4. Learn Mediation – Some people are born aggressive, which makes it harder for them to deal with rude customers. Naturally aggressive customer care representatives should learn how to meditate, which will help them keep calm while interacting with a rude customer.

Advice for Representatives Providing Email Support Outsourcing Services

Email Chat Answering

Although, above mentioned tips apply to executives who offer email support outsourcing services, there are certainly other things they should keep in their mind during interaction with rude customers. Below are some specifics tips for them:

1. As an email or chat representative is not hearing the tone in which a customer is speaking in, he/she may not be able to understand the mood of the customer. As an insensitive response can incite more anger, chat and email representatives should play it safe while beginning the interaction. They should always make an attempt to capture the thought process of the customer before providing instructions.

Email & Chat support representatives based in a different country may sometime 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 while dealing with angry customers.