SUBSCRIBE TO TMCnet
TMCnet - World's Largest Communications and Technology Community

CHANNEL BY TOPICS


QUICK LINKS




Diffusing Tense Customer Service Situations

TMCnews


TMCnews Featured Article


May 28, 2010

Diffusing Tense Customer Service Situations

By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor


Customer support software provider Parature recently released a white paper with tips on how to deal with the most difficult customers: The "porcupines" who create "prickly situations."


"In today's challenging service environment, the most important thing you can do is hold on to your customers and make them happy," the white paper, "What to Say to a Porcupine: Strategies for Dealing with Difficult Customers," states. It then goes on to outline several strategies companies can adopt to achieve this.

The way you handle challenging customers involves specific communications techniques "based on known principles of behavioral psychology that change the way people react to you in your most difficult situations."

Prickly customer situations "happen for a variety of reasons, ranging from caller personalities to missed expectations," the paper explains: "We have all, in fact, been angry customers ourselves," the white paper states.

Using basic human psychology, the white paper deconstructs a few traits that are common to most of these situations:

People react in predictable ways. Nearly everything we say to a customer has a reaction that can be understood ahead of time, before we even open our mouth.

Our human nature almost always fails us. Most of us are basically nice people who want to make customers happy. But when we are confronted with someone who is rude, angry, or demanding things we cannot provide, most of us revert to self-protective responses that actually make the other person angrier.

Most difficult customer situations can be prevented ahead of time. There are common pitfalls that, in fact, cause many customer situations to escalate, no matter how polite we think we are.

The right words can defuse almost any situation. There is nothing "soft" about soft skills in the 21st century.

In fact, the paper goes on to show how "the same skills that crisis counselors, police officers and hostage negotiators use in critical situations can also become a strategic tool for your support organization," showing how dealing with difficult customer situations is "a thoughtfully composed performance that anyone can learn and practice."

To download a free copy of this free, informative white paper, click here.


David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David's articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.

Edited by Patrick Barnard







Technology Marketing Corporation

2 Trap Falls Road Suite 106, Shelton, CT 06484 USA
Ph: +1-203-852-6800, 800-243-6002

General comments: [email protected].
Comments about this site: [email protected].

STAY CURRENT YOUR WAY

© 2024 Technology Marketing Corporation. All rights reserved | Privacy Policy