Businesses take pride in excellent customer service. It’s no longer just a “nice to have” but a necessity if a business wants to develop and grow their loyal customer base. In fact, 93% of customers are more likely to purchase from a business again if they have excellent customer service. 

Every company strives to meet their customer expectations—or to even go above and beyond.

Which is why handling customers of every sort is important. Trouble-free transactions tend to satisfy customers and make them easy to deal with. Unfortunately, not every customer interaction will be smooth-sailing.

Some customers may end up dissatisfied with your product or service or even with the purchasing process. Disappointment or anger can stem from anything, from poor product execution to long turn around times on service. Whatever went wrong, customers can bring up their frustrations directly with you or through reviews and testimonials, making for a potential hit to your business reputation.

Dealing with difficult customers is a necessity, not just to avoid looking bad but also to ensure that your customer feels valued and important. You need to have good conflict resolution measures installed from the beginning to handle problems quickly and keep things from escalating any further. 

Even the unhappiest customer will appreciate any effort you put into listening to their perspective and what they believe went wrong. So, in order to best keep your business growing, great customer service is key. 

Why should you deal with difficult customers?

Aside from avoiding negative publicity, you need to handle difficult customers because having that interaction with them could swing in your favour through knowing what you can improve on.

Some disgruntled customers may not always have something constructive to say but they can still help you learn how to refine your products or services, transaction process, or even interface. This is not to say that you should take everything they say to heart—especially if they’re just insulting you—but try to dissect their feedback to find a way to improve future customer experience and process.

It may be a difficult conversation to have but it’s necessary not just to quell the customer’s anger, but to try persuading them to purchase again. By making them feel heard and being open to criticism, they may calm down and appreciate the effort you’re putting in to gain feedback from them.

Sometimes, it can just be a matter of misaligned mindsets. A customer thinks a certain way and wants to buy based on certain modalities. Buyers can either be logical, emotional, or even intuitive. They may feel like they didn’t get what was promised during the sale and it’s your responsibility to shift things to provide a better experience in the future.

As a business leader, you should take charge of this and try to aim for the best outcome—whether it’s simply calming the customer down or getting them back for a repeat purchase.  

8 ways to handle difficult customers

Every customer is different and will require different approaches but these eight tips for handling difficult customers are key to staying professional and opening communication with them. 

1. Remain calm and don’t raise your voice

Keeping a level head is something you need to do from start to finish. Even if the customer is yelling at you, it’s not an invitation to retaliate. It may feel unfair and one-sided but you’re there to listen to their concerns and try to understand them, not to debate. 

By keeping calm, you might even tide over the customer and get that calm demeanour to transfer over to them, allowing them to better communicate their grievances with your company. 

Raising your voice can be unprofessional and reflect badly on (an already tarnished) business image. You can counter what the customer says respectfully and calmly. Remember that how you say things is as important as what you say. 

2. Listen and try to understand their position

Confrontations can feel uncomfortable, even if they’re not personal. Part of you can still feel hurt because you’re a leader in your business and you have a lot of yourself invested in its performance. But you owe it to yourself, your staff, and especially the customer to take what they have to say and find a way to apply it to how you run the business in the future.

Being an active listener reassures the customer that you’re trying to see their perspective. Instead of staying quiet in order to best formulate a rebuttal, take the time to actually listen to their concerns. When you understand where your customer is coming from, you’re in a better position to tailor a solution to their problem. 

3. Be empathic and earn their trust

It’s not enough to listen, you also have to make sure the customer knows you understand the frustration they feel. By empathising with the customer, you show that you may also feel the same way if you were in their shoes, which will make them feel like you do see things from their perspective. 

When you genuinely understand a customer’s disappointment, they’ll feel comforted by the idea that you’ll make changes around that and that their concerns are being taken seriously. 

Imagine if a customer was bluntly told that there was nothing that could be done by an unfeeling customer service representative versus someone trying to find alternative solutions to help them—which business do you think they’d purchase from again? 

Doing this will help you establish rapport and trust with the customer and they may even consider purchasing again and become a loyal customer. 

4. Be flexible 

In order to approach a customer in the best way, you have to be flexible. Some customers may not respond well to statistics and are more emotionally-inclined than others. Other customers may want you to cut to the chase and be more straightforward about their options. 

In any case, it helps to have people who are receptive to these kinds of social cues and behaviours to best adjust to how a customer wants to converse. You wouldn’t approach a disappointed mother of four the same way you would a highly successful (and very upset) real estate tycoon. You have to find the best approach and stick with it.

5. Be confident (but not arrogant) 

It can be difficult to distinguish between confidence and arrogance but the main difference is that being confident is to be grounded in experience and humility whereas arrogance doesn’t have that grounding. Arrogant people are usually trying to prove to others how good they are instead of being self-assured of both their strengths and weaknesses.

By being confident (and not arrogant), you can still face criticism while holding your head up high. Being arrogant will only hold a customer back from creating a connection with you and give them even more reason to be dissatisfied and upset. 

A confident leader will be open to any feedback and know how to integrate it into their business practices.

6. Remember that everyone has bad days 

It’s true that not every day will be an easy one and bad days are inevitable, for customers and business leaders. And while it’s still not okay to take those bad days out on others, it does happen, especially when customers may have had a string of unfortunate circumstances occur.  

Understanding this can help ease the stress of handling a difficult customer. By extending more patience to them, a business can turn the customer’s perception around and show that they’re still receptive despite having to deal with a bad day. 

Extending sympathy won’t hurt anyone either, even if the customer won’t back down. 

7. Mirror their communication style

When you’re interacting with customers, you need to be on the same wavelength as them. Observe how they communicate and mirror it. More often than not, they’ll respond better to someone who speaks and communicates the same way they do. 

If they’re the type to trust facts and figures, have the numbers ready. Read them and take note of what they want in terms of this experience. If they want their problems solved directly, give them solutions. If they’re not sure, offer them options with your recommendation. 

8. Communicate clear next steps or action items

If, at the end of the conversation, a customer feels just as or even more lost and upset as when they started, you haven’t done your job. You have to make sure that a customer knows what they can expect next and have had at least some of their concerns addressed. 

Let them know what they can expect from you as clearly and concisely as possible so they can prepare accordingly. Even if there’s not much that you can do for them, make sure they know that, instead of giving them half-hearted promises to see what you can do. You owe it to them to be honest, even if it doesn’t result in giving them a replacement product or a refund. 

Make sure to document what you’ve said to them and promised them so you don’t forget and become the receiving end of more anger and dissatisfaction. 

Handling difficult customers can be frustrating at best and disheartening at worst but it’s crucial to any business. Excellent customer service boils down to interacting with customers and trying to make them feel heard and cared for, even if they’re not the easiest to deal with.

If you want to learn more about improving your team’s soft communication skills, give us a call.