Top Five Call Answering Tips to Deal with Angry Customers

Posted by Taniya arya

Angry customers are, unfortunately, a part of the business life. The way you answer a disgruntled customer will determine whether he goes on to explain his experience to all his friends and relatives that how terrible your service is or instead rave about your unrivalled customer service. When it comes to customer support, bad experience spread faster than good. Thus, ensuring that each customer hangs up happily is the topmost priority of every customer service provider.

Working in customer service can be overwhelming when someone calls with a compliment or simple problem to resolve. While, some customers make it very difficult to keep your composure. When you are handling angry customers on the call, it is a natural reaction that you get angry in return– but you are at workplace and you cannot raise your temper.

Below are the top five important tips on how to handle angry customers, whether it be on the phone or live help desk session, all without losing your temper.

Work as Quickly as Possible:

The more efficient you can be mean the more customers you can handle in a day. Most, in fact, 90 percent, of customers would like to call customer care agent rather than connecting with the right person over the chat or email. Generally, customers tend to get frustrated when they have to wait in a queue for a long time. In telephone answering service companies, you could have a lot of customers on hold and you need to get to all of them as fast as you can. Adding excessive hold times to the process will only deteriorate the situation because they are already frustrated by the time they get on the line with the representative. So, it is important to answer customer queries as quickly as possible.

Listen to the Customer Issue:

When you do get a frustrated customer on the phone line, ask the customer firmly how you can help them. After that, listen to the customer problem completely. When he is explaining the scenario, don’t interrupt them at all. Don’t create any interference for clarification. As they are discussing the scenario, have a pen and paper or computer tab handy to jot down the details and potential questions that you’ d like to ask for clarification purpose after they’re completed with the problem explanation. Listening to the whole customer story first will not only give you the better insight of the issue but it will also help the customer feel relaxed.

Make an Apology:

After they have explained the problem that they are facing, before anything else, it is important to make an apology. This is the key to reduce the temper of a customer, especially when the customer is too much frustrated. Even if he or she is behaving calmly, it is still worth your time to apologise for the problem that they are facing. If the problem was at their end, blaming them is only causing further problem, so give a sincere apology, not a generic one. In this way, they will feel like they are talking to an ally, not an enemy. Try to assure them you are going to assist them and will work to resolve the problem.

Make sure that you understand the Problem:

Now that you have apologised for the inconvenience, it’s time to look again at those notes that you made previously. Understanding customer pain points before you begin to solve the issue will almost save the time. In addition, it will let the customer know that you hear them proactively, and are making efforts what you can do to overcome the problem.

Try to Resolve the Issue:

If you know the solution, then go ahead. If you are not sure, then don’t make any false promises that you cannot keep. If you don’t know the exact solution, ask customer to wait on the line. In the meantime, you should consult your manual or other resource to get the solution quickly. Always keep in mind that an angry customer is only going to get more frustrated the longer he waits on the line. If the problem is beyond your capability, then you will need to ask senior manager for help. While transferring the call, let them know first rather than pushing the button to forward the call. In that manner, call centre reps in answering service companies get a chance to efficiently explain the problem and it doesn’t leave the angry customer keep on holding.

Apart from that, staying friendly, maintaining a cool approach, and moving things along as efficiently as possible are the three key considerations that help to satisfy angry customers.

Tags: Answering services Call centre Telephone answering companies Phone answering services