“The customer is always right” is a famous adage, which sounds great but is not always true. There are cases when your customer is blatantly wrong…
“The customer is always right” is a famous adage, which sounds great but is not always true. There are cases when your customer is blatantly wrong, yet his status as a customer demands from you effective communication . In today’s competitive market, your business’s success is defined by the ability of your customer care department to deal with challenging customers while maintaining a loyal customer base . Difficult customers may include persons who are angry, indecisive, talkative, impatient and intimidating. The art of quality customer service is dealing professionally with difficult customers without spoiling your brand impression. Here are some tips which can improve effectiveness during difficult conversations.
Show Your Customer That You Really Care
Customers become annoyed when your behavior does not show that you really care about their problem. Therefore, customer service agents must understand three basic characteristics of exceptional customer experience, which include:
· Giving your customer proper attention.
· Respecting your customer.
· Devoting sufficient time to fully satisfy the customer’s complaint.
Listen Carefully Then Respond
A Customer care agents should be good listeners. When dealing with an angry customer, agents should not look for ways of exiting the dialogue. Customers want to be listened to, understood, and acknowledged. Careless, indifferent, and inattentive behavior shown by an agent can aggravate a customer’s anger. Agents should be careful not to interrupt a customer allowing the customer to fully voice his complaint, opinion, or suggestion. Agents can then respond with reasonable answers in a manner which fully satisfies the customer.
Accept Your Responsibility
Excellent customer service agents don’t take customers’ remarks personally, especially when it comes to difficult conversations. Although individual agents are not personally responsible for a given problem, representatives of your company they are responsible for all complaints. Even if the customer is wrong, agents must accept the responsibility of not exceeding the service quality an angry customer expects. Exceptional agents try to resolve all issues and satisfy the customer in whatever way possible.
In other words, one lost customer is a new opportunity for your competitor. It also takes more effort to win a new customer than it takes to retain one. This is why it is so important to prevail in such challenging cases in order to secure a loyal customer base for your business.
