Handling Angry Customers with Tact and Skill

1. Handling Angry Customers with Tact and Skill March 9th, 2011 Presenter: Andrew Sanderbeck Waynesville, North Carolina PCI Webinars www.peopleconnectinstitute.com

2. Foundation of Learning Share your experiences. They provide valuable insight. If you are doing something that gets the results you want, keep doing it. Take the information you learn here and put it into your own style.

3. Goals and Objectives • Guidelines for Creating Your Strategy for Handling Angry Customers • Angry Customer Scenarios • Five Step Process for Providing Customers with a Positive Experience • Application of the Five Steps • Other Techniques • The Nature of the Irate Customer • LEAF, Plus One!

4. Polling Question #1 We see an angry customer or two in our library almost every week. Yes No

5. Polling Question #2 I agree with the following: The customer is always right. Yes No

6. Your aim = customer satisfaction • Don’t argue back • Use your ears more than your mouth • Show the customer that you care

7. Think about these angry customer scenarios now occurring in your library • A customer who is upset about the quality or delivery of our product/service  • An item that the patron claims was returned, but the library has not found it • Incorrect information given to the customer 

8. Think about these angry customer scenarios now occurring in your library • A customer who is negative toward your library due to past experiences • Confrontational issues and conflict • A customer owes the library .25 for a late fee  • Dissatisfaction expressed about a library policy or procedure. 

9. How are these situations being handled? • Confrontation (Right and Wrong) • Giving the customer what they want • Internal Conflict • As a learning and growing opportunity

10. The Five-Step Process • Strategize • Acknowledge • Clarify • Resolution • Check Back

11. The Five-Step Process Step 1 – Strategize • Develop your goal for the interaction. What do you want as the end result? (i.e., save the customer, resolve an issue, etc…)  • Identify your parameters: what can you do or provide the customer independently or with your supervisor’s approval? What can't you do because of policy or business reasons? 

12. Polling Question #3 I believe I (We) have a strategy that we use for handling our angry customer situations Yes No

13. The Five-Step Process Step 2 – Acknowledge The acknowledgement is essential to communicating in challenging situations. Use phrases like, “I understand how you feel”, “I see”, “I apologize”, “I am sorry”, “I can see how you might feel that way” so that customers feel that they have been heard and that we respect them.

14. The Five-Step Process Step 3 – Clarify Sometimes we mistakenly proceed to resolve a problem based on what we THINK the customer was saying. This third step of the process allows us to clarify and draw out information to make sure that we understand the customer’s true concern

15. The Five-Step Process Step 4 – Resolution The fourth step is to create or co-create a resolution. As we present the resolution, we want to state specifically what we are going to do for the customer. We may also offer alternatives.

16. The Five-Step Process Step 5 – Check back The check back is our opportunity to make sure that the customer is satisfied and feels good about the resolution. Examples of check backs include:  • “How does that sound?”  •  “What do you think about …?”  •  “Are you with me?”   •  “Will that meet your needs?”  •  “Would that be satisfactory?”

17. Applying the Five-Step Process Our strategy is to retain and satisfy the customer whenever possible. We want to provide the customer with a positive experience while balancing both the business and customer needs. We don’t want to simply waive fines because we are afraid that we will lose the customer.

18. Adopting the Following Measures May Help Be Patient Be Positive Control Your Anger

19. The Nature of Irate Customers
 Irate customers are unhappy. They range in emotional state from mildly disappointed to completely outraged and in the way they present themselves from calm to abusive. Sometimes their behavior is outrageously bad.

20. The Nature of Irate Customers
 Usually they have a reason for being unhappy – their expectation of a product or service the library offers wasn’t met or someone didn't make good on a promise.

21. How important is it?

22. LEAF Plus One Listen Empathize Apologize Fix Plus One

23. Plus One! Sharon’s Story

24. Polling Question #4 We currently have a “Plus One” program at our library. Yes No

25. What can you do at your library to apply Plus One?

26. Conclusion This five-step process will diffuse any situation once you learn to pull it off with tact, finesse, and most importantly: empathy. Once it is perfected, you will not only be able to calm down a hot situation with an angry customer, but you'll be able to get those same formerly angry customers to recommend your library to their friends and colleagues!

27. Questions/Comments

28. Thanks for Attending Our Next Program with PCI Webinars! Handling Customer Complaints without Taking Things Personally Wednesday, March 16th at 1:00 pm