Your Source for Providing a Better Customer Service and Customer Support Experience

Anger is one of our most powerful and intimate emotions. It is very uncomfortable to be on the receiving end of it. And yet most of us have been taught very little about defusing an angry customer. So most of us simply endure these situations – holding the phone six inches from our ear, making excuses, or going silent – and we feel like deer frozen in the headlights, while all too often the other person gets angrier and angrier. But the good news is that with the right techniques, these situations can be understood and managed.

So why do customers get angry? Since we have all been there ourselves, you probably know the answer: it is usually because we feel that people are not paying attention to us, so we confront them to make them pay attention. This need for attention and a sense of justice drives three key steps for defusing angry customer situations that I call the Triple-A technique: Read more »