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What to Say to a Porcupine – Part 4: Defusing Angry Customers

Rich Gallagher — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:16:22 +0000

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:

Acknowledgement: First and foremost, you must do what almost no one ever does in the heat of an angry situation – acknowledge and validate the other person, which is not the same as agreeing with him or her. It can be as mild as an observation (“I can tell by your tone of voice that you are really upset about this,”) or as strong as identification (“I would be upset if this happened to me too”), but whatever level you choose, keep acknowledging until the heat starts to drop.

Assessment: Have you ever seen a good police officer in action after an automobile accident? Cops turn emotional situations into a factual ones by asking lots of good questions, such as how people are feeling or if they can move their arm. Likewise, when you ask people to describe their concerns in detail, and validate their answers, you send a powerful signal that calms the other person down.

Alternatives: Now we get to the fun part, negotiating a solution. Using the “can-can” technique we described in a previous article, keep focusing on what you can do and acknowledging their response, and you will start moving toward a face-saving solution on both sides.

I am not trying to imply that you can simply talk your way out of anything: there are situations where the gravity of an issue or the irrationality of another person can overwhelm even your best communications skills. This means that in the limit, we need to be prepared to set boundaries, escalate issues, or particularly in face-to-face situations, keep ourselves safe. But in my experience, over 90% of angry situations can be brought under control using the three-step process above.

As we conclude this four-part blog series, I’d like to thank my good friends at Parature not just for providing a forum like this, but for seeing their software products as part of a larger continuum for providing excellent service – one that includes procedural communications skills such as these. Best of success!

Rich Gallagher is a communications skills expert, author, and former help desk executive. His book What to Say to a Porcupine: 20 Humorous Tales that Get to the Heart of Excellent Customer Service (AMACOM, 2008) was a national #1 customer service and business humor bestseller that was a finalist for the 2008 Business Book Awards, and his latest book How to Tell Anyone Anything (AMACOM, 2009) explores the mechanics of difficult workplace conversations. Visit Rich online at www.pointofcontactgroup.com

What to Say to a Porcupine – Part 3: Never Ever Say No

Rich Gallagher — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:07:06 +0000

In this blog installment, I want to look at how to change the way people react when you say “no.” And my solution is really simple: stop saying it!

Once in a while, I can read people’s minds, and I can read some of yours right now: “Rich is nuts. Sometimes customers push me to do things I am not able – or even allowed – to do. Sometimes they make outrageous demands. And sometimes they even say that something is my fault when it is really their fault. How can I stop saying no to them?”

Listen carefully: not only can you stop saying no most of the time, but both you and the other person will feel much better for it! The way to do it is by using a simple technique I call the can-can:

Always respond with what you can acknowledge and what you can do.

Suppose that someone wants a free repair on something that is no longer under warranty. Most people would say, “I’m sorry sir, we can’t do that” – and then hold the phone six inches from their ear as they wait for the reaction. Here is what I want you to say: “No one likes to see their product break down after the warranty is over. Here are some options I can offer to get this fixed …”

It feels funny at first to say this, because every fiber of our being wants to talk about what we can’t do. It also feels strange to offer something that is less than what the customer is asking for. But when you acknowledge someone first – which almost never happens in most customer transactions – and then focus on what is possible, you change the dynamics of the situation from “you versus me” to “you and me versus the problem.”

The reason this works so powerfully is that you are using the language of an advocate, which usually triggers the customer’s natural friend-versus foe reflex in your favor. Try it with your next difficult customer situation and see what happens!

What to Say to a Porcupine – Part 2: Delivering Bad News

Rich Gallagher — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:20:42 +0000

If your job consisted of handing out $100 bills to people, would it be easier to talk to customers? Perhaps. But it probably doesn’t. So today, let’s look at some ways you can deliver bad news to people, in a way that will keep things polite and civil on both sides.

First, however, this is not one of these “five bullet point” articles with nice but obvious tips. This is a very powerful technique that works extremely well, based on techniques from crisis intervention. (Incidentally, I am a former crisis counselor.) But be aware that it takes practice. Whenever I teach this approach to people in live training, as I have to about 6,000 people and counting, almost everyone nods their head in agreement – and then when we do live role-playing, they freeze like deer in the headlights and revert to what they have been saying for the last 20 years. That’s OK, and completely normal.

But when people do learn it, the effect is very powerful – and when a whole team starts responding this way, a process that often takes weeks of coaching, the results are truly magical to watch. Deconstruct how the very best service leaders handle difficult situations with you, and you will probably find an approach similar to this. So here goes …

I call this technique “staging,” because it involves delivering bad news in three stages, each of which deflects anger and focuses the customer on a solution – and none of which are human nature. These stages are as follows:

Stage 1: Introduce what you are going to say before you say it. In other words, give the bad news second, not first. Good introductions prepare people that something important is to follow – for example:

“Let me walk through the specifics of your warranty with you.”
“Because this data was very important for you, I’d like to discuss some recovery options.”

Stage 2: Explain the details as you are saying it. We naturally say as little as possible when we know someone will not be happy – it is part of a survival instinct to move away from the pain. When we move towards the pain and give more specifics, we send a very powerful signal to the other person that calms them down.

Stage 3: Empathize with the other person after you say it. Remember, feelings are never wrong. So whatever customers say – every time they open their mouth – empathize with it. Even when you don’t agree with them, and in fact especially when you don’t agree with them. For example:

“I can tell by your tone of voice that you are really frustrated about this.”
“Absolutely, no one likes to have their computer out of service for six weeks.”

Here’s an example I use in my live training: I take my car in for repair over a small but annoying rattle in my dashboard. I call at the end of the day about it, and am told that it will cost $800 to fix it. My response? Not very strength-based! But now let’s try it again with staging:

Stage 1 (introduction): “Yes, Mr. Gallagher, we’ve looked at your car, and because it seemed to be a minor rattle in the dashboard, we were hoping it would be a minor repair. Unfortunately it turned out to be more serious than that.”

Stage 2 (details): “Like most late-model cars, your vehicle has an airbag system. When something breaks down with any components of these systems, you usually have to replace the whole module, and unfortunately this tends to be a fairly expensive repair.

Then I will ask how much is involved, and will be told the same $800 answer. At this point, am I happy? No, I am not happy. But am I angry at the person on the other end of the phone? Probably not. And that is the value of using a structured technique.

Now I will probably respond emotionally and talk about how expensive and unexpected this is. Most people would respond with “I’m sorry, I’m afraid that’s how much these repairs cost” – but instead, here is what I want you to say:

Stage 3 (empathy): “You’re right, that is a lot of money. Would you like to talk to one of our technicians and discuss what options we have?”

If you keep doing this every time I express a feeling, more than likely you will get through this transaction calmly and painlessly – and when you do it often enough, you will feel supremely confident coming in to these situations.

But remember, none of this is human nature. So here is what I want you to do: take the three, four, or half-dozen most common situations where your customers get upset, then write down what you might say for each of these three steps. Then keep workshopping them until you have something that feels really good on both sides of the transaction – and watch what happens. Good luck and have fun!

What to Say to a Porcupine – Part 1: Connecting with People

Rich Gallagher — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:54:57 +0000

Do you find difficult customers hard to deal with? Welcome to a very large club, but a club that I would like you to leave. You see, to me, the question of what to say to a porcupine – in other words, how to respond to your most challenging customers – isn’t a matter of luck or even attitude, but rather of technique.

Let’s take a very common example. You probably wake up every morning thinking, correctly, that you are a nice person. But then you come to work and take a call from someone who sounds a little frustrated with a computer problem. You say, “I understand, sir,” and he gets even more upset. Then he makes an unreasonable demand, and you try to tell him very politely that what he wants isn’t possible. He then starts going ballistic and demanding to speak to a supervisor, at which point you escalate him with obvious relief.

You may think that you were done in by a difficult customer, but I disagree. You were done in by linguistics.

In this and subsequent blog entries, I am going to discuss the mechanics of what to say for the four most common “stuck points” in a difficult customer transaction: how to connect with someone in the first 30 seconds, how to deliver bad news, how to avoid simply saying “no” to people, and how to defuse someone’s anger. All of these issues involve specific (and in some cases, fairly recent) techniques taken from modern behavioral psychology, and as a former help desk executive and veteran of 25,000 support calls, I can also say that they work extremely well.

In the process, you will come to see handling difficult support transactions for what it really is: a thoughtfully composed performance that anyone can learn and master, regardless of personality. Let’s start with how you connect with someone, using the example above. You can break this down into three simple rules:

1. Drop the catch phrases “I understand” and “I’m sorry”. 50 years ago, these phrases meant what they said. Today, they are mouthed so often by disengaged service professionals that the average person processes them as “I could care less.” Keep the sentiments, just change the words.

2. Don’t panic – paraphrase. Tomorrow, when you go shopping, dining, or calling for service, pay attention to an interesting dynamic: 98 per cent of the time, no one will acknowledge or paraphrase what you say. But according to psychologists, this is one of the most powerful ways to let people know that you hear them, understand them, and that it is safe to talk about their issue.

In my live training courses I often do a powerful role-playing exercise where one person is angry, and the other person does nothing but paraphrase him or her. It is almost magical to watch the temperature drop, even though no problem-solving has taken place yet. To do it effectively, use you own words to rephrase customer issues, and avoid repeating them back word-for-word.

3. Share your knowledge. In those golden first 30 seconds of a support call, one of the first things a customer – particularly a “porcupine” – is looking for is that warm, fuzzy feeling that someone can help them. Sharing your expertise with forward-looking statements like, “I have seen many problems like this” or “I have some questions that will help us narrow down our focus” shares confidence, and sets you up for a critically important technique we will discuss in a future blog: focusing on what you can do.

To slip in a shameless plug for my friends at Parature, this is one area where CRM can be your best friend. With a customer issue at your fingertips, or a knowledge base of similar solutions, you can quickly become the expert for a wide range of issues. Combined with your communications skills, you can confidently start defusing even the prickliest of porcupines. Stay tuned and welcome your thoughts!