ANATOMY OF AN ANGRY CUSTOMER
by Chuck Dennis
Do not consider angry customers to be the bane of your company’s business. Rather, embrace them. They are oftentimes the catalyst to improving the quality of your business. It behooves you as a businessperson or a service agent to brace yourself, listen to, and actually hear what your angry customer has to say.
1) The Issue at Hand: what triggered this anger in the first place?
People’s blood boils at different temperatures, and for different reasons. As a service provider, your job is not to evaluate the appropriateness of a customer’s anger, but to take it seriously, and remedy the situation as swiftly as possible. A recent study by Technical Assistance Research Programs has shown that customers who have had a problem resolved by a company are more loyal than those customers who have never experienced a problem with that company. So here is an opportunity to gain a dedicated customer!
Identify the source of the anger. Is it because of an error your company made, or because of the result of an error your company made? This distinction needs to be made as soon as possible, to ensure that you are addressing the correct source of the customer’s anger. It may not be the typo that angers the customer; it may be that the typo caused the widget parts to be delivered to the wrong address, which happened to be the customer’s competitor. In this instance, simply apologizing for a typo may further enrage your customer, and rightly so. You should be apologizing for the embarrassing mis-delivery that your typo caused.
2) The Anger, Itself: the interpersonal aspect of dealing with an angry customer
In any business relationship, the customer pays to be part of that relationship; the service provider gets paid to be part of that relationship. Therefore, the service provider must tolerate the customer’s anger, whether or not he/she feels it is justified. These are the rules of the game, folks.
Given that the customers have a right to their anger, the service provider needs to let them express it fully. Never jump directly to a solution in the hopes of cutting the anger off at the pass. You will ultimately prolong and increase the anger by trying to nip it in the bud. Instead, let the angry customer get it all out – they’ve earned the right, remember? Once they’ve expressed their dissatisfaction, and you understand the details of the problem, then you can get to work on a remedy.
3) The Resolution: how will you remedy this to the customer’s satisfaction?
Resolving customer issues is often easier than it looks. Most customers are not greedy opportunists, seeking to reach their grubby little paws into your till. In reality, most customers simply want the product or service that they came to you in the first place for. If you can resolve a glitch quickly, without a lot of fanfare, most customers are satisfied. If you can provide that solution quickly and easily, and throw in a freebie of some sort as an acknowledgement of the customer’s inconvenience, you will then more than likely gain the customer’s loyalty.
This freebie doesn’t have to be monumental, but it should have some value. A tee-shirt or a pen trumpeting your business serves as free advertising for you, but it really doesn’t serve the customer. Most people already have enough tee-shirts and pens. But offering an immediate discount on the price of purchase of the product or service in question, or a free upgrade in service, or free delivery of product sends a number of great messages to the customer:
? We’re sorry for the inconvenience you’ve suffered.
? We value you and want to keep you as a customer.
? We want to make amends now, not just bait you into coming back later.
Sometimes the customer is a bit more put out over the problem; maybe there was significant inconvenience, cost, or embarrassment caused to the customer. This requires a frank discussion with the customer, and asking him or her exactly how the situation can be made right. There may be expense and effort needed on your part, and this is where you must take stock of your business and your business’ reputation.
Your customer should never have to lose or waste money due to your error. You should be prepared to make restitution for expenses incurred by your customer, due to your error. While to some, this is baseline business procedure, it is remarkable how many businesses still see this as a point to fight or negotiate over. When these businesses are kissing their wronged customers goodbye, this is what they are kissing away:
? The revenue from that customer and family, over a lifetime
? The revenue of many, if not all, of that customer’s colleagues, over a lifetime
? The goodwill and reputation of your business, if not throughout the industry, at least within that customer’s circle of influence
In many cases, stepping up to the plate and offering to take the hit for your customer makes more financial sense over the long term. Doing so is not cheap, but it will provide you with a reputation that will serve you well.
4) Going Forward: what ensures that this problem will not resurface?
It’s one thing to solve a customer’s problem. It’s quite another to ensure that the problem does not recur! Nothing will make an angry customer angrier than to have the same problem rear its ugly head more than once. They will feel disrespected and taken advantage of, and rightly so.
Fixing the problem so that it does not occur again is as important as its immediate resolution. It’s a good idea to enlist the help of the wronged customers in this matter. They will often draw a clear picture of the difference between what they were expecting, and what your business delivered. You, as a service provider, must bridge that chasm, so that other customers do not land there.
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Chuck Dennis, the Angry Customer Expert of Knowledgence Associates, brings twenty years of customer service and business management experience to client engagements. To learn more, please visit www.knowledgence.com.
