How Do You Handle Irate and Upset Customers?

A Facebook post from BPO Secret Files on Facebook garnered my attention while I am scrolling my feed today.

The caption stated: You are in WFH set-up and you do not know the process and the customer is irate.

You can find the video here : https://www.facebook.com/lei.tan.5245/videos/1430282470821853/ or the Tiktok video here

I had been in the service industry for almost a decade now and I can say that the frustration is real and those irate customers are the ones who make everything a mess.

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

The first process that I handled was as a collections officer in a telephone company in the U.S. and oh boy! Aside from collecting overdue balances, we handle troubleshooting, cellphone activation, billing, and credit applications.

I am not a native speaker and if I recall my first phone call was about billing and pro-rata charges. Since our training only covered the collections and payment arrangement stuff how can I answer that technical stuff? Racism is true too as some Americans hate speaking to a non-American representative.

It got escalated and the caller sought a supervisor because I do not know what I am saying then. I saw how the support handled the call at ease and told myself I will be like that in the future.

So how do we handle Irate Customers?

Drop the call once you feel that they are mad at you

I am kidding on that, do not ever do such actions as it can be tagged as call avoidance and you may get terminated if you got caught 😏.

Preparation will always help and being knowledgeable in the process will make it easier. If I will compare the training back then versus training now virtually I can say that the latter is much easier as you can keep your notes beside you when taking in phone calls. I remembered that when we graduated from our training we were advised to shred all our notes as there shouldn't be any paper in the production area.

Being keen on the details will help and knowing where to navigate is a must.
Since customers will rely on your voice, sounding confident will matter too. The majority of us are not native speakers, but when you say words and blabber things that cannot be understood it creates confusion on the other side of the telephone line.

Try to sound cheerful if possible unless it is an escalation call In most cases it works a good opening spiel with proper energy can set the mood of the customer. If you sound monotonous, chances are you might get a customer that gets frustrated with how you answer the call and they may feel that they are speaking with an IVR.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Acknowledge, Empathize ( if needed ) and Respond Accordingly

Humans want to be acknowledged and they want someone to listen to their issues. This is why you are answering the phone call. You may not have the answer to every inquiry that you have but at the very least you try to help them the best that you can. If they don't want your help, it is okay, move forward and escalate the call.

It is not always about you More often than not, upset folks who call, shout and become mad over the phone are the ones who experienced inconvenience previously. Try to resolve with the best that you can with all of the knowledge that you know and try to diffuse, over the years you will have your own way to pacify customers what worked for me is trying and assuring that I will be helping them.