7 Steps to Diffuse Difficult Customer Situations [Part 2]

Welcome back! This week we are concluding our conversation on how to diffuse difficult customer situations.

Since our starting conversation have you encountered a difficult or irate customer? Yes? What happened?

I really want to know. Where you able to successfully diffuse the situation? If you did, that’s brilliant!

If not, don’t be too hard on yourself. Maybe when you see the steps I will discuss here, you will be more confident and equipped turn that pesky situation around and deliver quality service.

To recap, last week we said the first three steps to diffusing a difficult customer situation are:

1. Listen
2. Show empathy
3. Ask questions

(If you missed last week’s post, you can read it here – don’t forget to share)

So after asking open ended questions which will help diagnose the problem we now offer the customer alternatives to fixing the problem.

OFFER ALTERNATIVES: By now you [should] have a firm handle of what went wrong; where in the customer’s opinion your business missed the mark. I will go back to my experience at the salon and describe the kinds of alternatives I would have been open to receiving. Remember the alternative Mr Stylist gave me was to cut my hair. So I need to point out that your alternatives have to be plausible, realistic and fitted to the customer. I’m recently went natural so have short natural hair, which I pamper and coax to grow; this is what someone offered to cut! Obviously not the right alternative to put before an irate customer, was it? I would rather have been open to having my regular stylist (who understands my hair) reassigned to untangle the birds next my hair had become. I would have been happy to have even the manager herself take a stab at fixing the problem, but none of these were offered. Rather I was given my bill and allowed to leave the establishment.

APOLOGIZE: There is a place for an apology; and that is NOT when you don’t have a firm understanding of what you did wrong. When you apologize when you aren’t quite sure what went wrong, that cannot be taken as a sincere apology can it? It’s more like ‘just accept this apology and stop making a scene’; and this can further enrage a customer. That is why the next step after listening and asking open ended questions is offering a sincere and targeted apology. What then is a targeted apology? A targeted apology is targeted at the root cause of the problem; which you decipher in the course of your listening and questioning. A targeted apology is more acceptable as a sincere apology. It is important that you know that sincere apologies are offered not given. When an apology is given you don’t quite care if the customer accepts it or not. On the other hand when an apology is offered, the intention is that the customer accepts the apology. Your apology to clients must always be offered and then accepted; nothing less is acceptable if you want a satisfactory resolution. There is a right way to apologize and a wrong way to apologize; it’s a skill well learnt.

SOLVE IT: Sometimes the customer will stay around and give you the opportunity to make things wright. This is golden opportunity that cannot be waffled. This is a one shot chance of getting the customer back to the second stage of customer loyalty (exploration) and not exiting your business altogether. If there ever was a time for pulling out all the stops, this is it. You have just this chance.

MAKE IT UP: My mentor John Tschohl has so much to say about this point in the process; it’s based on the concept of Service Recovery. Like John says, you have to take the customer from hell to heaven in the least possible time. Can you do that? Is it possible to achieve this? This is where your organisation has need of a customer service strategy; in this instance a service recovery strategy. The principle involves going a step further from solving the original problem to compensating the customer for his trouble. This compensation can be anything, but it must be something of VALUE to the customer. This is where Gift Cards, free treatments, coupons come in handy. Thing about it: you have a difficulty with a service provider; they move fast (did speed is essential) to resolve it; and then compensate you for your trouble – all in one transaction. How would you feel? Appreciated? Valued? Possibly more committed to the organisation? So, you see the importance of a make it up strategy. Employees have to be empowered to make it up to your clients on the spot. It has end up as a win win.

When next you have a difficult customer situation, you can recall these steps using this mnemonic.

“Lumpy Slugs Amused Obese Anxious Scientists Mockingly”

Sounds silly I know, but it works. You can download a poster of this mnemonic here and put it near your workstation; next time you have it handy to prompt your memory when things go awry.

Let me know (in comments) what you think of my poster.

I also want to hear about the types of customers you come across in the course of your work. How do you think they will respond to these steps for diffusing the situation when things get hairy? Let me hear your opinion in the comments.

If you are just reading Lizspire for the first time, please allow me introduce myself. This blog is published every friday, and I hope you will subscribe and join me each friday for interesting considerations.