After you attended the training and passed the assessments in the call center, here comes the real test. You need to take and survive the calls, regardless of the customers and their concerns.
You may have heard a lot of tips on how to handle challenging customers but here are some easy ways that I learned and applied through experience.
1. Listen.
Does your customer have legitimate concerns? There are some cases wherein agents stay on the phone longer only to find out that the customer is calling the wrong number. That is why active listening is an important skill that we should always apply especially when we’re taking calls.
Listen for the customers’ real concern. I noticed that most of the challenging customers spend two to three minutes at the most to vent on their frustrations and then the real concern will surface afterwards. This is the perfect time to note all the details that you will be using for probing questions or formulating solutions later on.
2. Apologize
Let’s be clear on this: If it’s not your fault, do not apologize.
Sounds brave isn’t it? That’s true. If you will just own every mistake that has happened, you will end up irate yourself in the process. This is the time of the call that you can use passive voice in your statement. Whether it is the system, procedure or the customer who’s at fault, use passive voice like, “A mistake was made on the order,” instead of telling the customer that “You provided the wrong order number.” This way, you will help the customer focus on the details of the concern and not on the emotion that’s attached to it.
3. Offer solutions
After exchanging details on what went wrong, now is the chance for you to offer them solutions. Make sure that these solutions are feasible and reasonable for the customer to follow. Always make it a point to let the customer choose among the options that you offered since this will be part of your call documentation. It will be wise to educate your customer as well on how they can deal with similar concerns (in case it happens again) next time.
4. Secure the business
As the call comes to a close, remember to acknowledge your customer’s business. This time, your concern is to redeem the customer’s trust after you have successfully addressed their needs. A simple “thank you” will do. It’s a usual part of your closing spiel anyway. In the end, your customer will value the ‘great customer experience’ and will definitely remember you as a good representative of the company.
Till next post,
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
the tips are very helpful because i can also use it in my work as a BARISTA…pls post more tips like this..thank you
Americans are essentially irate. You can deal with them by maximizing your patience.