Sometimes phone calls begin at an elevated level or escalate quickly into an angry exchange. You or your company may or may not be to blame, but that is beside the point. In either case, it's important to understand what is going on from the customer's perspective. They perceive injustice—whether based in fact or on an imagination gone wild—and that must be the first consideration of a customer service rep. Dialing back that passion is paramount before one can discuss a way forward or truly begin to work on solving the problem. Sometimes listening does the trick and sometimes it doesn't. Empathetic acknowledgement of an issue ("I would have also found this frustrating…") or letting a person vent without becoming defensive can also work. Sometimes however, a person's anger is simply out of control and the customer needs to be informed that they should call back when they have calmed down. 

By the way, did you know that for every customer who complains, generally twenty-six other people remain silent? That’s potentially twenty-seven angry people out there with the same problem, but only one who responded. So pay attention to that anger fueled by a sense of perceived injustice or absolute letdown with a product or service.

Find out what caused the anger. Were they ignored, insulted, or treated unfairly in any way? Do they have unmet expectations when it comes to your product or service? Is there a way to discover these people and listen to their grievances?

You may not always be able to offer a complete solution, but you can certainly listen, attempt to understand, and apologize when necessary—which is what I will talk about in our next post.