Facing an angry customer

Don’t let anger lead to a break up

Karen Salman­sohn, of Oprah​.com, recently wrote, “I can sum up in three “acts” the break­downs and breakups of most rela­tion­ships since the begin­ning of time:

Act 1: You hurt me.

Act 2: Because you hurt me, I now hurt you.

Act 3: Because you hurt me, I now hurt you and so you hurt me again and so I hurt you — and down­ward spi­ral­ing we shall go.”

Then she sug­gests 5 ways cou­ples can avoid being jerks when fight­ing. Let’s see how these will work with a con­fronta­tional customer.

1. Pick the right time and the right place.

Find a place to talk openly, not self-​consciously. A pri­vate office is ideal but any­where you can face each other and make strong eye con­tact will work. In mov­ing your angry cus­tomer out of the pub­lic eye, nei­ther of you has to play for an audi­ence, and you have demon­strated that you take his con­cerns seri­ously. Do the best you can – step out­side or take him for cof­fee if necessary.

2. Avoid harsh start-​ups.

Salman­sohn says to start with a com­pli­ment about what you appre­ci­ate instead of blam­ing and name call­ing. I’m think­ing she might frown on, “I appre­ci­ate your many years of patron­age, but this is all your fault, you jerk!”

She’d prob­a­bly think I was back­ing my cus­tomer into a cor­ner where he now starts defend­ing him­self instead of hear­ing about my posi­tion and busi­ness needs.

She advises includ­ing a reminder about how you want to work on your [business]relationship, so it suc­ceeds and you both can grow together. That is what you want? Good. Start calmly explain­ing how the con­flict affects your feel­ings, val­ues, dreams and goals relat­ing to your busi­ness and cus­tomers. Keep the con­ver­sa­tion on the topic and don’t let it escu­late to wider fields.

3. Instead of try­ing to win argu­ments, try to have a win­ning relationship!

Your goal is to retain your cus­tomer. The par­tic­u­lars of details and facts are sec­ondary. Remem­ber how hard it was to get his busi­ness in the first place and how much real hard cash you’ll have to shell out to replace his busi­ness. Con­sider all that you have invested and all that you may stand to gain in the future.

Maybe the cus­tomer is wrong this time – he should pay his bill. He owes you the money. Are you talk­ing about a tuna sand­wich and cold cup of cof­fee from a reg­u­lar at your lunch counter, or two solid months of build­ing and test­ing cus­tom soft­ware that he now says exceeds your cost pro­jec­tions. Must these busi­ness­men write off their tabs with smiles? Maybe just the sand­wich and coffee?

Maybe not either one if the own­ers stick with giv­ing their feel­ings, val­ues, dreams and goals to gain cus­tomer empathy.

If you make your­self under­stood, he’ll be more inclined to hear your side and start look­ing for how to take care of your needs and feelings.

4. Put in the ‘virtue of dis­ci­pline’ to calm your­self before you begin talking.

I learned a sur­pris­ing fact. When peo­ple yell, they grow even angrier. When our heart­beats go higher than 100 beats per minute dur­ing an argu­ment, we can­not totally under­stand and process what another per­son says.

Anger messes up the brain’s pro­cess­ing. Instead of solv­ing prob­lems and express­ing our­self clearly, we more likely spit, sput­ter and well, as Mar­cus Aure­lius said, “How much more griev­ous are the con­se­quences of anger, than the causes of it?”

They knew this way back then? Maybe it’s time I fig­ured it out, too.

5. Close a dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tion by shar­ing mem­o­ries of good times and/​or your partner’s good qualities.

Salman­sohn tells us hap­pier mem­o­ries defuse bad ones. Our lunch counter entre­pre­neur might say some­thing like, “I remem­ber the first time you came in for lunch. You remem­ber that? How about I get you sand­wich more to your liking?”

Might our soft­ware engi­neer defuse the bomb with say­ing, “Remem­ber when we started this project? How it would help us both? Any ideas how to turn this around, get back to that?”

Yeah, why set­tle for a stroll down mem­ory lane when you can also solicit the customer’s help.

Read Salmansohn’s full arti­cle on CNN​.com