3 Tips On How To Deal With An Upset Customer

Contributed by Monique Viljoen-Platts – VP of Customer Service at Yola 

3 Tips On How To Deal With An Upset Customer

At Yola, we have a survival guide that details specific personas to help everyone in the company learn how to deal with any one of our over 9 million users. 

The three best tips I can offer are:

1. Acknowledge the customer’s emotions with an appropriate level of empathy – do not either under- or overstate. Then make a clear and positive statement about what the company or rep is going to do to rectify the problem.
2. Really listen to what the user is upset about, acknowledge his feelings and meet him on an emotional level. Then sort out the true cause of their frustration, offering a solution that makes them feel empowered.
3. Do not say, “We apologize for the inconvenience.” It’s too easy and dry; to the user, it may be more than an inconvenience.

This philosophy has helped us turn around hundreds of angry cases and upset customers.

photo credit: practicalowl via photopin cc