Customer Service Training - Dealing with Rude Customers

Many people working in customer service have struggled over the past two years, especially when dealing with rude customers. Lives have become increasingly unpredictable – with uncertainty about jobs, the economy, health and school. Many people have also experienced some form of loss during trying times – personal, professional and social. The result has been an uptick in aggressive and rude customer behavior, as people bring their frustration and anger into businesses and workplaces.  

In this article, we talk about how to recognize an aggressive customer, how to manage your own reaction and how to handle volatile situations. We also touch on how to recover after a particularly difficult interaction.  

How to Establish Clear Communication in Customer Service

We all want to feel a sense of peace and safety at work; however, it is also important to stay attentive to what’s happening around us. Here are some ways to recognize a potentially aggressive or rude customer early. Knowing how to handle rude customers is crucial when either dealing with customers or clients. Stay attentive to the person who:  

• Shows impatience through body language and facial expressions.  
• Interrupts those who offer to help or ask a question.  
• Talks out loud to no one in particular, complaining about something.  
• Is aggressive with those they are with – such as talking angrily to a child or partner. 

Before you greet these types of aggressive customers, try to focus on some key supports for establishing great communication.

• Suspend judgment. Serving customers requires an open mind, so you are gathering information rather than assuming needs.
• Listen for the underlying needs and values. The expressed question may not be the actual underlying need. Listen for the values and emotion driving the question.
• Wait. In today’s fast-paced world and resource shortages, it is easy to jump in and cut off the customer mid-sentence with a solution. Just listen—the person may answer their own question or close the deal just by talking.
• Focus on the other person. Listen to what the other person already knows, and what they need to know. Follow the conversation, rather than driving it.
• Practice empathy. Emotionally connecting with another person to read their needs is a core competency and best practice for customer service.
• Avoid multitasking. Today’s video-mediated environment makes it too easy to answer emails while on a customer call. Give the customer your full attention.
• Ask customers for feedback and know where to send that feedback for action.
• Stay flexible. A clear customer service competency is being flexible in the moment — noticing unexpressed needs and offering to fill them in real time.
• Know yourself and what pushes your buttons. Sometimes, customers will prompt negative emotions. Knowing your triggers can help you avoid getting derailed.

Customer service and developing customer service training ideas is more than a handshake and a smile – you are the front door for your organization, and you represent its values and core principles. Staying aligned with those values – while also taking care of yourself – is a key challenge. It is important to recognize the lines between what is acceptable irritation and what is unacceptable rudeness. As a customer service representative in stressful times, you may need to absorb some negative emotion as part of the job – resilience is a key competency for customer-facing roles. But, sometimes customers cross a line – you need to know what is allowed by your organization when this happens.

Remember that customers often fall into multiple categories, and these categories may evolve over time as preferences change. Businesses often use customer segmentation to tailor their marketing strategies to different customer types. It can also help you identify the core competencies you may want to recruit and hire to best serve the target mix.

• What characteristics do your customers generally have? This could include demographics, personality or other factors.
• What are your customers’ most common goals? Why do they come to you?
• What are the underlying needs represented by those goals?
• Why do you think your customers come to you for a product or service instead of your competitor? You may also need to ask who your competitors are if that is not immediately obvious.
• Finally, do you like your customers? What is it that you do or do not like about them? What does this tell you about your alignment with or disconnection from them?

Customer Service Training Ideas

Effective customer service involves “reading” the motivational states of others and responding to those needs. This game can be used to understand the motivational states of others or used when dealing with rude customers.

First, form small groups of people that provide similar types of customer service: 4-5 people in a group are ideal.

• Provide each group with a stack of index cards. Have each person write down the top 3 customer service problems or requests that they receive – 1 per card.
• Next, have the group agree on the top 5-7 problems or requests represented.
• Then, have the group develop responses for each of the top questions or requests. Depending on the group’s work, this may be relatively easy, or, if people are answering the same problem or question in different ways, it may take longer to reach agreement.
• Each group will ultimately generate a “library” of 5-7 common problems/requests and responses. As a group, talk about possible strategies for sharing this information across the team and/or with future customers. Could the team’s work be turned into an FAQ document for distribution or posting? Could it be folded into orientation training for new employees? Identify any possible action items from the process.

Pryor has a full range of offerings when it comes to how to handle rude customers and how to develop customer service training techniques, which can help you prepare for and handle aggressive and rude customers with more ease – while also helping you build relationships with colleagues. The seminar Dealing with Difficult People, for example, provides lots of strategies, tips and techniques for fighting frustration in the workplace. Mastering Communication Skills with Tact and Confidence will help you develop the interpersonal skills needed to engage with both customers and colleagues with confidence.