8 Proven Psychological Strategies To Deal With Angry, Emotional or Difficult Customers
Every business has some angry, emotional, or difficult customers.
Even if most of your customers are happy, outliers will always exist.
If you’re starting a business, you hope you always make customers happy. But that’s a high bar no business can meet.
While talking down an angry, frustrated customer will never be easy, there are proven techniques that make the process more effective and less frustrating.
The most effective of these techniques are grounded in psychology. After all, it’s important to deal with an emotionally challenging situation by responding in emotionally intelligent ways.
Emotional intelligence (sometimes also called EI or EQ) is the ability to identify and regulate your own feelings and the feelings of people around you. Leadership coach Brent Gleeson describes it as:
The act of knowing, understanding, and responding to emotions, overcoming stress in the moment, and being aware of how your words and actions affect othersâŠ
We know that having a high EQ makes for better teammates and better leaders.
High EQ also makes for better relationships with your customers.
Use your EQ and resolve issues faster by practicing the following key strategies to work with angry, emotional, or difficult customers more effectively:
Call them by their name
Whether you use the informal first name or a more traditional Mrs. Jones, calling your customers by their name is a way to convey a more personal level of sincerity.
By using their name rather than a cold, impersonal âIâm sorry, maâam,â youâre acknowledging each customer as a person – a person with a specific problem and history that you actively want to help.
Try interjecting their name into your conversation as naturally as possible. It will sound forced and uncomfortable if you end every sentence with âIrene,â so make sure you address them the same way you would an unhappy friend.
Get in the habit by adopting a few simple, easy-to-incorporate phrases like:
- âIâll get right on that, Mrs. Albertine.â
- âI hear what you are saying, Chris.â
- âAlec, thank you so much for explaining the issue.â
It will be easier to get comfortable using customersâ names if you have a few at-the-ready expressions that are easy to use in conflict-based situations.
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Practice reflective listening
Youâve contacted your customer, and now theyâre explaining their issue to you. This is where hearing and understanding what theyâre telling you is only half of the challenge.
People are vulnerable when they express their emotions.
No one likes to ask for help.
When people reach out for assistance, itâs often during times when theyâre frustrated, angry, or not in a calm place. To have someone show that theyâre truly listening and validating their concerns can go a long way towards soothing hurt or upset feelings.
Itâs not as straightforward as saying, âI understand,â or âI hear you,â because those words tend to sound weak and full of platitudes. Reflective listening to the rescue!
To start, let’s discuss what reflective listening is and is not.
Wikipedia defines reflective listening as a way of communicating with two steps: âseeking to understand a speaker’s idea, then offering the idea back to the speaker, to confirm the idea has been understood correctly.â
For example, a customer might say to you, âIâve been trying to get my Internet connection working for two hours, and Iâm at my witâs end.â
Using reflective listening, you could reply, âWhat I hear is youâre frustrated because your internet connection isnât working. Is that right?â
Youâre taking in what the customer has said and repeating it to them in a way that shows you understood. That shows the customer that youâre not only paying attention but also thinking about what theyâre telling you.
Done poorly, however, reflective listening can do more harm than good.
Repeating what you heard without processing what is being said is nothing more than parroting. Customers can pick up on this quickly, resulting in an even more negative response.
To effectively use reflective listening, you need to incorporate empathy.
As you hear the customer tell their story, put yourself in their shoes and try to imagine how they might feel. Youâre not just listening; youâre attuned to your customerâs feelings and what they’re saying.
Empathetic listening can be tiring. It requires you to be emotionally present with your full attention, and that kind of focus can wear you out quickly.
But the results are often worth it.
As we wrote,
Showing your customers that you actually care about them and that youâre willing to learn and improve builds stronger customer relationships. And, stronger relationships pave the way for customers to return if they should ever need your product or service again.
People want to be heard and understood. By using reflective listening, youâre showing your customers that you genuinely care about their issues and what theyâre going through.
Understand their baggage
It can be hard to keep a cool head when youâre talking to someone in a state of emotional upset.
Resist the urge to allow things to devolve into a shouting match, and remember that the person with whom youâre speaking may have some damage theyâre packing along for the ride.
Psychologists call the mental shortcut people use to make emotionally influenced decisions the affect heuristic.
Your affect (a psychological term for emotional response) plays an important role in your choices and decisions.
The studies are clear: Positive emotional responses increase willingness to engage with a person, product, or experience, and negative responses make a person feel that the risks attached are too high for too little benefit.
When you are dealing with an emotional customer, keeping your responses measured and calm is an excellent counter to this subconscious response mechanism.
Asking questions to understand better whatâs upsetting your customer will help you both feel better about taking the next step. Try asking one of these questions:
- “Tell me more about why you’re feeling unsure. I want to understand.â
- âIs there a way for me to help you feel less nervous?â
- “What can I do to make you comfortable enough to take the next step?â
These questions also redirect their mind from thinking you’re untrustworthy to proactively considering what they need to move forward.
It might help them stay calm, collected, and level-headed, a strategy that may prevent hasty, emotion-based decisions made in the heat of the moment.
Approach it like a beginner
Another challenge of talking with an upset customer is that you are often at different levels.
You probably have more knowledge, expertise, and experience with your product or service than your customer does (or at least you should!), and that imbalance can complicate things if itâs not dealt with early.
Try approaching what your customer presents to you as a beginner, or what Zen Buddhists refer to as Shoshin, or âbeginnerâs mind.â
Shoshin refers to the idea that you bring an attitude of openness, energy, and no preconceived notions to any subject, no matter your skill level.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos credits the beginnerâs mind as being a crucial component of the companyâs success.
The best inventors have a high level of expertise in a particular arena, and they simultaneously maintain a beginnersâ mind. And thatâs hard to do. But thatâs what you have to do if you want to invent and pioneer. The world is so complex and deeply rich with the prior invention that itâs very unlikely that as a naive beginner youâre going to invent anything of use. So you have to be an expert in the state of the art and then somehow let that expertness not make you jaded.
While Bezos is talking about this in the context of creation, itâs equally as applicable when working with customers.
For example, over the past decade, crowdspring’s community of 210,000+ designers has helped tens of thousands of businesses, startups, agencies, and non-profits with logo design, web design, industrial (product) design, packaging design, and even naming businesses and products. Some of these project categories are simple (logo design and naming, for example). Other project categories are more complex (product design and packaging design).
When our support team talks with clients concerning the more complex project categories, it’s important that we come to that conversation with a beginner’s mind because the client will be a bit less knowledgeable about more complex design projects, and it’s our job to simplify the projects for them.
Approach what the customer tells you as though itâs the first time youâve heard it. This allows you to open yourself up to possible solutions and strategies you might miss. Let go of being an expert.
This approach not only makes you a better listener but it also helps you to open up to new ways of fixing a problem and how to express that to a customer in clear, concise language.
Break it down
Sometimes a customer comes with a problem or issue thatâs multi-faceted and challenging. Where do you start?
One of the benefits of using reflective listening and approaching problems like a beginner is it allows you to break larger problems down into more easily manageable chunks.
As Henry Ford said, âNothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.â
You can start to break a larger issue into smaller pieces by identifying its different parts. Understand what the problem is and whatâs involved.
Then start working on the problem from the beginning.
Itâs difficult to figure out why something isnât working by focusing on the result. You need to start with the most pressing thing blocking or preventing progress and figure out a way to clear it.
Once youâve done that, you can move on to the next blocker. And then the next.
For really big problems, writing things down is a good way to keep your thinking organized and track what youâve tried or whatâs left to do.
No matter how large or challenging an issue is, you can overcome it by breaking it into its components.
Use empathy
We know how important it is to respond to your customers thoughtfully, attentively, and with listening skills that make them feel genuinely heard.
These are all core constructs of demonstrating empathy.
We previously wrote about empathy when delivering great customer service:
Sympathy is rarely an ideal response to a customerâs problem. Instead, show empathy. Empathy allows to you be professional and caring at the same time. It also allows you to avoid becoming emotionally involved (like when you show sympathy).
Think about it this way: when youâre sympathetic, you simply feel badly for someone. Sympathy doesnât communicate to a customer that you understand WHY they feel the way they feel â it only allows you to communicate that you understand their problem. A typical response â âIâm sorryâ â is insufficient to solve a customerâs problem. You must do more.
When you practice empathy when engaging with your customers, you are better equipped to understand (and meet) their needs.
The opportunity presented to you when your customer is frustrated or upset is also important. As we wrote,
Your customerâs problems represent a major opportunity for you to build a relationship with them, surprise and delight them, and build a great reputation and engender strong word-of-mouth. How can you do this? Itâs simple, really; building great relationships with customers is little different from building relationships with friends. It is a mater of spending time, paying attention, listening and responding.
The biggest benefit of responding with empathy is making your customer feel understood and heard.
Once your customer feels like their problems have been thoroughly listened to and you give a hoot about them, they will be far more amenable to hearing you out on how to improve the situation.
HubSpot Director of Sales and 30-year sales veteran Dan Tyre says,
If you’re average, you’ll fall prey to emotion. If you’re great, you’ll realize the opportunity and raise your game. Lean in, understand where [they’re] coming from, listen closely, and have empathy.
You can show empathy for an unhappy customer in many meaningful ways.
Make eye contact, and be sure your body language reflects an open attitude and a sympathetic ear. Use verbal cues like short, affirmative language or even head nodding to let your customer know you are listening, understand their frustration, and most importantly – that you care.
Stay calm
When you engage with an angry or distressed customer, it can be hard to resist the urge to respond with equal anger and distress.
Donât give in!
When you remain calm, you clearly convey that everything is under control. You avoid contributing to the emotional chaos and instead serve to remind the unhappy customer that youâre capable of handling their issue.
Itâs not always easy to remain calm when someone hurls insults and colorful language your way, but itâs not impossible. You can use some practical strategies to stay calm when someone is screaming at you.
For one thing, remember that itâs not you that your customer is angry with. Try to remove yourself (and your ego) from the situation, and always keep it at the forefront of your mind that their problem is not about you.
If your customer is talking to you over the phone, and they vent (and vent, and vent) with you on the other end of the line, take a breath⊠and hit the mute button.
If you mute your end of the call, you can let the anger and frustration from the customer pour out without worrying about how to respond or if the customer can hear your jaw clench.
Let them have their vent session – theyâll get it out of their system, and once they feel like they have had a chance to let it all out, theyâll be more likely to respond to your efforts to move the conversation along.
You should also remember to smile.
Yes, it does sound a little crazy – and it can be hard to do when youâre being hung out to dry.
Crazy aside, forcing your face into something resembling a pleasant expression helps your voice convey friendliness and calmness. When your face is rigid and sour, your voice reflects it, too.
If your voice is strained, the customer is going to hear it. That will only create an increase in tension and prolong the conflict.
It probably (definitely) makes you feel silly, but plastering on a fake but big smile really will help everyone feel better.
Fake it until you make it!
Take a break
You did it.
The conflict is resolved, the customer has left the building, and you have emerged victorious, a hero in the customer relationships battle.
Pat yourself on the back for overcoming a challenging situation, and then take a timeout.
Whenever you engage in a stressful experience, itâs important to give yourself healthy outlets to release all of that pent-up stress.
As we said, neither you nor your business will thrive if you neglect your health.
It can also help you recharge and regenerate, increasing your productivity. The folks behind the app DeskTime discovered that the most productive employees work for 52 minutes at a time and then break for 17.
The reason the most productive 10% of our users are able to get the most done during the comparatively short periods of working time is that their working times are treated as sprints. They make the most of those 52 minutes by working with intense purpose, but then rest up to be ready for the next burst. In other words, they work with purpose.
So take a break.
Breaks can mean taking a short walk, practicing some breathing exercises, or even just doodling for a bit.
Just make sure you walk away from that computer and phone and get a change of scenery. Youâll give your brain a chance to recharge so you can return to what you were doing refreshed.
Here are a few free apps to help you regain your calm, zen center while you take your well-earned break.
- Breathe2Relax – Breathing exercises help to reduce the bodyâs “fight-or-flight” stress response and are an effective way to cope with negative moods. Breathe2Relax provides information on how stress impacts your body and teaches you how to respond using the stress management skill “diaphragmatic breathing.â
- Personal Zen – clinically proven to reduce stress, playing the Personal Zen game retrains your brain to reduce stress and anxiety. Now, in addition to riding that elliptical for your physical health, you can exercise your brain for better mental health, too (and this is way more fun).
- Adult Colouring Book – Coloring books are definitely not just for your kids! Treat your mind to some peaceful color therapy and color hundreds of designs in this free app. We dare you not to be soothed.
We discussed some great strategies to help you navigate the challenging waters of an unhappy customer experience.
You can use one, two, or all of these when you’re in the midst of a difficult conversation with someone who clearly isn’t happy with your product or service.
Just remember that an unhappy customer doesn’t have to stay unhappy. With the right approach and an armful of proven techniques, you really can turn their frown upside down.
And a happy customer?
That’s the most powerful brand ambassador there is.
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